Mark A. Smith, Editor Vol. 7 Number 1 - Mar, 2008 
 NEW IN THIS ISSUE
- New Books Released
- 2007 Awards
- Annual Owner-Builder Survey Results
- Site Visit - Drue Williams
New Books Released
The Owner-Builder Book: Construction Bargain Strategies (Complete - 3 volumes). See complete Table of Contents inour bookstore. Also available in electronic form or in a combination with hard copy books and pdf.
This is the complete 3-volume set of The Owner-Builder Book: Construction Bargain Strategies. Originally, we planned for a single mass-produced volume, but the strategies accumulated rapidly, and we wanted to avail you of all the system-beating moneysavers we can. There are over 450 bargain strategies in the series. This is a four-color print-on-demand series with hundreds of color images and thousands of links. The print economics for a book like this were overwhelming. A mass-produced color book would have required $85,000 to print conventionally, something we could never recoup with the small market of enterprising people we serve. The p-o-d format enables us to make revisions rapidly and bring the books to you with only an investment in full-color duplex laser printers. If we tried to print them at a quick printer like Kinko's or The UPS Store or Alphagraphics, it would cost $535 at current discount color printing rates. We bring the set to you at $99.95. [Newsletter special price until the end of March, 2008: $89.95 - Editor] Conservatively, you will pay yourself back a hundred times for this investment in owner-builder knowledge. Even a single strategy may save you $25,000 or $50,000 you had not anticipated.
In the ten years since the first edition of The Owner-Builder Book, thousands of readers have saved millions of dollars building, remodeling, or adding on to their homes. The average respondent to our owner-builder survey reports savings of over $100,000 on their project. Using the DSDE formula ("a dime saved is a dollar earned"), the $100,000 saved is equivalent to $1 million in wages. That is, for the average person, it would take $1 million in wages to set aside $100,000; but an owner-builder can add that much to his or her wealth in one build. No wonder O-B's plan an average of five years earlier retirement from their jobs.
Most owner-builders have no construction industry experience, they simply apply good management principles to managing their own projects without general contractors acting as middlemen. They don't take on an undue amount of DIY work on their homes - an average of only four self-worked trades each. Most of the savings come from managing and sourcing labor and materials directly. Owner-builders are simply resourceful, refreshingly honest, and as these pages attest, mutually supportive of other owner-builders. For these reasons, I have admired them and enjoyed my association with them immensely.
In this book, ideas are not usually provided at face value. O-B's argue the pros and cons freely. Some ideas clearly work better in certain circumstances. You will have to judge if a bargain strategy presented here will help you. With nearly five hundred strategies offered, some will change your project for the better. Sometimes the savings will be small - a few hundred dollars. Some strategies will yield tens of thousands in savings. Usually, listening to other O-Bs will make your project smoother and better.
For ideas important to your project, you may want to interact with O-B's you meet here. With our PDF of this book, you can click through instantly to the discussion you are reading in our 25,000 page database and join in. You can send private messages safely and anonymously to anyone commenting here. You can research the project of anyone you choose by clicking through to construction journals or reading every Forum post or the detailed survey answers of most participants. I like using the electronic version to search on any key word, phrase or fragment of a phrase that I am researching, and to navigate at lightning speed from index or Table of Contents to what interests me.
Many links provided by our readers will help you use the vast resources of the Internet efficiently. You get preselected sites from problem-solving people like you who have absolutely no commercial interest in promoting something. Most clickthroughs and downloads take only a second or two to appear on your computer screen. It's a supercharged way to learn and improve your project.
If you are planning to build, immerse yourself in this book. As I have edited, I felt it was valuable to leave in the often shrewd observations of people who are building, even if they go off a narrow topic. The best way to succeed as an owner-builder is to network with like-minded people dealing with what you are dealing with. You can do that here.
Ten years ago I first relished the fabulous ideas of O-B's I interviewed. Every O-B seemed to have saved money or improved the process in a way I had never thought of. These are people who have accomplished something great through their hard work and ingenuity. I've been collecting their bargain strategies in their own words for a decade. I hope you can use them.
Mark A. Smith
2007 Awards
Winners of our annual website prizes have been announced.
Forum Winner 2007 - Brian H.
March 19th, 10pm Eastern time 2008 - we are announcing that the 2007 Forums Winner of a grand prize round trip on Southwest Airlines is Brian H. Our annual forums winner is selected at random each year based on the number of posts, votes, and blogs made during the year. Additional merit prizes of $100 each are being awarded to:
Additionally, we are announcing that the 2007 Moderator Winner is Kenneth S. He also won a round trip on Southwest Airlines.
Annual Owner-Builder Survey Results
Optimism!
Our 2008 survey results of owner-builders, just released, indicate that homes built by O-B's this past year were slightly bigger than last year. 2007 projects averaged 2,345 finished feet. 2008 owner-built homes averaged 2,553 square feet.
Budgets were up too. The 2007 figure of $214,000 grew to $262,000 or $103 a finished foot in our 2008 survey, up from $91 per finished square foot last year.
In spite of increased costs, owner-builder savings against street value rose to 31% in our 2008 survey. Evidently the "bad" real estate market is very good for owner-builders.
Site Visit - Drue Williams
Let's say the market is at $300 a square foot for custom home construction in an exclusive Las Vegas gated community. And let's say that you, the intrepid owner-builder manage to build there with all the bells and whistles for $126 a square foot. You build 6,000 square feet. How much equity have you got on completion? You do the math...
...and our newest millionaire is 46 year old Drue Williams, a first-time owner-builder. Elaine and I had the pleasure of touring Drue's ! project last week in a tony suburb of L.V., Nevada. Drue's $126 a foot completion budget is in spite of $30,000 in pain-in-the-neck fines from a demanding residential security association. And they have to be crazy about security with the $68 million home of eBay's founder visible, and boxer Mike Tyson's house down the street.
But Drue still managed to build at a savings of $175 a square foot. All the elaborate systems are in place, the gorgeous pool, the SIP energy-conserving envelope. One of the distinctive aspects of the design is the wood and iron work that he bought at casino remodeling sales downtown for pennies on the dollar. A singer and behind the scenes member of the Cirque du Soleil team, Drue started in London, England's west end 30 years ago, a cabinetmaker by trade. Hence he had an appreciation for beautiful handcrafted pieces, and incorporated them into his project.
As an owner-builder Drue has networked extensively with people in the trades and specialties. For instance, T-Bone, his gifted metalworker, is a friend who provided custom railing for the project at a friend's price. Whenever he was quoted high prices on trade work, he laughed and said, "Not on my job." He got the swimming pool installation slashed in half from initial bid. The vendor later said, "I'm putting in pools that cost three times as much in houses valued a tenth of this one." Drue's reply: "Am I supposed to feel bad about that?"
In order to qualify for a construction loan, he was obliged to take on a site supervisor, but he negotiated that one, too. The fee didn't prevent him from building $175 a foot under market. He managed to find the manufacturer who sells boxes to custom cabinet shops and sourced his cabinetry directly. Savings of about $40,000 there. Whenever he needed rental equipment for the project, he compared the costs to purchase, and did what made economic sense. He has wound up renting some hardware to others, thus paying! for it.
This is a hardworking owner-builder who drops wife and son off to work and school early in the morning, reports to the jobsite until 3 p.m., then goes to work until midnight. Since he dresses and talks like a common man, he is frequently taken for a tradesman or supervisor at the job site. He doesn't mind. He seems to learn from everyone he meets. His plans are to live in the new home for about two years, then sell and build again. Depending on the cost of land for the next project, he'll be free and clear on just the second build.
Catch Drue Williams' construction journal at our site.
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