The Wall Street Journal - 02.08.2019

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. Friday, August 2, 2019 |M3

Above, the house, located in western South Carolina, was completed in June, about 11 months after breaking ground. Below, record rainfall in the area delayed some of the site prep, framing and foundation work.

package. And finally, we planted much of the landscaping ourselves, with savings estimated at $5,000.

There are more cost-effective ways to design a house. I wish we had asked more ques- tions about cost-savings upfront instead of pursuing our dream design. It cost almost $64,000 to clear and level a sloped lot, install a septic system and dig the foundation and basement. Another $30,000 went toward the concrete foundation and walls. The metal roof cost about $35,000. I should have asked: How much can we save if we choose a floor plan with a smaller footprint, but the same square footage? The cost of site prep, cement and roofing would have been far less. How much less, we’ll never know. The same is true for the mate- rials. Instead of stonework, should we have gone with stucco? In- stead of a long, curved driveway leading to the garage, would the topography have allowed for a shorter driveway? In the end, we spent about $100,000 more than we had wanted, but the proceeds from the sale of our house in New York covered most of the cost of our new home in South Carolina. And while I consider this my “forever home,” I ask myself, “Would I ever want to go through new-home construction again?” I’d do it in a second.

COUNTING HOUSE|BETH DECARBO

Construction Hindsight Is 20/20

Here are the things I wish I had known before building a house from scratch

BETH DECARBO/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL (2); RON TOLLEY (SITE PREP)

WHAT DO BUILDERS WISH YOU KNEW BEFORE THEY STARTED YOUR HOUSE?

Construction on
our new house was
about half done
when the plumber
went out for
nearly two weeks
because a cut on
his finger was badly infected.
That held up the electricians, who
needed to run wire for all the
lights, outlets and switches. That
delayed the Sheetrock installation,
which delayed the painters. The
shell of the house stood empty. I
was tempted to drive to the
plumber’s house to personally
flush his hand wound and admin-
ister antibiotics.
Now, after roughly 11 months,
our new home is finally finished.
While building a house from the
ground up has been one of the
best experiences of my life, I
learned some tough and expensive
financial lessons along the way.
Here are some of the things I wish
I knew before I built my house.

Starting. Takes. Forever.
Waiting to break ground was the
most frustrating part. It involved
three major hurdles: Getting the
floor plans approved by the devel-
opment’s architectural-review
committee, which meets monthly.
Getting the final contract from
the builder. Getting a construction
loan from the bank.
I won’t bore you with the
twists and turns, but all the pa-
perwork pushed our start date
back six months. We had already
sold our old house in New York,
and our new house in South Caro-
lina wasn’t nearly finished. As a
result, we rented a house near the
construction site and put our fur-
niture and other belongings in
storage. In all, that set us back
about $20,000. If I had known it
would take so long, we probably
would have listed the house later
than we did. On the flip side,
moving early meant we could visit
the construction site every day
and be part of the process.

Lots of expenses aren’t in-
cluded in the price of the

house. We paid $20,000 for the land, not including property taxes and property-owners association fees. Be- fore construction could begin there were some preliminary steps required by the POA, the builder and the county where we reside. We spent $1,400 for a required topographical map and tree inven- tory; $630 to outline the home’s

footprint with stakes and tape; $800 for the architectural review; $3,000 to the development’s road- maintenance fund for wear and tear; $150 for a septic-system per- mit, and $450 to drill test holes for the septic system. These expenses couldn’t be included in the loan—because we didn’t have a loan yet. And the money was due before our New York house sold,

so our financial adviser suggested selling some of our holdings to cover the upfront expenses.

You don’t know what you need until you need it. After moving into our rental house, we suffered a series of power outages in December, when low temperatures were in the 20s. The blackouts didn’t happen of- ten, but they were frequent enough for us to want a backup generator in our remote location. That set us back another $15,000.

There are sneaky ways to save money. Buying remnants of granite and quartz for the countertops instead of full slabs of stone saved us sev- eral hundred dollars. We paid only $100 for a floor-model sink that had been discontinued. We also asked the appliance store manager for a discount on a kitchen-laundry

In the beginning, clients don’t want to divulge budget numbers “because they don’t know yet if they can trust you,” he says. “It goes so much faster when you talk about the nickels and dimes up front.” David Cooper, managing director, Connecticut Valley Homes, East Lyme

Select products that will go in the
house very early in the process.
Custom items “all have to be made
in advance of when you need them
on the jobsite. If you don’t have it
ready, you lose that spot on your
schedule. Getting workers back is
almost impossible.”
Steve Cates, Cates Builders,
Nashville

“We want clients to know there will be a lot of emotional ups and downs.It’snotacon- trolled environment— there’s weather, there’s subcontractors.” Beth Larchar, vice president of development, Obodo Builders, Logan, Utah

EbbandFlow Number of single-family homes built in the U.S. in the year listed YEAR TOTAL 1968 858,600 1978 1,369,000 1988 1,084,600 1998 1,159,700 2008 818,800 2018 840,200 Source: Census Bureau

2,386 Median square footage of a new home in 2018

$385,000 Average sale price of a new single-family home in 2018

44.8% Percentage of new homes built in 2018 with four or more bedrooms

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The Wall Street Journal - 02.08.2019

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