The Wall Street Journal - 02.08.2019

(Romina) #1

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 de-
sign. It cost almost $64,000 to
clear and level a sloped lot, install
a septic system and dig the foun-
dation 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 prop-
erty-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 ex-
penses 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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