You are ready to build your dream home. You have purchased a beautiful lot and have a rough idea of what your new home will look like but are not sure what comes next.
For most, the next step is hiring a general contractor – or homebuilder – to manage and oversee your project. The homebuilder’s, job is to guide you through the entire custom home building process ensuring that you understand all aspects of your building project. Hiring the right homebuilder is the most important factor in determining what your building experience will be like.
Take a look at our expert tips for interviewing and hiring your homebuilder:
Get to know your homebuilder.
Building a new home involves a huge financial and emotional investment. Make sure that you are entrusting your hopes and dreams to a qualified builder, one that has the time, financial resources, organization skills, and experience to build your new home. Take the time to get to know your homebuilder over several meetings. Asking the right questions at the beginning will have a tremendous impact on the outcome.
Have a list of criteria that your homebuilder must meet before you make the decision to work together.
- Ask the builder provide his builder’s licence and insurance certificate.
- Ask how long the builder has been in business (particularly under this company name to ensure they’ve not folded and restarted).
- Ask for a list of current and previous clients and contact those clients to get an idea of what their experience was like.
- Ask to see a portfolio of work. Ask if you can tour a project or two.
Discuss all the details early.
From timelines to budgets to payment schedule to finishing style and design, discuss every detail as early as possible to ensure that your expectations are realistic. Understanding what is expected of you as the client, and what you can fairly expect of your builder will help you to plan and prepare. The difference between a great building experience and a bad one can be as simple as doing some early research and setting clear expectations before the work begins.
