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Tips for Building a New Home

Avoid a 30 year loan. You will need a new roof, flooring, furnace, water heaters, appliances before you hit thirty years.

Water heater will be about 10 years. Furnace and central air will be about 20. Roof 25-30 with decent shingles. Don’t want to do a major house repair and still be paying on the house. If you do a 30, have X amount out in a repair fund.
 
CyState85 said:
Probably too early to say but I’m in my mid 30’s, have no interest in moving, and want this to be our forever home. I imagine we will want the 3rd stall for the garage once the kids start driving but getting up in the morning and scraping your windshield never hurt anybody.
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Lawnmower snowblower bikes patio stuff yard stuff shop vac? We have 3 and there's already no room for a third car. Garage footage is fairly cheap.

I'd cut the half bath before I'd cut the stall. Unless that .5 is supposed to be for a future basement.
 
BillBrasky4Cy said:
Why build when you can park?

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**** some of them are getting pretty nice anymore:D:D. that or a pre-manufactured home (current house was in 1982) that's basically drop in might be tempting.
SCyclone said:
Subcontractors have gotten much more expensive. Fifteen years ago I built a 1500SF house - The electrical was $5800, the plumbing was $8000, and the HVAC was $5500. I would imagine you can almost triple those costs now.
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dad had a few quotes done for adding about 100' of wiring and conduit for the hot tub they just got, quotes were in about that range he did it himself and even renting a ditchwitch (delivered even) for less then $1k. and I spent nearly that just on the Furnace and AC unit last year..

BCClone said:
Avoid a 30 year loan. You will need a new roof, flooring, furnace, water heaters, appliances before you hit thirty years.

Water heater will be about 10 years. Furnace and central air will be about 20. Roof 25-30 with decent shingles. Don’t want to do a major house repair and still be paying on the house. If you do a 30, have X amount out in a repair fund.
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water heater currently is from 1994 and still works amazing (water softener I think since day one) dad just did theirs for $500. see above for HVAC costs (93 install date, from the same shop/company that I used to replace) went from a 7.5 seer 80% efficiency rating to a 14 and 96%. a 30 yr loan still makes sense when most of those things could be considered upgrades as well.
 
Fair point on the garage—-I don’t have a lot of toys but the mower and snow blower will need a home.

What about pouring a driveway? Insulate the garage? Use composite deck material? Standard vs high end windows? Ceiling height? Bedrooms all on one level or spread out? Again, I don’t plan on selling this home anytime in the next 30+ years, but I appreciate any advice.
 
We built our home in 2003-2004. We have a 3 car garage and it could be bigger. Our garage doors are 16' and 8' definitely would do 18'-20' and 9'-10' looking back on it. Our driveway to the road is 100' roughly by 16'. Would go wider if we could do it over minimum 18'. Yes insulate garage and insulated garage doors. Have the garage floor coated before you move in. Yes on composite roof and deck material. Get good windows Anderson, Pella or Windsor with best available Low E. You want the IG units made by Cardinal best warranty by far. Ceiling height 9' basement, main floor 9' or 10'. Master definitely on main floor. Good wood flooring on main level and stairs if you have a 2nd floor same to basement. Give yourself some room on your electrical box or have 2. Water softener a must.
 
OKClones said:
We built our home in 2003-2004. We have a 3 car garage and it could be bigger. Our garage doors are 16' and 8' definitely would do 18'-20' and 9'-10' looking back on it. Our driveway to the road is 100' roughly by 16'. Would go wider if we could do it over minimum 18'. Yes insulate garage and insulated garage doors. Have the garage floor coated before you move in. Yes on composite roof and deck material. Get good windows Anderson, Pella or Windsor with best available Low E. You want the IG units made by Cardinal best warranty by far. Ceiling height 9' basement, main floor 9' or 10'. Master definitely on main floor. Good wood flooring on main level and stairs if you have a 2nd floor same to basement. Give yourself some room on your electrical box or have 2. Water softener a must.
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Re: composite decking - our house was built in 89, and it seems reasonable that the composite decking might be original. It has held up great. The treated lumber that it’s attached too, however, is rotting, and so are many of the galvanized screws, which kind of defeats the purpose.
I don’t think composite is the wrong decision, necessarily. But we chose to replace with wood.
 
CyState85 said:
My wife and I are planning to build a new home and are looking for advice to save money on this process. So many new builds in Iowa are going for $200/square foot and that is entirely out of our price range.

We don’t need/want anything fancy at all—-1500-1700 total square footage with 3BR, 2.5BA with 2 car garage, standard cabinets, and a partially finished basement. Any tips, tricks, things to keep in mind to cut costs?

I know the house description is vague, but we are in the beginning stages of this process and want to eliminate things from the get go if it’s going to jack up the price.
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Unless if you do most of the work yourself, it’s going to be hard to save much. You can do all the finish work and landscaping and possibly save $20k but with your time, is that worth it? My dad did all of his but he was also retired so it went fairly quick.
 
OKClones said:
We built our home in 2003-2004. We have a 3 car garage and it could be bigger. Our garage doors are 16' and 8' definitely would do 18'-20' and 9'-10' looking back on it. Our driveway to the road is 100' roughly by 16'. Would go wider if we could do it over minimum 18'. Yes insulate garage and insulated garage doors. Have the garage floor coated before you move in. Yes on composite roof and deck material. Get good windows Anderson, Pella or Windsor with best available Low E. You want the IG units made by Cardinal best warranty by far. Ceiling height 9' basement, main floor 9' or 10'. Master definitely on main floor. Good wood flooring on main level and stairs if you have a 2nd floor same to basement. Give yourself some room on your electrical box or have 2. Water softener a must.
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I agree on all the above points but would recommend the person asking just text the water before diving into a water softener. For some communities where the water is treated and already in decent condition, most water softeners won’t pay back. Most communities post their average water hardness as well.
 
CyState85 said:
Fair point on the garage—-I don’t have a lot of toys but the mower and snow blower will need a home.

What about pouring a driveway? Insulate the garage? Use composite deck material? Standard vs high end windows? Ceiling height? Bedrooms all on one level or spread out? Again, I don’t plan on selling this home anytime in the next 30+ years, but I appreciate any advice.
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I would pour a driveway
We skipped insulating, it's on our list of things to do on our own at some point
We have decent windows, don't think they are name brand
We did 10 ft main rooms, 9 ft hallway, master, sunroom, other bedrooms, bath, laundry are 8. Basement is set to be 9 ft.

Our bedrooms are all one one side of the house. Space for another in the basement. Our builder hated hallways and considered them wasted space. Works well now when our child is very young but I can see it being less great as they get bigger. Ultimately decided the that it was a tradeoff we would make. Something else we nixed is a little coat closet inside the main door. Haven't missed it, have guests throws stuff on bannister or spare bedroom.

For landscaping, we did all the planting ourselves (and continue to do so) in the years since we've moved in. What I would recommend is finding a landscaper you like and having them look at the hardscaping/edging plan you are given. That's usually pretty quick and dirty and in our case, we've had to redo tons of it to give us space to actually put in plants and such around the house. I wish we could have had someone look at it before they put it in to say bump this out here, do this section as mulch instead of stone, etc. It wouldn't have cost much but would have saved us a TON of sweat equity over the past 5 years. And if you're looking to save a bit, don't have the builder put in any trees or plants. It'll be ugly for a minute but wait until you can get a landscaping plan and then you can eat away at that over time.
 
BTW, buy a couple dehumidifiers. Will need to let those babies run non stop. drill a small hole in the buckets and put them over the drains. The sheetrock, paint, mud and everything will make it very humid in the house and could destroy any windows if you go with wood (we did).
 
I would never build a new house without a third stall if you have kids and don't ever want to use your garage.
 
The housing market is going to tank a bit, you might get more house by buying vs building.
I have been looking the Vegas area, and home prices area starting to already drop some fairly significantly. Was going to build there, but now I am leaning towards buying.
 
We just completed this year long process a few weeks ago. Our new home is a 1950 sq ft ranch with partially finished basement. It is in rural Iowa so there are a few extra costs being outside of a large metro. We ended up being around $190 sq ft. I did around 30% of the work myself. The bid was $230-$235 per square ft if we didn’t do work on our own.

Our building envelope and windows are very good (paid a premium), but the rest is basic. Vinyl siding, LVT floors, IKEA Cabinets.

I spent 6 months researching it and came to the conclusion that to be in the $150-175 ft range you were going to get a spec home in a subdivision built cheap, or a cheaply built modular. You can get well built modular, but they cost $190 sq ft or more so at that point a custom isn’t far off.

Hope the OP finds a better solution than I did, but my initial hunch is that it is unlikely to find good options in the price range indicated.
 
Make sure your trusses are a foot and a half on center and that they use thicker sheet rock. Otherwise you will find out what my father in law found out. The tape and mud separates causing cracks in the ceiling
 
I would never buy another house with only a two car garage. Ever. A lot of the existing homes in my area that are a little older and have extra deep/wide two stalls which might be alright. The newer homes can barely fit a friggin mower and two cars much less anything else. Do not underestimate the amount of garage space you will need, especially if you’re coming from an apartment or don’t have any kids yet.

Also, think of the other things in a new build that would add up. Things like upgraded appliances, fences, landscaping, blinds, etc. A lot of new builds have huge masters but tiny bedrooms outside of that. We looked around in the metro A LOT between our house and my in-laws moving down.

TLDR: Existing homes are where it’s at.
 
CyState85 said:
Fair point on the garage—-I don’t have a lot of toys but the mower and snow blower will need a home.

What about pouring a driveway? Insulate the garage? Use composite deck material? Standard vs high end windows? Ceiling height? Bedrooms all on one level or spread out? Again, I don’t plan on selling this home anytime in the next 30+ years, but I appreciate any advice.
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Pour the driveway unless it’s rural. Insulate the garage. Wood decks are fine but keep up on the maintenance. High end windows. Ceiling height is important but most new ranch plans have vaulted ceilings. High ceilings in the basement make it feel waaaaay less like a basement so keep them 9-10 ft if possible. Keep the master away from the other bedrooms but what floor their on doesn’t matter unless their stuck in a cave like basement.

Everyone says their home purchase is their forever home but rarely is that the case. ALWAYS think of resale with an investment this large. Situations can change in an instant.
 
What kind of floor plan do you want? I've found that there is nothing but open floor plans for new ranch style houses and i'm not a fan. I don't want to see the mess in the kitchen from the couch! I also like having the kitchen as a separate room to socialize in as oppose to everyone hearing the conversation in both the kitchen and upstairs living room.

With vaulted ceilings, I believe there is a great opportunity for home designers to develop a ranch style house plan that keeps the kitchen and living room 'open' yet have some form of separation. Also, if you are a young family, do keep in mind that your kids will eventually grow up so you don't need to see every corner of your main floor. Thinking ahead a few years might save you from moving again earlier than necessary.
 
Not to cowboy the thread, but I've been wanting to re-do the patio outside of our basement walk out. Nothing crazy, 300-400 sf, maybe a decorative stamp or something to make the wifey happy. Had crew from DSM come down (Warren County) and they quoted $6k. Seemed pretty high. Any suggestions on flatwork appreciated.
 
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