How much would I save if I did this? (custom home question) (West: hardwood floors, mortgage)

[rmac03]

I'm thinking about having a custom home built that is about 3800-4200sq ft. Thing is I would be getting a 10 year loan because I want the home paid off quick (would be putting 50% down).

Okay, I was thinking what if we build the shell (foundation, sub-flooring, exterior, roofing, plumbing, & electrical), but did the cabinetry, flooring, painting, etc., ourselves as we went from paycheck to paycheck.

I would think hardwood flooring, tiling & carpet, custom cabinets, would be pretty expensive, so how much do you think we'd save by doing this ourselves and how much do 4200sq ft homes go for outside of beltway 8?

[travelguy_73]

Check with your bank. Construction loans have very short lives, and banks tend to frown on providing a mortgage for a partially-complete home (it's too hard to sell should the borrower get into financial distress).

[chris_ut]

Are you a licensed contractor? That sounds like a recipe for disaster to me.

[surfs1st]

If your having someone build the home, i.e. Imperial,Westin or David Weekly, they won't allow you to leave those elements out. It's a matter of appraisal value for the loan. We are building a house, and wanted hardwoods throughout the first floor.

We didn't like their options and were going to install our own. We asked them to leave the floors bare and we'd pay someone to come in and finish the floors with the hardwoods we wanted.

They wouldn't do it, appraisal issues, so now when the house is finished were going to have to pull up carpet and put in floors.

Not sure if your building it yourself, but most banks will not give home loans without a completed home.

[rmac03]

thanks for the input. okay, so maybe i'll tell them to put in the cheapest possible cabinets while putting carpet throughout in place of the hardwood. Maybe this will be cheaper but still allow me to get the loan and do the floors, custom cabinets, etc. as we go? Thanks for the inupt again.

[chris_ut]

Originally Posted by rmac03

thanks for the input. okay, so maybe i'll tell them to put in the cheapest possible cabinets while putting carpet throughout in place of the hardwood. Maybe this will be cheaper but still allow me to get the loan and do the floors, custom cabinets, etc. as we go? Thanks for the inupt again.

We did something similar. The price the builder charged for hardwood floors was outrageous so we just got the cheapest carpet then ripped it out and did the floors ourselves for about half what they wanted to charge us.

[surfs1st]

Originally Posted by chris_ut

We did something similar. The price the builder charged for hardwood floors was outrageous so we just got the cheapest carpet then ripped it out and did the floors ourselves for about half what they wanted to charge us.

Ditto, they were charging us almost 8 per sqft. You would have thought they were putting in teak floors, but it was the cheapest line of Armstrong.

It's going to be a pain pulling up carpet, but we can but in a nice Bamboo floor for half their price.

[Wysiwyg]

Originally Posted by surfs1st

Ditto, they were charging us almost 8 per sqft. You would have thought they were putting in teak floors, but it was the cheapest line of Armstrong.

It's going to be a pain pulling up carpet, but we can but in a nice Bamboo floor for half their price.

thats the easiest part. I didnt like scrubbing the floor. I also put a quite unusual Bamboo hardwood flooring @2.79. these dont have the fat lines and divider/nodes common in bamboo flooring. the bamboo is barely noticeable

[Supermac34]

You need to be careful about contracting a lot of that yourself. You are often going to find that often the price that a subcontractor is going to charge you is much more than they charge a builder (and in turn even more than the builder charges you) because you are a one time purchase and they have relationships with the builders that keeps repeat business coming in.

Also, many of the builders listed are not custom home builders and wouldn't work with you on this kind of scheme anyways. If you finance and pay for the home yourself, I'm sure there are custom builders out there that are going to let you install some of the stuff yourself or hire your own contractors. The problem becomes when that same builder isn't going to warranty any of that stuff, nor are they going to warranty anything that those subs affect.

Be very very careful. Many times you think you are going to save money only to end up spending more than if you had just had the builder do it.

[HammerTx]

I build custom homes and it's true that you need to have the house finished to get the mortgage loan (You start with a construction loan. Once the house is completed, you pay back the construction loan with your mortgage loan).

However, If you don't need financing, you can do pretty much whatever you want.

Now, if you wanted to contract me to do the items you listed (foundation, plumbing, etc) and go through someone else for flooring, cabinets, etc we could work with you on that. But the house would still have to be completed before you can get the mortgage loan. Of course, I can give you a lot of reasons why you'd be better off having the builder complete the house.