If there’s one thing you can do to help ensure a successful and satisfying homebuilding experience, it is to maintain regular and productive communication with your builder and his staff. Effective communication is key to reducing concerns and stress during the building process. Keep the lines of communication open at all times.

As you engage in the home buying process, gain a sense of how comfortable you are with each builder’s communication style during the sales process. These early communications often reflect how your builder will communicate to you during construction and after closing. In addition to imparting the sales message, builders who are effective communicators will encourage your input and provide satisfactory answers to questions you pose. Effective follow-up efforts that provide real information also help to establish a solid foundation for communication through the process.

As you reach a purchasing decision, make sure you are comfortable with how you and your builder will discuss the project and its progress. Many builders encourage periodic walk-throughs of the house at critical stages, such as during structural framing, electrical and plumbing rough-in, and once the interior walls have been drywalled. Find out about opportunities to conduct informal meetings or use other communication efforts (such as phone calls or e-mails), and ask how quickly you can expect a response from your builder when you have a concern.

You should also expect and talk through a detailed scope of work with your builder, which outlines the construction process along a time line or schedule. Use the scope of work as a guide that elicits questions about the construction of your new home to gain a better understanding of the process. The scope and schedule will also establish deadlines for key decisions you must make on time, such as selecting lighting, plumbing fixtures, and flooring materials.

An essential part of the owner-builder communication process is the “change order”, which is the procedure established by a builder for making changes after construction begins. Few projects are completed without some changes. You should be familiar with this process before the first dirt is moved. You should learn, too, the details of your builder’s warranty and service program.

Savvy and successful builders have a plan in place for communicating effectively with their home buyers throughout the sales, construction, and warranty service process. Respect that process, while taking appropriate opportunities to express your needs and suggest slight changes within it to better suit your situation, preferences, and comfort level. Once you’ve settled on a communication plan, stick with it! It is a key to a ‘safe and sane’ building process and providing you the home of your dreams.

When people look at homes to build or buy, the two biggest issues are usually cost per square foot and features or upgrades. Usually, these concepts don’t work well in the true custom building environment. When building a custom home, the client is more in control of the costs. Instead of just taking a preset price for a standardized model, everything is tailored specifically to the client. If the phrases “standard features” and “custom home” seem contradictory, it’s because they are. The “standard features” are set by the customer!

A true custom home is customized from the ground up. The floor plan should be designed specifically to take advantage of your lot’s unique views, orientation, and topography. But most importantly, the builder/designer team needs to understand how the client is going to live, and tailor the design for that lifestyle. A variety of elements, including fixtures, finishes, appliances, and type of heating and cooking are all choices that affect price, design, and style.

Many home builders use standardized floor plans with some variations. They offer options and upgrades, but this is not a true custom home. Many times, by the time a customer adds all the features they want, the cost ends up being more than going to a custom home builder in the first place.

Sometimes, people will first have their plans drawn by a home designer, and then seek out bids. Care must be taken that all builders are bidding the same amenities and construction methods. Even if the plans have a great amount of detail, there can be significant variations in what is included. Too many bids can be very confusing.

The best recommendation is to use a design/build firm where the architect that draws the plans works hand in hand with the builder. That way everyone is on the same page, and no surprises pop-up during construction that can increase your costs significantly simply because something wasn’t clear enough on the plans to begin with.

One of the biggest benefits of a true custom homebuilder is the level of attention clients will receive. No matter how much money someone is spending, it should always be clear who the customers contact is with the homebuilding company, and who is responsible to make sure all the concerns are addressed. Most unsatisfied customers can be traced back to a problem in this area. By choosing the right builder, a custom home can be one of the most rewarding purchases of a lifetime.

There are many scam artists eager to prey on unsuspecting borrowers. Don’t be one of them.

You can avoid the devastating effects of fraudulent lending practices by following the basic guidelines offered by the Federal Trade Commission:

DO NOT

• Enter into a home equity loan if you have insufficient income to support it.
• Sign any papers you haven’t read or any documents that have vacant spaces that are to be filled in after you sign them.
• Allow anyone to pressure you into endorsing any document you don’t understand.
• Agree to a loan that contains unwarranted credit insurance or other charges you don’t want.
• Allow the promise of extra cash or lower payments cloud your good judgment about whether or not a loan is really worthwhile.
• Deed your property to anyone. Consult an attorney or someone else you trust before considering this risky action.

DO

• Request specific information if credit insurance is a mandatory condition of your loan. If credit insurance is not required and you don’t want it, and if there has been a fee added to the loan, ask that the charge be removed from the loan text. If you do want some sort credit insurance, take the time to shop around for the best rates and terms.
• Maintain careful records of what you’ve paid, incorporating billing statements and canceled checks. Question any charge you suspect is inaccurate.
• Check contractor’s references before you start work on your home.
• Read and review all items carefully. In the case that you need any terms or conditions explained, talk to someone you can trust first. Weigh and consider all the costs of financing before you agree to a loan.

Under a new house warranty, the builder is obliged to repair items when contacted (usually in writing) by the homeowner.

Ask about the new house warranty before buying–and be sure to get a signed warranty document.

In addition, be sure you receive a package with product warranties at settlement– the roof, appliances, and so forth– that are offered by the various manufacturers of your home’s materials.

If something goes wrong with these parts of your home, you must contact the manufacturer–not the builder.

Some builders offer an extended new-house warranty, called an “insured warranty.” This generally covers any systems– plumbing and electrical, for example– for a 2-year period.

It may also warranty the structure for up to 10 years. Insured warranties are actually issued by an insurance company; your home is covered even if the builder goes out of business.

Competitive bids are just that! If I shave labor or materials to get your job, is that the house you really want? There are hundreds of ways to lower the price of building, which often lower the quality and workmanship also. The best drawings and specifications don’t protect you from poor trade practices.

–The Well Built House, Page 23

The quote from The Well Built House sums it up well. There are plenty of ways to cut corners to create a lower price. Competitive bidding just rewards the lowest price, it offers absolutely no advantage to good workmanship and actually encourages cost overruns and completion delays.

In one survey of satisfied owners of completed projects, the most important personal attributes of a good contractor were:

1. Honesty and Integrity
2. On-time Performance
3. Good Organization
4. Good Scheduling
5. Good Subcontractors
6. Good Communication Skills
7. The Ability to Empathize
8. Long-term Relationship Oriented

Cheap price isn’t even listed! In the same survey of satisfied homeowners, here are the attributes listed as being present in good construction companies in order of importance:

1. Quality Construction
2. Clear Builder Specifications
3. Good Company Organization
4. Ability to provide price checks
5. Ability to provide value engineering
6. Company Responsiveness
7. On-time Performance
8. Fair Price

Price was only the eighth most important attribute customers considered important in a contracting firm, and even then, the word used was “fair” price, not “lowest” price.

Do you really want a contractor always trying to figure out the cheapest way of doing everything for the place where your family will be sleeping the week you are out of town? We prefer to do things the best way. “Best” means, in our opinion, the most effective combination of price to performance, getting the most “bang for your buck.”

A competitive bid does not let you see how a contractor works. Referrals do. A competitive bid does not demonstrate how Paramount Construction, as an experienced contracting company, can guide you through the process from beginning to end. We don’t feel that an estimate, driven by price, will give you what you really need.

We have one request: Select your contractor based on reputation not price!

Winter weather can bring ice storms that may cause power outages as trees and branches fall on power lines.  Fortunately, there are some steps you can take to be prepared for such events:

1. Assemble a “storm kit.”  Include a battery-operated radio or television, flashlight, a first-aid kit, battery-powered or windup clock, extra batteries, an insulated cooler, and a list of important and emergency phone numbers.
2. Cover windows with drapes or blankets to minimize heat loss at night.  During the day, open blinds to let the sun warm the space.
3. Dress in loose layers.
4. Using candles for light may sound like a good idea, but be cautious that you never leave them unattended.
5. Keep at least a 3-day supply of nonperishable foods and bottled water, and have a hand-operated can opener available.
6. Check for medical supplies, prescription drugs, and any special health items, such as contact lens supplies or infant supplies.
7. Use portable generators in a well-ventilated area.  Never run it inside your garage since the carbon monoxide fumes can be deadly.

If you do lose power, remember to call your power company.  Homeowners on medical support equipment should identify a location with emergency power capabilities and plan to go there in the event of a pro-longed outage.

Regardless of a home’s size or style, all construction follows a consistent pattern and pace.  Excavation and foundation work will be followed by the framing phase, which will be followed by rough mechanical, electrical, and plumbing work.  As soon as those stages are complete, insulation will be installed.  These steps follow each other quickly and are easy to see.  The progress is exciting!

But when our focus shifts to the interior finishes of your new home, the pace seems to slow down and daily progress is more difficult to follow.  To the homeowner, it might seem that we are losing focus or paying less attention to the project.  In fact, the opposite is true.  The apparent pace of work has slowed because finishing work is much more detailed than the previous stages.  We much be more focused and pay more attention to the finishing details.

For example, cutting, building, and fastening the pieces of a complex crown molding profile along the ceiling-wall joint of an upscale kitchen requires several hours of painstaking work by a skilled finish carpenter.  Likewise, finishing newly built walls to a smooth, uniform surface is a process that takes multiple cycles of application, drying, sanding, and cleaning to accomplish properly.

There also are more products to install.  The number of cabinets, faucets, light fixtures, door handles, and outlet and switch covers in a modern new house continues to increase as homes become larger and more luxurious.  To get some sense of that task, count the number of outlets and switch covers in your kitchen and family room alone (or in the whole house, if you’re more ambitious), each of which must be installed by hand before you can move in.

Finally, finish work signals the last stage of the building process. Both we and our homeowners are anxious to finish the job after several weeks of anticipation and hard work, not counting the time spent planning before construction began.  It is hard for homeowners to remain patient when the work appears to be moving slowly.

By the very nature of its exacting, hand-applied work, the finishing phase of homebuilding is necessarily slow.  That does not mean that the work is being neglected!  During this final part of your home construction, remember that we remain focused on the highest quality installation and application of your home’s interior finishes.