The point to this post is to explain that there are costs to getting everything you want. In having a home built, you have the chance to get your next home just the way you want it. Buying a pre-owned home, you are buying what someone else wanted, and most likely there are many things you would have done differently (cabinet colors, counters, flooring, carpet color and pad, small or large changes to the plan itself, etc...)
If you've ever put a model airplane together, and I have, you know how easy it is to make a mistake. Even using the "accurate" directions that come with a model, quite often there seems to be pieces missing, extra pieces, or the pieces they show just don't fit together the way they are supposed to.
Now imagine 10,000 pieces, 50,000 pieces, or 100,000+ pieces. Even with the best directions, do you think 30 people, working at different times, with different people telling them what to do, could come even close to getting it 100% correct?
If your answer was YES, stop reading this blog and purchase a pre-owned home. Seriously. You may not be able to deal with the new home process (in a future blog I'll write in detail about all the trades that make a new home happen).
The simple truth about new construction is that it's complicated. It just is. It's also messy. I feel that the messy part should be another post all by itself, so lets just leave it at messy.
So, things are getting messy. The long grass that once covered your dream homesite has been pushed around into dirt mounds. Cement trucks have emptied their guts out. Piles of lumber have been cut up and filled with nails. Suddenly you have a frame that begins to look like a box of sorts.
If you were on the framing crew, you would already have seen 5 errors. Of course that's just a guess, but give me a chance to make a point. Look at the changes in the major automobile manufacturers. Robots are building our cars. Human error is being reduced as much as possible for many reasons. To name a few: Safety, cost effectiveness, dependability, and almost zero errors! Not fewer errors, but zero errors.
Let's get back to the framing crew making mistakes. Most mistakes are caught. Most. The point is that you didn't see them, so as the future homeowner, they don't exist. Mistakes happen, get fixed, and it all works out.
Many buyers having a home built like to visit the site to watch their future home come out of the ground. It's facinating to watch it take shape and grow. As they watch, odds are pretty good that they will catch a mistake before anyone else does. This is where it's necessary to know that it's complicated. If you have the ability to walk on water, heal at a touch, and come back from the grave, by all means, yell at everyone involved and make sure they know they have failed.
Back in the real world, perfection is to be sought, knowing it will never be attained (at least in the housing industry). Know from the beginning that mistakes will be made, and rejoice that your sharp eyes were the ones that found one. Make sure that you don't take this over the top, and appoint yourself the Construction Manager. "If I'm not here, this is never going to get done correctly". That's a phrase that comes from someone who is about to slow everything down, and probably make things worse.
I've personally had buyers walk through the frame of the home with a can of orange spray paint and mark 2x4's that they want removed and replaced because they have large knots in them, or aren't perfect specimens. This isn't going to happen. Don't get me wrong, I have also been on builders sites and wanted to mark 2x4's myself because they were too crooked, or installed incorrectly. The builder I work for is going to replace them without my asking. I know the quality they build, and what they will accept.
This is where new construction homes and pre-owned homes coexist. Mistakes in the construction process are going to happen. Mistakes are always going to be made while building the home, but with new construction there is a chance to catch them. Pre-owned homes have their mistakes built-in. Energy gaps we didn't think about 5 years ago can be avoided. Materials are quite simply better than they used to be. The energy efficiency and technology points taken into consideration in a new construction home are far beyond what was probably done on a home even 5-7 years old.
Enough for now. I hope this information has been of some help to you, and serves you in making your new home buying decisions.
