5 Pointers to Make the New Home Building Journey a Big Success

By Lauri Kent

While the country is basically still recovering its real estate market, here in Texas we are facing a different sort of real estate problem. With so many businesses and families moving to our region, the north-of-Houston towns of Spring, The Woods, and the Conroe/Lake Conroe areas, our real-estate problems are about a lack of houses. For my clients who are not finding a good selection of homes available, many are considering the obvious choice of building. A family content to build has a lot more freedom with where they want to have their house. It is a good chance to design your dream house...in a best-for-you location. Prefer a home built by Lake Conroe? Interested in living on acreage that allows for some horses? These options are extremely available to a family if building is a consideration.

Finding a trusty builder suddenly becomes the issue. But this, also, is a problem that melts away if certain smart steps are taken. Here are the top 5 home building tips that I suggest:

1. Find Your Lot or Acreage

With your realty agent, look at available home sites. One of the advantages to building is that you have much more freedom in choosing your general location. With a realty agent you can quickly whittle down to a catalogue of home sites that fit your needs: work commute distance, area services, neighborhood features, deed limitations.

2. Start Off With an Authorised List of Credible Builders

You can definitely analyze the best home builders through researching the Attorney General's web site, or check the BBB and Angie's List for reviews. But there is a quick way to detour that headache. When you build or purchase a house, it is a mortgage bank that actually owns the house until it is paid off, so you can be absolutely certain that the mortgage bank can give you a great list of trustworthy home builders. Chat with a loan officer who specializes in new construction loans. Try to get at least five builders to interview. Stick to that list.

3. Interview

Take a little bit of time to reasonably interview your list of builders. Remember, you'll be interfacing with these people continually throughout the time necessary to build your home. Find the builder with whom you have a good connection, with whom you feel confident asking the hard questions, and with whom you're feeling you can successfully communicate thoughts and ideas, and that each accurately, and solidly, understands the other. Also be sure to evaluate the following:

- Will this builder's approach to the home building process be a process you think will aid you to stay on time and on budget?

- Is this home builder's base of operation a satisfactory distance to your home site? The closer, the better.

- Tour other homes built by this builder.

After you have found your favorite two or three from the list, take the time to re-interview to make sure you settle on the best fit for you.

4. Have Your Agent Review the Contract

A great and under-utilized function of a real estate agent is to study home building contracts before signing. A real estate agent can identify or discover oversights, find further opportunities for saving money, and could be a last and sure defense to make certain that the home you're just about to build is totally the home you want.

5. Get Your Own Inspector

It is an extra investment of roughly $300, but it is worth every penny to have your own independent inspector go through your house at the final stages of the building process. At worst, you have spent three or four hundred on just another set of eyes to ensure that everything is as it should be. At the very best your independent inspector might expose a major issue that has to be addressed to make your home defect-free.

There have been some great Hollywood movies that have amusingly pictured the personal hell that can be the home building process, and shows like "Holmes on Homes" ® are an advisory reminder that the home building industry is riddled with dodgy builders. Yet with a little planning, and following these home building tips, by being equipped with a property agent, the direction of a new construction home loan officer, and the help of an independent inspector, you can find that to design your dream house and build it is no nightmare at all, but a dream-come-true.

About the Author:

Lauri Kent is a seasoned real estate broker and agent with Keller Williams of Lake Conroe, Texas. Acquainted with the best home builders serving Lake Conroe, Montgomery, and Magnolia, TX, she offers these five home building tips to be sure the process of building your ideal home is a great success.