Wishing for a New Home

I have been wishing for a new home since I moved to this farm about 7 years ago!! Please, understand, I am NOT moving. I LOVE my farm. But the house here is falling down around us. I’m actually not kidding. The people who put on the roof didn’t add gutters, so the entire roof is rotted and moldy and mildewed. The floors in 2 of the bedrooms have holes in them that the carpet was just stretched over. The septic is from 1970 and only has 1 drain line. And the well, we believe has shifted too close to the dirt, because it pulls sediment and we have to change filters every 2 weeks now! This has been the perfect example of “What Not To Do” as a seller or landlord I think I could have ever experienced!

After 2 years of struggling (and learning) we finally started construction on our new house. We got the notice from our builder that we are about 60 days away from completion!! I was looking for a particular product and a particular process so this experience has been a learning one for sure! I really wanted to General Contract it myself…those years as a project manager for an electrical firm all came flooding back. But lenders will not give money for projects that are self GC’ed, unless you have experience (never understood this…how do you get experience if you don’t first get a chance?). So plan 1 was for a friend to GC and I just run it. He backed out at the last minute because he wouldn’t make enough money (he sort of missed the point) so I had to find something similar. I had a very simple wish list for my new home:

A Separate Real Office with Doors
A Dining Room (always on my list)
Closets
2 story
In the Woods
$100 per square foot

I went with a builder that allowed me to do a portion of the work on my own. It’s a very strange arrangement where you become both the client and the sub contractor. The problem is, this company does not have their shit together! And I pride myself on always at least seeming like I have my shit together. I will not be referring them to any clients. And don’t even want to mention their name here! Mainly because after this experience, I can definitely do this on my own. It’s their level of planning and customer service that have made the biggest problems and mistakes. They delivered our floor joists and ceiling rafters 3 weeks (and one snow storm) before they were installed. Now they are covering the cost of mildew removal and remediation throughout the entire house. That is just one large example in a long list of what I think are simple planning mistakes that have cost them money and me time and now my future clients. I’m not trying to be a Monday morning quarterback, but I will certainly use their failures and develop a much more efficient system.

When it comes to builders, I found there are really 2 types out there…spec built homes in cookie-cutter neighborhoods and giant, custom, McMansions that cost entirely too much money. In looking for my own home, I noticed that there is very little out there to get exactly what you want on a decent, affordable budget. Everyone wanted to tell me that it’s because supplies are so high. While that may be true, that isn’t the only problem. The biggest problem with builders and construction that I have found is a lack of creativity. Finding creative solutions to getting the client exactly what they want on any budget is the type of business that I want to run! And those are the types of people I choose to do business with. I do not want to hear what the problem is, but what a solution to the problem is.

What do you wish for in a new home??

What do you wish for in a new home? I love working with buyers to find exactly what they want. Sometimes what they think they want changes as we look. Pictures in this market are VERY deceiving. In my opinion almost negligibly so. With the use of wide angle lenses, digital rendering and Photoshop, you should ALWAYS go look at a property first. This making an offer before the property is available to view, or offers as sight unseen, is crap! As a listing agent, I rarely every accept those offers. (1) they have really low Due Diligence fees, and (2) they don’t seem to get as much as expected from the sale. My suggestion to buyers is always wish big and be patient. I am in the business of solving problems, not really selling real estate.

As simple as my wishes were for a new house, it has been a struggle. We had to move the location so knock off #5 (Well, we didn’t really HAVE to, but someone – or some hubby – didn’t want “spend anymore money”). There aren’t as many closets as I would like (so I’m adding more once we move in – watch for the pantry build). But we finally have walls and windows and stairs and a roof! We still have a long way to go, but it’s beginning to feel real. Ever experience something that you wished for for so long and it doesn’t seem real, or it seems surreal, like an out-of-body experience. If not, maybe you’re not wishing big enough???