Once you have everything planned out, written down, and your dream house plan drawn to scale, you are ready to make your first hire.
Hiring people has been a new experience for me. I have never been anyone’s boss before, and Farmer and I don’t hire people to do many things for us. We like to be as self sufficient as possible. So here are a few things I have learned about hiring sub-contractors that will make your experience a little easier.
- These are people, just like you and I, trying to make a living. For the most part, they are good, honest, hard working people that are genuinely trying to help you. But there are a few scumbags out there. You need to be aware that you are shopping not only for the best price, but also for the best service. You need to know the people you are hiring before you give them any money. If you take the time to get to know the subcontractors, talk to them often, and find out as much about them and their services as possible, you will hire people that will help make your job easier instead of harder. It’s worth taking the time to get to know them.
- Subcontractors that want your business, will match other companies prices. Even if you find someone you are completely comfortable with, keep shopping around for prices so you can get the best service WITH the best price. If you shop long enough and hard enough, you will find the perfect fit.
- Writing down the questions I had and the numbers I needed to remember before dialing the number made all the difference. It’s not very fun to call someone for a quote and then have to call them back ten minutes later because you forgot to tell them what size you needed or ask them for their email address. Think it through, write it down, then make the call.
- Call first thing in the morning. This is not always the case, but often times I have found that if you call first thing then you make it to the top of the list. The subcontractor will get your quote done quickly and get it back to you that day. If you call them right before closing time, they have all night to forget about your conversation.
- Ask TONS of questions. The more information you can get out of every single person you talk to, the better it is for you. For one, you are learning all the things you need to be doing, so who better to teach you than the guys who do it for a living in your area? And for two, you need to weed out the people who are not going to be a good fit for your job. You want to find the guys and girls who are willing to talk you through things and who honestly want to help you with your dream. If they aren’t willing to discuss things with you and answer your questions now, they probably aren’t ever going to.
Okay so now that you are all ready to find and hire someone to draw up your house plans, let’s talk about your different options.
I have met some people who have drawn up their own house plans. As in, they did all the official measuring, drawing, labeling, and everything else required to submit to the building department. I can honestly say that I don’t know how they did it. There is so much required in a set of blue prints, I could never have done it myself. The details needed for a job like that are so specific, and in my opinion, you need to know what you are doing to DIY. I am not saying, that no one can do it, I am just saying that I never could have in a million years.
So if you aren’t drawing up your own, you are left with three options:
- Find a friend who knows what they are doing
- Hire a designer
- Hire an architect
If you have a friend with drafting software and experience drawing up house plans, this is a fine option to take. There are a lot of people we have found that do this as a side hobby. They aren’t licensed designers or architects so they are cheaper, but there are also some risks you are taking.
They probably aren’t as experienced. They might take way longer to get the job done. If a problem arises with your house plans or they need something unique done, they may not be able to do it.
If you decide to go this route, make sure that your city/county doesn’t require you to have a certified designer/architect/engineer stamp the plans.
Hiring a designer is what most people that I know choose to do. A designer has the proper training to draw up the blue prints and he/she should be cheaper than hiring an architect. Designers are known for being practical and keeping things as simple as possible.
An architect, on the other hand, has additional training. If your dream home is an especially complicated one or is on a very difficult lot, you might need an architect to draw up the plans. They are generally more expensive, but it is for good reason. They are trained to be creative and artistic and very involved in your project.
If you have done your homework, you know what you want, and you are prepared with detailed specifications for your new home, a designer should do just fine under normal circumstances. An architect can cost up to 5 times that of a designer, so keep that in mind when you are making your decision.
What did we do?
Well, we actually had a very interesting experience. We knew a guy, who knew a guy, who did it as a side hobby. So we started out by hiring this new friend. He is known as a very responsible and honest guy so we jumped at the chance to have him draw up our plans. He was also very inexpensive because he charged by the hour.
So let’s call him designer #1 (yes, that means we have a designer #2) Farmer and I met with designer #1, and a few months later had our new house plans. They turned out exactly how I wanted them, and we were thrilled with designer #1.
Then I met with a potential general contractor. (Side note, we shopped for general contractors a bit in case we found a deal we couldn’t refuse before we decided to be our own general contractor.)This general contractor told us that the county we were building in (Grant County) was incredibly strict on building plans and that our blue prints would need some additional things in order to pass.
So I called up designer #1 to discuss this with him. We decided it would be best for us to find a designer who knew what the county wanted since designer #1 had no experience with our county. The general contractor that we met with, offered to finish our plans for a fraction of his normal price. This guy came highly recommended as well, so we decided this was the best option. He turned out to be very helpful in other ways too, offering advice and instruction for different aspects of our home. We were very pleased with designer #2, but disappointed that we ended up having to pay two different designers because of complications.
So once you have determined which route you want to take, you are going to actually have to find someone to hire. It’s really too bad they don’t just come to you right?
I want you to treat every single hire and every single material purchase like it is the only one you are going to make. You should shop and research and price match until you can’t find anyone else. Some of the best deals we have found, have come after hours and hours of phone calls and emails. It’s a process and it will take awhile, but I am going to teach you how to do it.
- Start a list. Write the job at the top of your paper, in this case it would be “house designer/architect. List every single person or company and their phone number, that is a possibility. Then include a few details about them like where they operate out of, any connection you have to them, and anything that stands out. You will probably start out with a very small list unless you know lots of people in the construction biz. Include friends you have that know something about that job even if they don’t do it for a living. It’s good to have someone who can answer questions for you. Now add to that list by searching on the internet for designers in your area, calling people you know who have built homes in the last few years, stopping at new home sites and asking who the designer was, or any other way you can get more phone numbers on your list. Information is power. Information is money. The more you have in this case, the better off you will be.
- Make another list. Stay organized here people, the amount of lists you are going to make over the next little while is probably in the thousands. This list will be all the questions you have for a designer. Be detailed and write it all down. Keep these lists handy so whenever you have a question, you can write it down on the appropriate list.
- Make your first call. Take a deep breath, it’s going to be okay. With each new hire, the first call is always the hardest. Personally, I felt like every time I had to “make the first call” I didn’t know what I should be asking for. Sometimes I didn’t even know what exactly that person was supposed to do. That’s why it helps to have these lists. They are a starting point. Have your list ready, and a pen and paper to write down everything that person says. Always write the persons name that you talked to, the date, and the company they work for, next to your notes. Otherwise you end up forgetting who said what because of the amount of people you are going to need to talk to. It’s okay to tell them you don’t exactly know what you are doing. It will be easy to see which people are going to be helpful and which people don’t want to deal with an amateur. Your designer especially needs to know that you are inexperienced. He will need to know that you welcome advice and suggestions.
- Make as many calls as you can. Call everyone on your list and keep adding to it for as long as you can. Tell them all you are “shopping for a designer”. That way you aren’t misleading anyone, you are letting them know that you are looking for someone who is a good fit to hire. It will also let them know that they need to give you a good reason to hire them, and they will work harder for your business if they want it.
- Narrow it down. Once you have talked to a whole bunch of people and you have quotes from all of them, it should be pretty easy to narrow it down to 2 or 3 based on prices and how people treated you. Don’t forget the people who get recommended to you. If someone who built a house before you remembers the name of one of the sub contractors, it probably means they did an excellent job.
- Make an offer. I find it a lot easier to do this last part over email because you can figure out a way to say it just right, and you don’t have to worry about something popping out of your mouth that shouldn’t have. Start with your #1 pick. In the email tell them that they are your first choice and why. (Maybe they were especially helpful, they come highly recommended, you admire their work, or they were always quick to get back to you) Be honest and tell them what they did right to make you want to hire them. Then explain to them that you have a very tight budget (because you do) and that you would like to make them an offer. Now I can’t tell you how much to offer them because each situation is different, but I can tell you that I usually wished I had offered less than I did. Every time I have made someone an offer they have either said yes, or they have dropped their price to somewhere in the middle. Either way, that’s money saved. So decide on how much you would like to offer them. Pick a specific number, don’t just ask for “less”. Do you have your number? Okay now lower it even farther. They might say no …. but then again …. they might say yes. On one occasion I asked for nearly $1000 off. I was super nervous. Within a few minutes, the company got back to me with a yes! For about 5 seconds I was jumping with joy, and then all of a sudden I thought “dang it, what if they would have gone lower? They didn’t even have to think twice about accepting my offer.” So put some thought into your offer before you make it. Remember that every dollar counts, and you should be treating every decision like it’s the only one you are going to make. After you hit send, go do something to keep your mind off of it until they respond. If they say yes to your offer, do a little happy dance and give yourself a pat on the back. If they make you a counter offer, consider it and decide if it will work for you. It’s okay to haggle, guys. If they say no, then make an offer to your #2. Keep emailing and negotiating until you are super confident with your hire.
One important thing to keep in mind during this stage of building your house, is that working things out on paper is much easier and cheaper than changing things during the construction phase. Spend the extra time now to choose the right designer and be sure that you are 100% over the top thrilled with your house plans. Otherwise, you may regret it forever. If you choose a designer and somehow, even after all your shopping, he turns out to be a scumbag, drop him and find a new one. This is way too important of a thing to have to settle for something you aren’t happy with.
I created an “everything you need to do before meeting with your designer” checklists so you can check off each thing once you are finished with it. When everything is checked off, you are all set to meet with your designer, yay! Sign up below for the FREE checklist. No fees, no obligations, just FREE resources to help you build your own house.
If you would like to know what to expect to pay a designer, I wrote all about it in Step 2. You can CLICK HERE to read that.
CLICK HERE if you are ready for Step 4: Gathering information
Any questions so far? If I am leaving things out that you want to know about, please let me know!
~Farmer’s Wife
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Amanda says
Hi there! Quick question- were your designers able to give you an estimate on what it would cost to actually build the structure you designed? Months ago I drew up my dream home much like you did (I still need to do it again to scale but I have my rough sketch) but I have absolutely no idea what it would cost to build that structure and if it’s even feasible for us. I know fixtures and flooring etc etc will play into that cost but I was wondering if the designer could give a rough estimate for the structure not including all the finishes??
farmerswife@therealfarmhouse.com says
Many designers will do that for you, but it’s a pretty rough guess unless you sit down and go over everything with them. Our designer basically gave us two quotes and told us what he thought the cheapest we could build it for was, and then what it would cost if we put in high end finishes. The difference was over $100,000. It depends a lot on where you live and what you plan on putting in your home but around here they say $100 a square foot is the low end and over $200 a square foot is the high end. Well for us that means $400,000 or $800,000 …. that’s a pretty huge range! If you want a quote for the structure without the finishes, ask your designer if he will do that for you. If he won’t, you can always take your house design to a general contractor and talk to him about it. It is their job to tell you how much it will cost to build a house, then you will have something to go off of.
Amanda says
Great, thank you!
StacyR says
There is also research to do when it comes to getting that price closer to a $100 Sq ft versus $200. The less corners in a house the better. The less architectural details the less expensive. Grouping your plumbing together versus all over the house. Building in 4′ increments (for example a 16 foot space or a 20′ space instead of an 18′ so there is less waste.
A 2 story house is always less expensive than a one story because the foundation and roofing costs. I thought about these things before I fell in love with the perfect design.
Leah h says
Stacy R is there a list with things such as the example u listed yes I get it most building material comes in 4ft but it’s easier to waste small amounts of Sheetrock then to add more concrete but yes I know what u mean I never actually thought of it that way