Many people tell us that they would like to build a home but do not know where to start. Well the simple answer is start at the beginning. The beginning for any building project is the land. Before you can fully design a home, you must have a specific site. You can make some decisions about how many bedrooms and baths you require and the general size of home you want, but the actual home plans must be created around a specific site. Oh sure, you can pick out a plan from a magazine, but that is sort of like buying a "one size fits all" set of seat covers. It sort of fits, just doesn’t look all that great.

Before you rush out and start looking at every piece of land listed in the newspaper or real estate MLS. You can save yourself a lot of time spent driving around by eliminating the land that does not fit in your budget. To determine your land budget, decide how much you are going to spend on the whole project. If you decide that the maximum you want to spend on a new home is $200,000, the land should not cost more than about $50,000 to $66,000, 25% - 33%.

OK, once you find a piece of land that you like and it fits your budget, you have to figure out how to pay for it. Cash is nice, but maybe not realistic. Try and avoid a land loan. Land loans are expensive and if you are planning to build right away, a waste of money. A better option is to have the seller allow an extended escrow, 60 - 90 days or to carry the land loan for a short term, three to six months. This will allow you time to hire an architect or designer and generate a set of building plans. Once you have plans, even preliminary plans, we can appraise your proposed home and fund both the land and construction costs with one loan.

As you can imagine, this process needs to move along at a pretty fast clip to save money. We suggest that you invest some time in educating yourself by attending our "Housebuilding and Remodeling" course. It is never too early to learn. Our classes will help you to better understand and to think critically about house building. Better information = Better decisions.

You may be wondering what's involved with being an owner builder, how the project would actually go. Here's an overview of the construction sequence of events. The following sequence for a typical construction project is offered as a guide only. Your project may vary and could contain different tasks.