By being the General Contractor (GC), determining building costs & hiring professionals (subcontractors) to do the actual work (That’s what a GC does), YOU can be your own General Contractor for ANY type of construction: New homebuilding to build your “Dream House”), room additions, remodeling older homes; Build log homes, kit homes, even renovate foreclosures. Since you are the “Boss”, YOU can chose your own house plans or home plans, YOU can design your kitchen, YOU can decide to build “Green”, build with Solar, Wind, geothermal heat pumps, or anything else YOU desire, and YOU can do it for a lot LESS! This page will provide you with the resources that you need.

Let’s Get Started!

1. First you must determine a budget. Cash + Loan = Total Budget
The amount you can borrow (mortgage) is based partly on your credit score.

You could just call any bank or mortgage lender. They will check your credit and determine how much you can borrow based on your income and debts. Don’t do this too often (once is enough for now) as numerous credit report inquires will lower your score. Checking your own credit does NOT have this effect.

2. Or go to myfico.com, or any other credit score source, and find out what all 3 of your scores are. The middle (throw out the high & the low score = the middle) credit score determines the interest rate you will pay. It’s that simple. The higher your score, the lower your rate and monthly payments will be!

Then, go to here, and see what interest rate and monthly payments your score will get you. (Scroll down a bit to see matrix)

3. Now determine your loan amount:
Affordability Calculator

4. Now, subtract land cost from total budget. The balance = the house building budget.
(If you don’t know land cost yet, plan on at least 25% of your total budget for land.)

5. Determine building costs based on design & size. This is a cost to build calculator, and you can play around with it until you get an idea of the size, basic design (# of corners and one story versus two stories), of what you can afford based on your budget. You can use floor plans from the home designers BELOW in # 6 to play around with on this calculator. You DON'T have to buy the plans yet, just use the floor plans that are on their web sites.This cost to build calculator is from Craftsman Book Company and it's FREE!

IMPORTANT NOTE:Due to a recent change in the calculator, you will get a more realistic cost to build by carefully examining the "Quality Classes" for all groups. Read carefully what the description says. You may want to experiment with a higher quality for one category that is more important to you than another. You can, and should, redo these estimates over and over to see what affects costs the most. For a complete breakdown of the Quality Classifications that the Cost to Build Calculator uses, CLICK here to view.

Go to the Calculator here:Building Costs by City & State

And for an instant look at both median average cost per sq ft (Median average = 1/2 of all the homes cost more to build and 1/2 cost less) and average cost per sq ft (Average = total dollars of all houses built divided by the number of houses built), study this chart from NAHB.

Click on logo to view chart

6. Now, look for plans:
HDA
Larry James Designs
Houseplans.com
coolhouseplans.com
America's Best House Plans
familyhomeplans.com
Associated Designs
Homeplangroup.com
Designconnection.com
Architectural House Plans
Original Home Plans

7. Perhaps you’d like to design your own home:
Punch Software
www.Plan3D.com
3DHA Home

8. Using a spreadsheet and #5 above, determine a preliminary cost to build for your house plan.
Cost Estimating Software

9. Here are FREE sample contracts and forms: 3 Contracts to Build , Carpentry Labor Contract, Subcontractor Contract, Checklist for Buying Land, Description of Materials for Your Appraiser, Full Waiver of lien, & Partial Waiver of lien.

10. Subcontractors: The Best Place to find the lowest labor prices is on NEW home construction sites…we GC’s keep labor costs low! You do NOT want remodeling contractors. Here’s a Free PDF from me on: Subcontractors, finding, scheduling, overseeing, & paying them. Read more about Subcontractors here.

For prescreened subcontractors:
Servicemagic
Angie’s List

11. Get a good construction loan:

Read First: Construction Loans

Owner/Builder Loan Sources:

BuildMax
Owner Builder Loan Services
Normandy Self Build Loan
DIY Homes
CLM (Michigan loans only)


12. No video, book, or seminar can teach you a construction trade. That takes OJT (On the Job Training). But as the GC, it’s nice to be familiar with things. Here are the most professional Home Building Video Tips Available from HGTV…and they are FREE!
Home Building Video Tips