At some point in your life, you are likely to need the services of a home builder to create your dream home.  The choice of your builder will be dictated by your needs, your ability and willingness to pay. Most new home builders are general contractors who hire specific contractors from different trades to construct your new home according to the plan you provide and the specifications laid down for each segment of work. Typically, home builders can be categorized as custom builders, semi-custom builders and production builders. Let us, therefore, explore the different categories of builders and how they tune in with your aspirations.

General contractor

General contractors like the Hickory group are also often called prime contractors and they hire contractors from specific trades (subcontractors)  to cater to different functions involved in building your home. The home owner will enter a contract with the general contractor while the general contractor will have a subcontract with contractors from other trades to fulfil the requirements laid down in the main contract.

Advantages of having a general contractor: The homeowner has a single point of contact responsible for facilitating the construction of the home throughout the project duration.  General contractors such as Hickory have the ability to secure better service and product pricing than what the home owner can get through direct negotiation.  By hiring a general contractor, you can potentially mitigate operational, financial and contractual issues related to hiring multiple contractors through your own involvement and efforts.

Disadvantages:  If your project is very small like a home improvement or does not involve too many tradesmen and pretty simple that just one or two independent contractors can execute the job, a GC may not be best suited for the task.  Appointing a GC to handle this type of work may not be cost effective.

Home builders:

This represents a broad category with several types of housing options. Custom home builders, semi-custom home builders and production home builders can all figure under this category. Though most home builders conduct their business similar to a general contractor and accomplish the tasks given to them through subcontractors, their business activities are generally limited to home building.

Production home builders

Typically, production home builders will provide a set of standard plans for your new home and build your home in a very well defined area like subdivisions. At times, the homes will also build to specifications while at other times, the home owner may have the liberty to choose a home or a lot that they prefer. Formally, the production home builders were known as tract builders, since they focused on building cost effective and small cookie cutter homes on small tracts of land. The cost of such homes typically pegged lower with the exception that prices rose with the rise in land cost.

Advantages – With production home builders, you have the ability to simplify most of the process of decision making in constructing a new home and is significantly faster compared to other types of home builders.

Disadvantage – This type of home builders do not permit structural changes to the plans like modifications, moving walls etc, to the external profile of your home. In order to streamline the construction process and control costs, they may also not permit homeowners to choose products going into the construction.

Semi-custom builders

Commonly, the semi-custom builders are a hybrid of custom builders and production builders. While they offer standard plans, they may also bring architectural and operational capabilities to make certain modifications to the plans subject to additional incidence of cost. The cost charged by this type of home builders can be in the region of $250 per square foot.

Advantages – With semi-custom builders, you have the benefit of both worlds since they bring the ease of production builders as well as the ability to make major changes to your plans. This can also be an affordable option compared to custom builders.

Disadvantages – You may still be required to buy your new home from stock plans provided by the builders.  Even with modifications you may not be able to get an element of unique design for your home.

Custom home builders

This type of builders is ideal when you are looking for unique features in your home.  Typically,  you would expect to pay top dollars for custom homes and the pricing can be anywhere between $250 and  $1,000 depending on a wide range of factors influencing input costs.

Advantages – This type of home builders provide a formal proposal for home plans either from their stock lot or facilitate a wholly new design. Custom homes can reflect your personality and personal lifestyle. Usually, home designs provided by custom home builders are unique and the process is also different, particularly when you have certain specific plan documents.

Disadvantages – This category of home builders are significantly more expensive compared to other options you may have. Custom homes also involve significantly more time for the owner as well as the builder since a wide range of major and minor details will need close examination.  Generally, custom homes also involve a significant amount of time and can consume up to two years before the owner can move in.

Factors influencing a custom home

A primary question that the homeowner should find an answer to while building a custom home is the type of home builder he can trust with. Custom home builders are professional advisers in the process of homebuilding.  Their role is confined to safeguarding your interests while also guiding you through the experience of home building.  There are several complexities involved in building custom homes. A logical starting point would be a home site that you own or building plans that have been frozen.

Selecting your home builder

If you have commissioned a designer for preparing the construction documents, potentially you have also provided him with a building site and budget as fundamental conditions.  Once this is achieved, the next step is to interview a selection of custom home builders. This part of the task is approached differently by different people, but the number of people you involve in the initial screening process, the easier it gets in zeroing down to qualifying builders to obtain a formal bid.

Conclusion

You can save money and time when you understand the types of different home builders and tune in with your specific needs.