When a family considers building a custom home, they may jump hundreds of steps down the process to picking out paint colors and adding in their favorite pieces of furniture. Custom home building takes time and before Gerard Construction even breaks ground, there are questions you need to ask.
1. What are your family plans?
This question has multiple parts, and you need to consider your current and future needs. How big is your family now and how big does your family plan on being? The custom home we build for a single retiree will be very different from the custom home we build for a young family with more children on the way. Some homeowners may also want to consider if elderly parents or relatives may one day need a place to live. What’s more, you will want to think about whether you will be staying in the home long-term or if this is a shorter investment.
2. What factors in your home are most important?
Are you most interested in saving on energy costs? Do you want a home that is low maintenance? Are you expecting to be the party and entertaining home? Is expanding on your home critical for you in the future? Ranking what is and isn’t important to you will help guide your home building plans.
3. What materials do you want to use?
While there will be a lot of different decisions for you to make in the custom home building process, thinking through what building materials you want to use is important at the start. Thinking about if you want brick, stone, siding, or something else will help steer a timeline for acquiring materials and overall design needs.
4. What do you need from your builder?
Besides relying on your builder for their expertise, management, and execution of the project, you will be building a relationship with your team. Gerard Construction focuses on clear and consistent communication and partnering with our homeowners throughout the entire building process.
5. What is the most important space?
This question can help our team in a lot of ways. Not only does it tell us where you want to focus your energy and time, but also where you may want to flex your budget for the extra touches. We can also predict some of the other spaces where you may need help thinking about what you need because you haven’t thought about it as much.
6. Where do I build?
Gerard Construction is uniquely poised to help because of our vast experience in finance and home building. If you are looking to procure land, we can help you find the perfect location and if you are looking for the right neighborhood, we know all the best spots.
7. What is the toughest demand our builder faced and how was it handled?
We love talking about the homes we have built, even the ones that were more demanding. Sometimes it isn’t even the homeowner that made the demand, natural elements or shipping delays can cause demands we have to work around.
8. How do you handle delays?
In line with the question above, we know that communication helps in inevitable delays. We will also give a full run down of what we do in delays and what our estimated timeline will be from the start. Transparency and communication are key to our building process.
9. What is resale like on a custom home?
This question should be considered with your first question, in how long you plan to spend in your home. This will also depend on your own style and design plans, the trendier the home, the more difficult resale might be. That being said, people who are looking to buy a preowned home know there will be little nuances in every home they tour. We can talk more about your investment when we sit down together.
10. Can we see homes you have built?
We work closely with our previous homeowners to get their input and can put you in contact with them. Additionally, we sometimes have homes we are in the process of building that you can tour. A lot of this depends on timing, but we are happy to arrange what we can. You can also check out our project gallery to see some of our previous work!
If you are ready to custom build a home with us, contact us to make an appointment and request a copy of our Building a Custom Home eBook. We can guide you through every step and make your dream home into a reality.