Keeping your custom home on budget

We recently had some great conversations about remodeling and custom home building. Among them, a surprising figure came up in the discussion. We heard that area builders are routinely coming in at 20% higher than the original bid. We were shocked. This isn’t how Silverwood Building Specialists do business!

The Cost of Building a House

We decided to explore with our fans why these builders (and homeowners) can be so far off the mark, and why we aren’t. We’ve talked about why the price per square foot is the wrong frame of mind when it comes to custom homes, but let’s look at why most builders’ processes lead to a higher final price.

There are a lot of resources and info-graphics that talk about the average and proportional costs associated with building a home. Most of them get their information from the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) or Home Advisor. One thing these resources do is give you an idea of where the costs originate in different phases of a build. What they don’t illuminate is the actual costs (instead of average).

Variable costs change all the time; Things like labor and building materials like gypsum (drywall), steel, and softwood framing lumber. However, the biggest driver of changes during your build – change orders.

Bottom line: Change Orders

Change orders can come from any phase of a build. Certain stages are more likely to generate them, and they arise from both problems and preferences.

There are many reasons for construction change orders, but changes in design, material substitutions, and the like often delay the project and typically alter the price. Large, custom homes especially, take much time to put a proper bid together. Are other area builders taking shortcuts? That’s not for us to say.

What’s Different at Silverwood?

When we put together a bid, we ask many questions. Our attention to detail can lengthen the bid process time-frame to produce fewer surprises (change orders). Do we still get change orders? Absolutely. Our change orders tend to be more nuanced, and less shocking surprises.

Since surprises are what define these price increases, how do our results compare? We looked back at our last 14 contracts and crunched the numbers. We’re averaging only 6.2% off the contract price.

A Better Way to Build

The first step in building a house with less stress is calling Silverwood Enterprises. Our contract price precision shows that our attention to detail prevents avoidable cost increases. Our process also allows us to guarantee a completion date. What’s better than the home you dreamed of on time and budget?