I had the opportunity to work for a home builder while I stayed and worked on a reno of my own. I truly feel that if you are thinking of getting into the home reno business that you should try and find your way to work with a professional in some way. I didn’t have any family with any experience so it was the best way I knew how to get the inside scoop on the trades, the home design and the interior decorating in one short season and of course make some money while you’re at it. I learned what I needed to know about the costs and what it would take to build my own or renovate. Of course, this also had its limits and the designs were for the suburbs but for functional city living in Alberta.
Top 5 things that I would tell a consumer buying a new home
- Get pre-approved! Knowing what you can spend before walking into a new home builder is key to staying within budget. It’s not got what you see when it comes to a new home, they always make show homes with the best of the best so if you walk into a show home and they quote you a price, it’s usually the base price and the add ons could be up to or even more than $100k over and above. Not always but be prepared that it likely won’t be what you see.
- Be prepared for delays. They just happen, construction delays, permit delays and mistake delays are all common in building a new home. I’m not telling you this to deter you but just so that you can set yourself up with realistic expectations and when those delays come you can be cool calm and collected. And if you happen to get your house right on time or early ( which is also possible ) you can be excited that they came through on time.
- Make sure your salesperson has been working for the company for a while. You want to make sure of this for a few reasons, 1:there’s a ton to know about your build so you are going to want your agent to be an expert. 2. That industry has a lot of employee turnover and you want to work with the same agent right until the day you take possession or else it comes becomes a real mess and the relationship you build will help keep you calm if there are any delays.
- Speak to a designer before you choose all the colours or theme if this is something you are not good at yourself. You may also want to consider the furniture you have and what you may need to get to fill the house. Put this into consideration for cost.
- Ask about landscaping but be prepared to hire it out. You can often get a better deal if you hire it out after the fact but you are looking at 10k-20k depending on the size of the house and yard so make sure you factor that into the whole cost of the house or up and above the cost of the house.
I hope this helps you in some way. If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to comment below. That was a great season for me and I got to work with some incredible people. I took a lot of what I learned with me onto other projects.