Hidden Costs of buiding a house?

[aprilfoolwed]

We have been talking about moving FOREVER, and this weekend, we got some great news. My father is willing to buy our current home from us (to use as an income property)! So in a week or two, we will complete the transaction, freeing up our money to look for a new home. In addition, my dad is willing to let us rent our current home from him until we find new housing, which gives us so much flexibility.

We have found a neighborhood we love - it's new construction, so we're looking at 7+ months until we can move it. The price of the home is a little higher than what we would like to spend, so we are working with our realtor to negotiate a better price.

If we are able to do so, we want to go ahead and go under contract to build. We have looked at available options to upgrade the home, and are very modest with our selections (this will truly be a case of us buying the least expensive home in a rather expensive neighborhood).

But it's been a long time since we did this - what are the hidden costs of building a home? We know what the land and home will cost, we know what we need to put down, and we know what we will pay for options. Before signing anything we will have a good faith estimate done for closing costs and such.

But what else do we need to put money away for? Things like window treatments?

This is all happening so quickly now (although we've be planning for years!) and I don't want to jump in without really considering everything. I know new homes can have some surprises.

 

[Suz D]

We have been talking about moving FOREVER, and this weekend, we got some great news. My father is willing to buy our current home from us (to use as an income property)! So in a week or two, we will complete the transaction, freeing up our money to look for a new home. In addition, my dad is willing to let us rent our current home from him until we find new housing, which gives us so much flexibility.

We have found a neighborhood we love - it's new construction, so we're looking at 7+ months until we can move it. The price of the home is a little higher than what we would like to spend, so we are working with our realtor to negotiate a better price.

If we are able to do so, we want to go ahead and go under contract to build. We have looked at available options to upgrade the home, and are very modest with our selections (this will truly be a case of us buying the least expensive home in a rather expensive neighborhood).

But it's been a long time since we did this - what are the hidden costs of building a home? We know what the land and home will cost, we know what we need to put down, and we know what we will pay for options. Before signing anything we will have a good faith estimate done for closing costs and such.

But what else do we need to put money away for? Things like window treatments?

This is all happening so quickly now (although we've be planning for years!) and I don't want to jump in without really considering everything. I know new homes can have some surprises.

How exciting and what a great situation. Hooray for your dad (although I know it will likely be a good situation for him as well).

I don't have much to add but here are a few. Storage units. We bought some shelving for our basement to store stuff that had been on built in shelving in our other house. We also had more bathrooms so we needed a couple of additional bath mats. And of course we all want to put a few decorative touches on a new home.

Landscaping. Is the lawn included? What about any bushes etc. We bought some decorative shrubs to put out front.

Enjoy this process. It's so much fun!!

 

[imtheluckyone]

Ditto on the lanscaping...this can really add up!
also, lots of little things...toliet paper holders, towel racks, mailbox, curtain rods, blinds/shades, etc. Does the builder include cabinet hardware (knobs and/or pulls)? How about closet shelving and/or rods? Kitchen appliances?
Make sure they "allowances" they give you are realistic. For example: they say you have $500 to spend for light fixtures and may seem like a lot...but trust me it's not when you need to account for every single room, outdoor lights, garage, basement, etc. You may find you need double or triple the amount they allow you.
Good luck! It's very exciting to build a new home!

 

[amcnj]

Congrats! Since it is new contruction, I assume it would include a level of appliances and landscaping. You said you have already looked at the options, and thus have a feel for the level of flooring, cabinets , etc as well as any other possible structural changes available. So if you are satisfied with the options you have decided upon, there should not be a lot more you need right off the bat. The window treatments you mentioned already. Even those you can get temporary paper accordian type ones for little money at home repair type stores. Just don't leave them up too too long as the paper can become brittle from the sun and fall apart when you try to remove them! As you already are in a home, you probably have most hosuehold items needed too. You might also have moving expenses, some utility deposit and/or hookup fees, need some additional furniture or bathroom rugs/ shower curtains, etc if the number of rooms differs from your current home.

 

[Suz D]

Ditto on the lanscaping...this can really add up!
also, lots of little things...toliet paper holders, towel racks, mailbox, curtain rods, blinds/shades, etc. Does the builder include cabinet hardware (knobs and/or pulls)? How about closet shelving and/or rods? Kitchen appliances?
Make sure they "allowances" they give you are realistic. For example: they say you have $500 to spend for light fixtures and may seem like a lot...but trust me it's not when you need to account for every single room, outdoor lights, garage, basement, etc. You may find you need double or triple the amount they allow you.
Good luck! It's very exciting to build a new home!

The appliance allowance is a good point. I was assuming you meant that type of things when you indicated that you knew the upgrades you would be making, but in case you weren't this is great advice. Our appliance allowance was not great and neither was our cabinetry allowance. Our contractor got most of our stuff at Lowe's and we ended up buying a few things out of pocket that were on sale (light fixtures etc). That put us under the allowance for lighting. Then the additional $$ that wasn't spent in that category was applied to our appliance budget. We also bought some closeout bathroom cabinets out of pocket and used that additional $$ towards some better kitchen cabinets.

 

[3pletprincesses]

Driveway, we had to pay out of pocket for it as it was left at gravel and the city gave us a year to get it fixed... not something we had thought of.

 

[bgirl29]

Make sure the garage and driveway are the size you want them. When we looking at home plans they all came with garages that had no storage space in them.

 

[crjack]

We didnt move to a new home but we did do a very large remodel a few years back. Two things we had to decide on when our home was all opened up was central air and an alarm system.

(Your new home specs may already include both so that could be a non-issue. )

For us, we went way over on the number of recessed lights, particularly in our kitchen. On paper it looked good but once we saw the room all framed we realized we needed more, even with island pendants, etc.

Small things like outlet covers or window hardware can add up but decorative items, nice window treatments, etc you can buy over time as your budget allows.

Best of luck.

 

[disneymarie]

Potential for hidden cost in utility hook ups, the appliances, if you want to upgrade any flooring and painting. The paint they used was inexpensive and had to do all the rooms with quaility paint. THe upgrade sells on door knobs, trim finish, light fixtures, They had a standard bulb in the ceiling, all lighting we had an allowance for, but it was not going far enough to meet the needs of at least nice hanging lights, and hall fixtures.

The amount for top soil, labor, seeding, was an add on, there was a small allowance for site, but only to level and throw down seed, no grooming. sidewalks and the driveway was not included in our cost, that was an add on.
Good luck and enjoy.

If there was any piece of advice I should have taken when we built 20 years ago; finish it all now. Do not cut corners saying you will finish the basement, the garage, or laundry area. For the nominal amount in the monthly payment, do it now.
I still have an unfinished bathroom and trim downstairs in the bilevel. ALso, what we did finish took years and twice the expence at our our own labor,.

Not worth the nominal savings a month.

 

[Crystal0608]

I bought my house about 2/3 finished with construction.
Things not included with my house I now have or want:
matching stainless fridge $1500
mailbox $50
storm door $250 inc installation
outdoor light posts $300
backyard flood security lights $100
landscaping..working on
not enough grass seed/work done for slope issue cost ?
staining of my back deck
back yard walkway
blower for my fireplace (inc a switch though?)

Things I like that were included though I don't know the cost:
dishwasher
stove with build in range/microwave
brushed nickel everything (faucets, ceiling fans, knobs)
Closet & pantry storage racks
closet with shelves in master bath- handy for towels & pjs
chair rail moulding in dining & living area
3rd bathroom hidden under stairs
storage area in garage (would have loved a door/shelves here)

 

[pumpkinmomma]

I think others have covered most of this stuff, but here is a list of what came to mind for me

Window treatments
Landscaping, grass (either sod or seeding), trees
Cabinet hardware
Towel racks, tp holders, shower curtain rods, shower curtains, etc
will you need additional furniture?
Appliances- this allowance is almost always too low.
Closets- what is included? Will you want to add organizers, will you need rods, etc?
Moving expenses- movers, utility hookups, packing supplies, etc.
keys, garage door openers
Mailbox

 

[My2CrazyGirls]

LANDSCAPING!!!!! Find out what the requirements are. We literally had to put in 6 trees, 12 bushes, 16 perennials, only 50% grass (we lived in CO). We got an estimate to have it all done and they wanted 25K! I literally cried! But we ended up doing most of it ourselves (just had a company build us a retaining wall) including a sprinkler system for under 16K. Also, if your home has sidewalks sometimes you have to pay for those extra.

 

[marthachick]

Yeah, "dirt cheap" ain't cheap! Cause there ain't no cheap dirt! We had to buy dirt to fill in our yard & it was very expensive.

 

[schawnmarie]

I think everyone has already hit the majority of "extra" costs but I have one piece of advice. On our first house we built, the builder installed builder grade light fixtures and door knobs and sink fixtures. When we moved in, we bought what we wanted and slowly replaced them all. With our most recent build, I worked with my builder and avoided the waste and simply added to my allotment for fixtures and bought the ones I wanted from the get go. I don't know why I didn't do that the first time! What a waste!

 

[rentayenta]

This may or may not be a hidden cost as we built our own home but..... down the line everything cost about 10% more than we predicted even with getting multiple bids from sub contractors. Whatever your house is going to cost to build, add a flat percentage on to to that.

The biggies for us were fill dirt, about $20K and landscaping. We also put in 2 heaters and 2 ac units which cost more upfront but have more than paid for themselves.

 

[emilymad]

The garage door opener was our big one. Towel bars too. For some reason they only put one in the master bathroom. We haven't done too much else yet. We have been over 3 years and I am just getting to the point of wanting to upgrade the light fixtures. We were lucky with our builder that a lot of the included finishes were very nice. Everything is brushed nickel, etc.

We skimped on getting a kitchen backsplash and I regret that. It would have just been easier/cheaper to have the builder do it. We also went with the included carpets and they aren't holding up so great. We knew that when we bought though. I didn't want to pick out expensive carpet and not like the colors later. We aren't thrilled with the included countertops in the bathrooms. They stain really easily which we did know when we bought. We spent the money on upgrading the cabinets in the bathrooms figuring it would be easy to switch out the counters later.

Good luck! We love having our home as new construction!

 

[#1hoosierfan]

One thing I have not seen mentioned yet is paintcolor changes. Our builder is allowing us 2 colors in the house and after that, each color change is $100.

 

[riley2008]

Just my 2 cents - if you have to scrimp on things, do it on the things that can be relatively easy to replace in years to come.

Use your allowances for upgrades to carpet, flooring, cabinets, tile and things like that. Things that will cost thousands to replace at any one time. Paint, door handles, light fixtures, light switches and switch plates, closet cabinetry, even plumbing fixtures can be upgraded fairly easily. (You may even be able to start shopping for those things now and find some closeout deals or something on-line.)

IMHO - if you have to give up for example, the better quality cabinetry for landscaping - forgo the landscaping (as long as there are no neighborhood ordinances).

Enjoy the home building adventure!

 

[Crystal824]

We built three years ago. Some hidden costs that added up during the build, included lighting. Our floor plan did not include ceiling fixtures in every room (only kitchen and bathrooms. We paid to have the electrical wires run and capped. Later DH and my DF installed the fixtures we purchased. To do this in every room was almost $2,000. Then purchasing the fixtures added up quickly. Our floorplan only included a couple of phone jacks/internet connections. We also paid to get those in every room (except bathrooms). Who knows what you might evenetually use that room for. That was a bit of extra cash too.

We went ahead and paid to the electrical wires run so we could easily mount our tv on the wall.

Don't forget blinds/window treatments. You will need those as soon as you move in.

Some things we have done since building, included paving the driveway (it isn't required in our township but it is alot nicer than the gravel driveway). We also put in a patio, which we really wanted to be able to have some living space outside. It was almost a must that we paint. We still haven't finished the entire house. The paint they used is terrible and easily rubs off when cleaning the wall.

We plan to add a back splash and storm door this summer.

We also paid to buy down our interest rate. Rates are so low, you probably won't need to do that now.

 

[shamrock30]

We bought the first house in a development. It was a builder's model, so a slightly different situation. It already had some very nice upgrades. However, it needed bars to hang the shower curtains from, towel racks, bath tissue holders, all window treatments, including shades and curtain rods, all light fixtures except for the recessed lighting and the two chandeliers that they included. We bought and installed all of these ourselves. The landscaping was included, so we didn't have to worry about that. It all needed to be repainted though, unless we wanted builder's white. What the builder did do for us--installed hardwood floors everywhere, and roughed out the basement so it could easily be turned into a rec room or whatever if we wanted it to be.