Building a dream home is exciting—but if you’re not careful, costs can spiral out of control. Here are practical, proven hacks to help you stay on budget while still getting the home you want. For most people, building a new home is a huge expense and one that needs to be thought out. There are several things you can do that will save you money in the process. I’m going to share my top five.
First, start with a realistic budget and add 10% cushion.
This is critical. It can be really easy to be distracted and change your mind during the process. This usually comes with budget changes as well. If you know what you want from day one, everything will go smoother. This means you go room by room and know what materials you would like, what finish work you would like and about how much those things cost. Pinterest is a huge, free resource for this! I suggest going room by room and creating a board that reflects what you would like it to look like. This includes exterior as well. It is important to do your research before you start to build so you don’t waste valuable time stressing over decisions. The 10% cushion is amazing to have for small adds throughout that you know you have money set aside for.
Second, use the internet to do research while building your new home.
There are so many great tools and resources online to help you build a new home. My greatest tool was Pinterest when building a new home. It gave me all sorts of ideas and a very simple and easy way to organize those ideas into boards. I would highly recommend creating a Pinterest board for every single room in your new home. This simplifies things and gives you a reference to come back to throughout the process of building a new home.
Third, find a great builder that cares about you.
This should probably be number one. In all of the building stories I heard from friends where things went awry, it was due to the builder. Make sure you find a builder that you get along with because you will be talking to them on almost a daily basis for the entirety of the build. I would highly recommend talking to previous clients and hearing what their experience was like. I would also recommend walking through some of their previous builds. It really helps if they have built a house similar to the one you are hoping to build. Different builders have different standards for their sub contractors and you want to make sure it matches your budget and expectations. You need to ask them what they estimate your cost per square foot to be. It is critical you learn how to negotiate with a home builder.
Fourth, Prioritize Must-haves vs. Nice-to-Haves.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t know anyone that had an unlimited budget for their new build. The large majority of people building a new home have to prioritize what is most important to them when building so they can fit in a budget. For us, we wanted to prioritize getting the finishes we wanted throughout the home. We shrunk the house by 500 square feet in order to give ourselves a bigger budget. Talking with your builder before they begin and going line by line over every expense is also very helpful. They should be very clear about budget and cost. Most builders work on a cost plus basis, so ask before you start building and make sure you understand how they bill you.
Fifth, be willing to wait.
This one is tough. I would love to have my entire home completely finished when I move in, but I know that is not super realistic. We chose to not finish a bonus room upstairs and a storage room in the basement in order to save money. We don’t need them right now and can use them for storage. Know that it is ok to design and decorate a home in phases, depending on your available budget. You can also do some DIY in your home build if that interests you.
I hope these tips were helpful. Building a new home is so exciting and fun – but also terrifying. Hopefully these five hacks will help you stay in budget and build the home of your dreams.
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