Moving Your Home Business? How to Choose a Builder for Your New Home

Building a home offers many benefits — you get to choose the location of the house, the overall style of the architecture, and you can completely customize the floorplan. Choosing to build new house results in a home you’ll love for a very long time. But before you can start building your dream home, you need to find the right builder. Here are a few important tips to help you choose the best builder for your home.

Know what you’re looking for

Building a custom home is not a one-size-fits-all kind of project. There are different types of custom home builders to consider, so it’s important to know what you want. Builders often specialize in a certain style of home and it’s important to choose a company that focuses on your preferred style. Research builders that offer what you’re looking for, whether it’s eco-friendly building materials, a simple single-family home, or a luxury condo.

Renovating your home office - these are the safety considerations you need to know — Photo by Daniel McCullough on Unsplash

Know what you’re looking for

Ask the right questions

When meeting with potential builders, you need to be prepared with questions. You should ask about their experience, what kind of projects they’ve worked on in the past, if they have a preferred team of subcontractors or designers, and how involved in the building process you can be. It’s especially important to ask about licensing and insurance — not only does insurance and proper licensing tell you the builder takes their job seriously, but it protects you if something goes wrong.

Insurance is something you should think about both for the short-term and long-term. It’s important to have an insurance policy on your home while it’s being built, but you also need homeowners insurance once you’re ready to move in. Having home and contents insurance will protect your valuable items and personal belongings and help you get back the cost of the total loss in case of a fire or flood. Fortunately, you can easily compare home and contents insurance with iSelect to get the right insurance policy for your home.

Be aware of red flags

Unfortunately, not everyone out there has your best intentions in mind. This is why you need to look for warning signs that reveal why working with the builder you’re considering may not be a good idea. Red flags can include things like the builder requiring a large downpayment, the contract being written very poorly or not existing at all, feeling pressured to sign, and the builder not having the right insurance or licenses. If anything doesn’t seem right with a potential company, move on until you find a better option.

Choose someone you can work with

It often takes several months to build a home and you’ll need to work with your contractor every step of the way. With that in mind, it’s crucial to choose a builder you get along with and feel comfortable working with for a long time. You should make expectations clear so you can be on the same page. You need to be kept in the loop about changes in the timeline so you can know exactly when you can plan to move into your new home. (If you still have a current house and are planning on selling your home yourself, you’ll need to be able to know when you have to start the selling process.) Additionally, if you want to be involved in important steps like the home inspection, decide on a company that will let you be a part of the process.

Being a home buyer is exciting, especially when you can design and build the house yourself. So keep these simple tips in mind to ensure you choose the best builder possible to bring your project to life.

Isabel Isidro

Isabel Isidro is the co-founder of PowerHomeBiz.com. A mom of three boys, avid vintage postcard collector, frustrated scrapbooker, she also manages Women Home Business, Starting Up Tips and Learning from Big Boys. Connect with her in Google +.