For most people, living in a dream house is as simple as purchasing a completed house and moving in. However, for a few who have a keen eye for detail and prefer to have their own creative design concepts incorporated into their home, a house that is custom-built by professional contractors is a much more appealing option. The following is a check list of some things homeowners must consider during the new house creation process.

Purchase a Lot - Securing a lot for the location of the house is one of the first things that should be done when starting this building process. Purchasing a lot first is important because the house plan will depend upon the area and condition of the lot. A lot can be purchased with cash, a loan from a bank or purchased from the seller with a financing plan.

Choose the Type of Construction – Buyers can choose between custom building construction and production building construction. With custom construction, the house is individually built according to the buyer’s preferences. Although custom home construction allows homeowners to pick their own design preferences, it is also more expensive and could be more labor intensive depending on the complexity of the design that is chosen.Autonoleggio Catania aeroporto

With production construction, a template plan is used which is usually purchased from the contractor. The advantage of a production home construction is that the home contractor is readily able to provide the building costs, volume of materials to be used, and the time frame required to complete the project.

Hire a Builder – It is extremely important to hire an experienced builder for the creation of the project. Ask for recommendations from people who have had a recent experience with the contractor. If they are satisfied customers, they can point you in the right direction. Another way to find a good contractor is by talking to building inspectors and asking them for referrals.

Estimate Construction Cost – Knowing the breakdown of what the estimated costs are for the home creation plan is important. Most contractors will provide all the details involved in building the house in the form of a contract. The details should be broken down into individual aspects such as the foundation, lumber, framing and plumbing. Make sure that all the items presented are not overpriced or under priced. Make sure to thoroughly read and analyze the contract before signing it.

Apply for Financing – Look for a lender that offers a construction loan with flexibility that suits the financial capabilities of the homeowner. Applying for financing from any lending institution in the country is possible through the use of the internet. Loan documents can be signed at a local title company or escrow office in order to validate them.

Secure Insurance – There are three types of insurance that are required for constructing a house which are course of construction insurance, general liability insurance, and worker’s compensation insurance. All banks require course of construction insurance and general liability insurance.

Project Construction – During the creation of the home, always ensure that each phase of the project is inspected before paying the builder to maintain tight quality control. Once the building has been completed, the contractor will be paid off with the residential mortgage loan.

Engaging in the planning and creation phase of a dream house is a very rewarding experience, despite the fact that it can be very labor intensive. The preceding information should help provide those individuals who are planning on making their own dream house with a deeper insight of the process of home creation and help serve as a guide to them.

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Rent By Owner – Search for apartments, houses for rent, and home rentals. Find apartment rentals and homes for rent or lease, view listings of rental homes, list an apartment for rent and find homes available for rent.

You’re finally ready to build your own home, but you don’t know anything about home building. Where do you start, who do you talk to and how do you get a home construction education. Let’s start with the fundamentals and work from there.

The first fundamental of home building, is knowing how to build a home. If you don’t know how to build a home, it’s going to be extremely difficult to even get started, let alone finish the entire house. This usually starts with an education provided by on-the-job training and books. If you don’t have on-the-job training, books can be helpful, but you might not be able to see the entire picture.

I’m going to share a construction secret with you today, that most home builders don’t want their clients to know about. Building a home isn’t as difficult as you think, but gathering the knowledge to build it is. I’ve met a lot of home builders in my lifetime who aren’t the sharpest tools in the shed and I often wonder, how they do it, how do they actually build these homes.

I’m sharing this construction secret with you, because I want you to understand that building a home might be easy, but the knowledge isn’t easily accessible. I write books about remodeling, construction and home building and I read even more than I’ve written. There isn’t enough information in any one of these books that will answer every one of your questions or solve all of your problems.

The construction secrets that good homebuilders have are stored in their head. These construction secrets usually make their jobs look easier than they really are. If you haven’t got the point of this article, let me simplify it for you. If an expert home builder is building your home, your probably going to think that you’re overpaying them, when you really aren’t. These people make their job look easy, because they’ve been doing it for quite some time and have solved most of the problems that you could run into and know how to avoid.

If you’re planning on building your own home and being your own contractor, get as much information as you can about home building, before starting the process.

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Quality vs. price

Because of hurricane winds the structures in this area must be very strong. Where the rest of the country looks down on us because they only use concrete block in their basements, for my money, I really like concrete and block construction. Concrete blocks do not get termites and will not rot. Therefore, a concrete block structure will last for 100 years or more with almost no maintenance. Unfortunately, the vast majority of houses in Miami have wood trusses with plywood sheathing for the roof, then roofing paper and either shingles or concrete tiles on top. This type of construction is not particularly good at resisting hurricane wind conditions. Although the Florida Building Code has tried its best at improving the requirements for installing the roof sheathing and the roof finish, it cannot begin to compare to the strength that the roof would have if a concrete slab were used for the roof structure.

So why, if we know this, don’t we build with concrete slab roofs? Cost – the only reason is cost. It is much more expensive both to design and to install a concrete slab roof, especially on a slope to take a concrete tile finish.

So one of the first things the homeowner needs to establish at the beginning of the design process for a new house is how much the owner wants to spend on the construction. There is the cheap way to build a home and the expensive way. This is an issue that will come up many times during the design and construction process.

The program

But in order to determine a budget, the homeowner first needs to establish the square footage of the new house. To establish the total square footage, he will have to generate a program for the house. The program is a list of rooms with their corresponding sizes.

See the sample list as follows:

Living Room	240 square feet

Dining Room	120 square feet

Kitchen 	170 square feet

Family Room 	240 square feet

Master Bedroom	240 square feet

Master Bath	 64 square feet

Bedroom No. 2	216 square feet

Bedroom No. 3	192 square feet

Bath No. 2	 36 square feet

Laundry Room	100 square feet

Linen closet	 9 square feet	 

A/C Closet	 9 square feet

Total square feet = 1,636

Circulation and walls at 20% = 1,634 square feet = 327 square feet

Total = 1,634 + 327 = 1,961 square feet

So now we have a basic idea of the major spaces of the house and approximately how many square feet total homeowner will need for the house.

Also, this is a good time to decide whether there will be any outdoor spaces, such as covered terraces or pergolas. In Florida these are particularly good additions to the interior spaces. With wonderful temperatures during the winter there is no reason to spend all the time in air-conditioned interior spaces.

The budget

So what will a house that is just under 2000 square feet cost in South Florida? There is no magic formula to determine this. The cost of the house depends on many things that have to do with the design, such as: the type of roof, the ceiling height(s), the complexity of the design, the finishes, whether it is going to be on a septic tank or sewer, and the type of foundations. Then, there are those costs that have nothing to do with the design, like the location of the house, how busy are the contractors in the area, how well-known and reliable the contractor is, etc. Although the price of a house can vary wildly because of all the items discussed above, at this time a range of $150 to $250 per square foot could be used for a house that is not too elaborate with standard construction. So if we go back to the example. A 2,000 square foot house would cost between $300,000 and $500,000 excluding the land.

The design team

The Miami-Dade County Building Department does not require plans for a single-family residence to be signed and sealed by an architect or engineer. This is not true for all municipalities in the area. For example, Coral Gables does require all plans to be signed and sealed by an architect. But for all practical purposes the volume of information that has to be included in a set of plans in any municipality within Miami-Dade County, most of the time, there is a need to hire several professionals: an architect, an MEP engineer, and a structural engineer. MEP stands for mechanical, electrical, and plumbing. The mechanical engineer designs the air-conditioning, the electrical engineer designs the electrical, including the lighting, and the plumbing engineer designs the plumbing. The structural engineer designs the structure and provides the required structural calculations for the building envelope. The architect designs the entire house and coordinates everybody’s work. The coordination of all the disciplines is probably the architect’s most important role as without coordination there could be real conflicts in the construction phase. Although it is legal to produce plans on his own in some parts of the county, it will be an insurmountable task to produce construction drawings for permitting (unless the homeowner has a background in construction with actual experience and the knowledge of the Florida Building Code and the local zoning codes).

What do these design services cost the homeowner? They also vary greatly but there is also a range among good, established professionals. This range would be from 6% to 10% of construction cost for the permit plans for all the disciplines. The services during the construction phase are usually charged separately on an hourly basis or in a separate package.

Style of the house

Another important decision to be made early on is the style of the house. There are basically three styles popular for home design in South Florida – modern, Mediterranean, and Key West.

Once the homeowner decides what styles he wants, it is important to convey the style and the details to the architect. The best way to explain to an architect what he wants is through either images from magazines or actual photographs of other houses.

Choosing an architect

Now that you have the basic items together, the next step is to pick your architect. This is very important as this is the person with whom you will work very closely during the next year.

Take the survey from the existing land from the time you closed on your mortgage. If you have lost it or it’s too old or inaccurate, the architect will arrange for you to get it updated or have a new one done.

Ask to see photos of his/her work. Ask for references. Ask questions. Ask him/her how he would approach the project. Start to sense if this is someone you could work with. Do you like the predominant style of the architect’s work? Does his/her work appeal to you? Ask about the process. Ask what you should expect in the way of his/her services. Ask him to show you the plans for a similar project.

People are individuals and everyone is unique. I remember how many people have hired me because they liked my “Mediterranean” or “Spanish” style or my modern or post-modern style. One person told me that she hired me because I returned her phone calls promptly. Chemistry between people is meaningful. Do not discount your initial impressions.

The following building and construction rates are provided to indicate the current square meter costs of a range of basic or common buildings in the construction industry.

Rates are approximate and vary according to the specifications of the project. Rates should be used with extreme caution and used only as a estimated indicator as these differ from area to area. Information is not stated specifically and the lowest industry standard specification is implied.

Preliminaries are included in the price but external works excluded. Escalation to start and during construction, professional fees and finance costs are excluded.

Residential Developments
GASH (good address, small home) housing by Contractor/Developer R 2 550 – 3 200

Duplex houses/apartments R 3 600 – 4 200

Luxury (cluster) houses R 5 000 – 6 800

Retirement centre R 3 600 – 4 200

External works and services R 550 – 780

Office Developments
Underground parking basements including foundation R 1 650 – 2 300

Commercial office park development on basement (with AC) R 2 950 – 3 650

Prestigious office development on basements R 4 700 – 7 200

External works services and landscaping for low rise developments R 550 – 780

Retail Developments
Value centre type retail R 2 200 – 2 900

Convenience strip shopping centre R 3 100 – 3 700

Regional shopping centre with enclosed malls R 5 200 – 7 300

External works paving and services R 550 – 780

Industrial Developments
Warehousing with 6 m height (over 2 000 m²) including ablutions R 1 400 – 1 950

Medium duty factory building with 8 m height (over 2 000 m²) R 1 750 – 2 300

Attached office buildings (no AC) R 2 700 – 3 200

External works, paving and services R 550 – 780

Leisure Developments
Thatched game lodge accommodation per m² R 3 700 – 4 800

Budget type hotels per room R 390 000

Luxury hotels per room R 1 380 000

External works and landscaped environment per m² R 850 – 1 100