All Forum Posts by: Tyler Clark

Your area may be different, but permits and impact fees on my last new build were almost 20k.  Most of these fees were fixed regardless of the size of the home.  On a small home, these fees would kill any kind of profit.

@Chip Chronister  One more thing, spend the money where it matters.  If this is a spec, that would be kitchen, baths (particularly master) and curb appeal.  If it's your personal residence, you can decide what areas matter to you.

You've gotten a lot of good advice here already.  Build a box, use standard sizes, usually cost less to build a two story vs. ranch.

If you don't already have a plan selected, work with your architect/draftsman on value engineering.  They will have some good suggestions on making the design efficient to build.  They also know joist, truss and beam spans.  Sometimes the difference of a few feet can cost big money.  In a recent build I did the basement had a span of 22' which would have required floor trusses for engineering.  By putting a closet along the wall, the span was reduced to 18'8" which allowed for the use of standard floor I-beams, thus reducing the cost.

I have a neighbor that is a very successful General Contractor.  One day I asked him what he credited his success too.  He said, "I answer my phone and show up on time for my appointments.  This differentiates me from 80% of my competition."

My experience is that a lot of contractors are not good at organizing or running the "business" aspect of their business.  They often get a job and ignore calls and appointments.  When that job ends, they start looking for the next one and start answering their phone again.

I feel short sales are an area ripe for abuse.  Regardless if the home is sold 5k or 500k under what is owed to the bank, the seller generally gets nothing.  There's really no incentive for the seller or their agent to submit the best offer to the bank, as long as they feel the offer they submit will get the job done.

A year ago I had a neighbor list their home as a short sale.  An acquaintance of mine looked at the home and submitted a strong offer.  A couple of weeks later I find out that the neighbor accepted and submitting a much lower offer to their bank.  When I asked the neighbor why they did this, their answer was that that the buyer was going to pay them 10k cash outside of closing.  I let them know this was likely illegal.  Their response was their realtor told them this happens all the time.

A few months ago, I had a house I was getting ready to put on the market.  It happened to be the largest house in the area, on the largest lot in the area.  I ran some comps, made adjustments based on size and came up with what I thought would be a reasonable listing price.  

I interviewed a handful of agents, and was told by all of them that the price I wanted to list at was too high. The additional square footage did not add much additional value since homes in the neighborhood typically sold in a particular price range. Basically, it was overbuilt for the neighborhood. Some aspects of this argument seemed to make sense to me, but I still wanted to see if I could get the higher price I had previously calculated. So I listed it FSBO.

In 4 weeks I had over a dozen showings, multiple offers, and ended up closing for more than our original listing price.  What I learned was there were a lot of people already living in this neighborhood who wanted to stay, but had outgrown their home, and were willing to pay a premium for something larger.  What I though was initially a negative turned out to be a positive.

Let's here your stories of when you thought of something as being a negative and it actually turned into a positive.

I recently had 1000 sq ft of laminate flooring installed.  The contractor I accepted the bid from said his install crews had 3 people on them and they could complete the job in 1 day, but to give him 2 just in case.  I stopped by after the first day, and only about 100 sq ft was down.  I didn't think much about it as I thought they would finish the second day.  I stopped by at the end of day 2, and there is only about a total of 200 sq ft down.  

I called and left a message for the contractor that evening.  The next day I stopped by in the middle of the day to see what the install crew was doing.  There was only one worker there.  When I told him that contractor X had said there would be 3 people there working on it, he didn't know what I was talking about or who contractor X was.  To cause me further concern, he said it was taking him so long because he had never installed laminate before.

To make a long story short, my original contractor subbed it out to another installer, who then subbed it out to another installer.  Unfortunately It got nasty between me and the original contractor, an the project ended up taking a week and a half.

Now I stipulate that anyone I company I contract with has to actually perform the work and can not sub it out.

@Ethan Bowen  I think anywhere in north Utah County/South Salt Lake has great potential due to the number of tech companies that are moving in.  The challenge is finding building lots that are at a decent price.

I ended up in a multiple offer situation on the lot this home was built on, and ended up paying 10k over asking price.  Within a week, I had one of the other bidders contact me and offer 20k over what I paid.  We liked the area and lot and decided to keep it and build our personal residence on it. 

I'd like to get a spec started, but I'm not having any success finding building lots that make the numbers work.  

I just completed a custom home where I acted as owner builder, located in Eagle Mountain Utah (30 south of Salt Lake City).  It was $59 sq. ft. including the basement or $118 if you just count above grade.  This includes all hard and soft cost.  

@Lynn McGeein thank you for providing your perspective. I certainly do not want to inherit their problems.

Since I posted my question last night I've gotten more information about the current situation of their home. It is not under contract. Knowing this, I didn't have any interest in entertaining their offer. I let them know that if in the future they were under contract they could contact me and we could discuss possibilities at that point.