All Forum Posts by: Mark Bohstedt

What Bruce said, I just finished one for a customer in Arizona and it was north of $400 a square foot. Exactly what my customer needed for his hobby room, but I don’t see them making money as a rental.  

Jacob, we no longer vent any crawlspaces, we insulate and encapsulate which leads to much fewer issues with mold and mildew. 
   Installing a dehumidifier in the crawl space is always a good idea. I don’t honestly know many builders still venting crawlspaces in my area. 

 Ryan, I’m building a spec right now that we got an offer on at the footing stage. I required a non refundable deposit and this allows the buyer to have some input in cabinets, paint, etc. If they back out they forfeit the deposit. Otherwise there isn’t much reason to tie it up before it’s completed, and, without a non refundable deposit I certainly wouldn’t change any finishes just in case they did cancel the contract. 
We already had the construction financing in place so that’s on me to pay. The only time the client is responsible for making payments is if they have us build a house for them, in that case we require they get their own construction financing.  
  

If you are building in Phoenix it has almost no chance of going through without a significant amount of additional drawings added to the plan. 
  I use some plans from online blueprint companies in Missouri, as a GC I know what I want and how to build it so the plans don’t need to be detailed, but these plans would never work for any municipality where I’ve built in Maricopa County.

There is a designer in the West valley that has a lot of great plans you can order and they do meet Phoenix building requirements.  PM me if you want his info. 

Josh, I’m starting a new build next week, a 1010 sq.ft. 3/2 on a crawl space/stem wall, no garage.  I budgeted $122,000 not including the land and I’m really going to have to watch my costs to bring it in on that budget. 
   This is in the Branson, Missouri area but I doubt costs are much different in your location. 
  

I agree with Bruce in general except #4 and #6.  I can only secure workers comp if I have employees. My son and I are members of our S corp and cannot get workers comp on ourselves. We do make sure our subs have all the appropriate insurances including workers comp. 
   Every job is different so our down payment varies, for new builds that are through a bank, we work within the banks draw procedures. For remodel or deck customers we almost always exceed 10%, our policy is to never finance someone else’s project. Material expenses are always covered up front. 
For the best outcome don’t automatically take the lowest bid and definitely check references and visit a jobsite or two. 
   

There aren’t many downsides to mini splits. Higher sear ratings, less electricity usage, extremely quite compressors. I would use them in every build I do except they don’t scale very well for builds with more than 3-4 rooms. 
Like Bruce mentioned, just make certain your getting a quality product. 

Typically if it requires an inspection it requires a permit. In Arizona drywall is inspected for proper nail/screw placement before taping and to make sure wet locations have denshield.  
Not all states are the same, I also build in Missouri and there are no drywall inspections in my local area. 

Michael, on this ADU it would add about $29,000. Just tying into the existing sewer would be expensive with trees and landscaping needing to be removed. Probably,$6,500 for the underground, $4,500 to repair the landscaping, and the balance for the sink, toilet, water heater and small shower.
   This area has granite close to the surface so I would include a hard dig clause also. The footings took four days to dig with a mini excavator due to the rocky soil. 

I'm just finishing up a 16x18' ADU by in the backyard of a residence in Prescott, Az. I'm sure it isn't as expensive as building in Cali and the homeowner has about $136,000 into it.
   No bathroom or kitchenette, just a stem wall, subfloor, 10’ ceilings, mini split, drywall, electric, and a small deck out front. It’s an awesome looking structure but even a small structure is expensive to build these days.