Building a home

One of the first things you probably say to yourself when you begin exploring home options is “how much home can I afford?” You should know your buying power before looking but you may not know how much home that can buy. When exploring these options, you must also ask yourself “what is more important- budget, customization, or delivery date?”

Case in point: some people try to compare Duke Brothers to tract builders which is impossible to do. Duke Brothers build a custom home. Although tract builders have some nice selections and upgrades for their homes, you do not have “free reign” to upgrade just any fixture. For example, if you’d like an environmentally-friendly, sealed crawlspace, a tract builder is not going to be able to offer you that type of selection.

• When you’ve decided on a contractor to build your home, you should be looking for experience, licensure, knowledge, and quality. If you decide on Duke Brothers, you may pick from a selection of our suggested home plans on our website, DukeBrothers.com, or you can find some yourself on an array of different sites including eplans.com, houseplans.com, or builderhouseplans.com

• If you find something you like, we’ll look at it to evaluate several things- first, we’ll need to make sure the look of the façade is compatible with the feel of the neighborhood (if you have your own land, this may not be an issue). Second, we’ll need to make sure the house fits on the lot. This often becomes an issue when someone wants a one-level home because the footprint is so large. (A one-level home is also more expensive to build due to the fact that the footprint tends to be larger. If the footprint is larger, more roof and foundation is required. So, for example, it is more expensive to build a one-level home whose heated square footage measures 2500 versus a two-level home whose heated square footage measures 2500).

• If the house looks appropriate and fits the lot, some other things Duke Brothers will need to consider is detail. There may be items on the plan that will be difficult to replicate or some leeway will need to be given for us to modify the plans. Also, some detail is either difficult to see on the small initial plans or not present until the construction sets are ordered (which are expensive). As a result, once you get serious about a particular floor plan, you will need to understand that we will not likely be able to build you an exact replica of what the plan designer proposes.

• When you have narrowed down your search for homes, Duke Brothers can produce a quick “ballpark” range to you on how much we think it will cost to build that particular home. We do not have a square footage price to give you since this is not the way we do business. Again, every house is unique and quoting a square footage price for two homes like the example above would not square.

• If a particular floor plan is in your budget based on our ballpark quote, and you decide you’ve found the right one, we can do a detailed quote for you to more accurately determine for what price we can build you a home. There is a small fee for this service which will be applied to the cost of your home if you decide to sign a contract with us.

• At this time, we would also like you to share with us as many “bells and whistles” you’d like in your home as you can. This list tends to change and evolve but Duke Brothers operates best if we know up front as many things about the way you’d like to customize your plan as possible.

For example, if you’d like a special tub for your master bathroom, we would need the specifications of the tub even before construction commences as well as possibly incorporating any added expense of a tub into the estimate. This way, you can avoid added expense, surprises, and delay of your delivery date with a change order.

•Once a detailed quote is agreed upon, we will issue you a finish schedule. This is not a “schedule” in the respect that there are hard and fast deadlines to meet. It is more of a projection on what to expect with the types of finishes we offer. At this time, you will need to provide us with further upgrades and customization requests. Again, these things tend to change so if you have any future changes, we can incorporate those into a change order for a fee, but the finish schedule allows us to be as prepared as possible for the beginning of constructing your home.

Finally, when everyone is singing form the same sheet of music, we can offer a contract to you, hopefully incorporate any extras into the contract price, and project a date of delivery. Each change order after the signing of the contract will not only cost 100% of the change up front, but there will be a fee applied to the change order.

When building a new home anywhere, it is important to keep in mind that the rules are different in each state. For example, we are working with a homeowner right now who says that solid surface is very popular in the area of California she lived in for use in bathrooms as well as kitchens.

In this part of North Carolina, it is not the same. Folks feel that granite in the kitchen is the way to go and many builders use cultured marble in our bathrooms. The same can go for the building process.

We have seen nightmare stories on shows like Dateline that talk about homeowners who have been hijacked- the builder gives you an estimate to build and you get the construction loan and he continually asks you for more and more money.

Duke Brothers doesn’t work that way. That’s not to say that some builders aren’t ethical. I am sure there are some ne'er-do-wells out there who figure out a way to gouge the customer even with that type of loan.

Duke Brothers get the construction loan based on an appraisal the bank obtains. This keeps us to a certain budget so that we make some money. Naturally, if the homeowner wants some extras that were not included in the original estimate, those can be paid for outside of the loan.