We will have two of our model homes open for you to come and visit during the Parade of Homes. Make sure you reserve time on your schedule to pay us a visit. As a result of our partnership with the Hope Center of Edmond we will also have a 3rd house available featuring items from the Hope Center.

Our Silverhawk model home that will be available for you to tour is 2400 NW 177th Street, Edmond, Oklahoma.

Our Hidden Prairie (33rd and Kelly) model home is located at 1417 Switchgrass, Edmond, Oklahoma.

This is our special home that has been decorated with items from the Hope Center to promote their “Hopefully Yours” retail store. Please be sure to stop by and see the great things they have to offer. You can tour this house at 2308 NW 173rd Street, Edmond, Oklahoma. This project was also featured in the Edmond Sun. Click here to read more.

We’ll see you at the Parade of Homes in October. Make sure you stop by and chat. I’d love to explain the details of our $15,000 certificate.

Here’s a link: http://bit.ly/egikRX 

The gist of the article is that couples need to understand each other’s preferences before they buy a new home.  Makes sense.  It got me thinking, though, how many times I sit down with potential clients, many of whom are married couples, who haven’t really discussed their needs with each other.  If each of them isn’t clear on what the other is thinking, there’s no WAY I’m going to be able to figure it out.  But, that leads to the approach you, as someone who might have a new home built some day, should be looking for in a home builder.  Does the builder listen, really listen, to you as you describe your vision of a new home?  Does the builder dig deep into what motivates you so that he can apply his building expertise to your unique situation?  Or, does the builder simply “listen” politely, wait for his chance, and then present to you his “product”, regardless of what you’ve told him?  Your builder should be able to find out what drives your thinking, your decisions, because what you want is a solution, not just a house. Only by asking intelligent, probing questions can your builder discover what you truly need and want in your new home. Of course, the builder who truly works for the best interest of the client might discover he can’t meet your needs.  That might be one reason most builders are too timid to ask the tough questions.  This might be tough to swallow, but in a way your relationship with your builder is very much like the one with your spouse (bear with me- this is a good thing).  Think about it this way: you want your builder to know you, because you’re going to have to live with the result of his understanding (or lack thereof) of your needs.  You want to be able to trust your builder – it’s a big investment, this new home, in money, time, energy, and emotion – and you want to be confident your builder is taking care of you when you’re not looking.  Isn’t that similar to a marriage?

That’s all for today. Thanks for reading!  Tim

A recent customer reminded me of something I take for granted, but he pointed out that most people aren’t aware of many of the potential pitfalls to avoid when hiring a builder to build a new home on your land. Since my customer happens to be a banker, and has seen the good, bad, and ugly of home building practices, I thought I would share what he shared with me. First, he reminded me that many home builders are not on solid financial footing, and that can be risky for someone hiring such a home builder to build on land that you own. Most people don’t realize that if the builder doesn’t pay his bills for some reason, the owner of that partially-built home is going to be on the hook.  How would you like to pay twice for your new home?

So, the question is how do you know you’re dealing with a builder who isn’t going to leave you hanging? The good news is there is a fairly simple technique: find out if your home builder has a line of credit with a bank to build homes on his own. If the bank is willing to lend the builder money to build speculatively (meaning building homes that aren’t sold prior to construction), then the chances are that builder is reliable.  A reputable bank has built-in methods of analyzing a builder’s finances that can detect if a builder is likely to go out of business and leave you with the bills. So, ask the builder point blank: do you have a line of credit, and if so, with whom?  If you get a blank stare or some story about how banks just aren’t lending, it’s time to move on.

Thanks for reading!

Tim

Well, I haven’t blogged in almost a month… we’ve been pretty busy with the Parade of Homes and the resulting interest that time has slipped away! I want to thank everyone who made the Parade of Homes such a success. We had huge turnout for our new homes in SilverHawk and Hidden Prairie, two of Edmond’s most popular communities of new homes and families.  New homes in Edmond’s SilverHawk community continue to go up, and our happy homeowners continue to gush about the quality of life in SilverHawk.  Our new homes in SilverHawk demonstrate a unique value not found around Edmond, and it seems to me that new home buyers deserve to get the most new home for their money.  I’m astounded that people continue to pay over $100 per square foot to get a new home in Edmond with thick granite counter tops, crown molding, large ceramic tile, and custom cabinetry, when what they’re really paying for is tons of wasted lumber, drywall, concrete, other materials, and time.  Let’s face it, the granite and stainless steel appliances aren’t that expensive; what is expensive is buying lumber and throwing it away!  Did you know that the average builder of new homes in Edmond, whether it’s in SilverHawk or any other neighborhood, wastes as much as 1/3 of the lumber it takes to frame the average 2200 square foot home?  We’re talking about $3,000 or more in lumber that either gets thrown away or mis-used.  The new home buyer is paying for that!  Why?  That lumber waste is only the beginning… there’s waste in the design of many new homes, meaning materials and labor that could be better used to add square footage, but instead it’s used to enclose wasted space, create overly complex and leak-prone roof designs, and complicated corners and offsets that the designer couldn’t figure out how to eliminate.

Don’t pay too much for your new home in Edmond; our friends in SilverHawk and Hidden Prairie deserve better.  You deserve better.  Don’t be fooled by builders who want you to pay for their waste and inefficiency.

Hey everyone in Central Oklahoma! I am so fired up about the buzz surrounding the 2010 Parade of Homes I felt compelled to write about it, and to say thanks to everyone who has visited this week!  We have been covered up with optimistic new home buyers. If you haven’t been out looking at all the new homes in Edmond and Oklahoma City, don’t miss your chance. I’ve seen some really nice work done by many of the great home builders around Oklahoma City and Edmond, and if you don’t get the chance to check out new homes too often, this is a great opportunity.

Despite what you hear in the media regarding what’s going on in the national economy and national market for new homes, we’re going great guns here in Oklahoma, especially in Edmond and Oklahoma City.  Our economy is good, our unemployment is low, and we didn’t experience the craziness that much of the nation did with the run-up in new home prices.  People in Oklahoma kept their sanity, and didn’t do a lot of crazy financing or speculating when buying new homes.  As a result, we didn’t get a big pile of unwanted inventory, and we have all enjoyed solid value in our homes.

Come out and visit the Parade of Homes 2010!  You’ll be glad you did, and we will be happy to see you!

Thanks for reading!

-Tim

OK, I’m being just a little facetious… but really, how do you know you’re hiring the right builder to build your new home in Edmond or Oklahoma City?  Of course, if you’re looking to have a new home built, this is something you want to know.  Here are just a few tips on what to look for:

• Job site cleanliness: the state of order on the job site is a direct reflection of how a builder runs his/her business.  If the job site looks like a tornado just passed (and most do), then ask yourself whether the builder is organized enough to pay close attention to the details of building your new home.
• Days that pass with no work being done: how many days go by between subcontractors doing work on a particular home?  Lots of gaps between workers indicate a builder who hasn’t done his/her homework.  Are they learning to build as they go?  Have they not planned the entire job from start to finish prior to construction?  That means the builder is solving construction problems “on the fly”.  Do you think the people who build BMW’s and Fords figure out how to build cars “on the fly”, or do you think every detail of every product is planned out from start to finish?
• When you see framers on a job, ask to look at the plans they’re working from.  Is there a framing layout designed and approved by a structural engineer?  Or does the framer, equipped with a tape measure and circular saw, figure out the structural needs of your new home in Edmond?  Whoa… that one’s a little scary.
• How much waste material is laying around?  This kind of goes hand-in-hand with my first point, the one about site cleanliness.  Lots of waste is a sign that the builder of your new home hasn’t taken the time to figure out exactly what it takes to build it.  There are lots of implications there, but the biggest one is this: who’s paying for all that waste?  Whoever buys the home!  Imagine that: a 30-year mortgage on the contents of a landfill!

I just read an interesting article about media hype and whether anyone thinks now is a good time to buy a home… Guess what the conclusion is?  7 out of 10 people in the United States think now is a good time to buy a home – that’s more than in 2003!  Does that mean now is a good time? I’m a home builder – what do you think I’m going to say?

This might come as a surprise coming from someone who makes his living building new homes, but my honest opinion is, only you can determine whether now is a good time.  I’ve said this before, but if you’re looking for a home for your family, then the time to buy is when you have the need and the resources to get what you want and need.  Are there bargains out there?  Maybe.  Can you live in a bargain?  Your family probably deserves something other than a “bargain”, and if you are in a position to invest in a home for your family, and your family has a need, then it’s time to buy.

Now, let’s make the distinction between “bargain” and “value”: to my way of thinking, everyone deserves to get the most for her or his money, regardless of the product. When I hear the word “bargain”, I think of all that junk in the big bin at the front of the store.  You know, the bin you can’t resist looking through until you realize it’s all the junk the store couldn’t sell for full price?  Value, on the other hand, means (to me, anyway) something that you are happy to pay good money for.  Have you ever heard anyone say, “I want to make sure I get less for my money”?  The bottom line is you want to get the most of whatever is most important to you for your dollar.  In the case of a home, that might be square footage, convenience, amenities, or any number of things.  Again, and I’m repeating myself (please forgive me), you are the only person who can decide what’s most important and whether you are getting a good value.  None of that has anything whatsoever to do with whether anyone else thinks it’s a good time to buy.

Did I answer the question whether it’s a good time to buy?  I hope not.  That’s your call.  You can read the original article here http://bit.ly/dsDtx5 .

Thanks for reading!

Tim

Higher quality costs less.  Period.  That’s a paradox at the very least, if it’s not down right incorrect.  Or is it?  We’ve been led to believe for years, at least by the homebuilding industry, that high quality costs more.  But is it true?  It doesn’t have to be.  In fact, it never should be.

To make clear what I’m talking about, let’s first define quality.  To do that, think of a car: a “high-quality” car should go at least 100,000 miles before needing any major maintenance, maybe further.  My wife and I had a 2000 Honda Odyssey minivan that was still going strong at 169,000 miles before we go rid of it (OK, a minor fender-bender, and the insurance company calls it a “total”- not the car’s fault).  Now, that van didn’t have many bells and whistles (we knew the kids would trash it anyway), but the main thing is that it cost $26,000 and we drove it for 10 years.  That’s $2,600 per year for a car that needed nothing more than an oil change for over 150,000 miles.  That’s the definition of quality, and it was a lot less money than the equivalent Chrysler that would have spent half its life in the shop.

Why should you expect less from your home, something that cost several times more money than my minivan?  Right about now I would bet that many of you are thinking, “my house has crown molding”, or “yes, but I want granite counter tops”… That’s all well and good, but that’s not quality. That’s how the homebuilding industry defines it, and how many home buyers define it, but those items are bells and whistles.  If your granite counter tops have a nasty seam that looks like a speed bump, then those counter tops are low-quality. If your neighbor has Formica counter tops that have invisible seams, then your neighbor’s Formica counter tops are higher quality than your granite ones.  Which one costs more?  This brings us to the underlying reason why high quality costs less.

Imagine you are the granite counter top installer.  You arrive at the job site and discover that the person who installed the cabinets, upon which you are about to install the beautiful granite counter tops, didn’t bother to make sure the cabinets were straight and level.  Now, your counter tops are as flat as a pool table, but the surface that will support them is about as flat as the Rocky Mountains.  How’s that going to work out?   Do you think you’re going to have a problem doing a quality job?  Maybe you can cobble something together with some wood shims and so forth, but do you think that’s going to take more or less time than it would if the cabinets were level to begin with?  If it takes you more time, are you going to want to be paid more or less for doing the job?  All of a sudden, a poor quality job just cost more than a high quality one!

The same principle applies to every stage of home building.  How many times does a framing carpenter have to compensate for a foundation or slab that isn’t level and square?  How many times does a cabinet maker have to figure out how to install cabinets in a corner that isn’t square?  If you were one of those contractors, wouldn’t you charge more for working on those jobs where you had to compensate for someone else’s sloppy work?  While your at it, would you really bother trying to do a high-quality job if the builder didn’t insist upon high quality work from the contractor that came before you?  From now on, when you look at new homes, ask yourself how much of that high price (probably more than $100 per square foot!) is because of poor quality craftsmanship.  More importantly, ask yourself whether you deserve better. I think you already know the answer.

Thanks for reading!

Tim

What is the price per square foot for a new home in Edmond?

If I had a nickel for every time someone asked me that question… well, you know how that goes.  So, I bet you think I’m going to give a simple answer?  I wish I had one!  The reality is that there are a lot of variables that affect the price per square foot of a new home in Edmond or anywhere else.  The market for new homes in Edmond isn’t unique; just like any piece of real estate, the three most important factors are: location, location, and location.   OK, joking aside, the fact that a new home is located in Edmond has a great deal do with the price per square foot.  To begin with, since Edmond is a desirable place to live, the land on which you build your new home will be more expensive than elsewhere around Oklahoma City.

The next biggest impact on the price per square foot is the number of square feet.  How does that work?  Think about it this way: let’s say the lot you’ve selected for your new home in Edmond costs $30,000, and you want to build a new home that is 3000 square feet.  Now, the dollar amount that the cost of the lot contributes to the cost of the new home is $30,000 divided by 3000 square feet, which equals $10 per square foot (you see why I picked those numbers now…makes the math easy!).  To see the impact of the lot cost on the price per square foot, now imagine you want your new home to be 1500 square feet.  The same lot cost of $30,000 is now only spread out over 1500 square feet; $30,000 divided by 1500 square feet equals $20 per square foot.  The size of your new home in Edmond went down by half, but the cost per square foot doubled!  The same thing applies to all the other items in the home that have a fixed cost.  To say it another way, the cost of anything that goes in your home regardless of the size of the home (appliances, toilets, cabinets, etc.) must be spread out over whatever square footage your home has.  An oven costs what an oven costs, whether your new home is 3000 square feet or 1500.  If you spread that cost out over more square feet, then the cost per square foot goes down.  In general terms, all other things being equal, the bigger the new home, the lower the price per square foot.

As you can imagine, the cost of the materials you choose for your new home in Edmond or anywhere else also has a huge impact on the price per square foot. Let’s say you cover the floors with hardwood instead of carpet.  Depending on the wood, that’s going to increase the price by $5 – $20 per square foot (or more, depending on how exquisite your taste).

There you have it – the answer to the question, “what is the price per square foot of a new home in Edmond?”.  You can phrase the question another way, such as “how high is up?”.

Thanks for reading!

Tim

I read an interesting article on “How to vet a builder” a few days ago.  The link to the article is below.  It’s short and sweet, but covers the main points very well, in my opinion.  I thought it might be useful to give a builder’s take on the subject.  Here goes:

The first point in the article mentions hiring a “good real estate attorney” to review the contract.  This is an interesting point, and I’ve had a few customers take my contract (a version of the State Homebuilders’ Association form) to an attorney for review (although I’ve never had one ask for any changes afterward).  Even though most builder’s contracts are standard forms approved by the state Homebuilders’ Association, I suppose an unscrupulous builder might try to throw something in there that works to the customer’s disadvantage.  Hiring an attorney isn’t cheap, but if it makes you feel better, it’s worth it.  Here’s the single caveat I’ll throw in, though: if you don’t trust the builder, and think you need to have an attorney review the contract, then why are you letting him or her build your home in the first place?  If you think there’s something in the contract that’s going to cause a problem, what do you think is going to be in the house?  Unless you are a uniquely savvy buyer, and have all day, every day, to watch the construction, there’s no way to check every detail of the home being built.  What’s my point?  Hire a builder you trust, and you won’t have to worry about getting cheated.

Other great points in the article, with which I agree completely, as will any reputable builder: Investigate!  Search the builder’s name on the internet to find any information, good or bad.  Also, ask other home owners in the neighborhood who bought from that particular builder.  The big question to ask: did the builder meet your expectations?  It’s all about expectations, and a good builder knows to set the customer’s expectations up front, then live up to them (and exceed them).

Here’s the link to the original article: http://www.realtor.org/RMODaily.nsf/pages/News2010083005?OpenDocument

Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend!

Tim