We had our house built ten years ago. It was a land/home package house to be built with a house plan we felt would work best for us. This was after looking at houses for years and not finding anything suitable for what we wanted. We looked at Henry and Adams homes, which is a rubber stamp builder and won't make one modification from their plans--their business is built on building alot of cheap homes fast. That's not what we wanted.
When we found our home lot, it was one of the last in the neighborhood because the lot was flat in front and sloped almost 40 feet in the back down to the main road. Our backyard is heavily wooded and looks massive compared to a regular backyard. It's also a lot of fun for the kids to play in as it's not boring to have that many trees and a huge hill to climb. You gotta remember Florida is mostly flat and people want pools in their backyard, so we got a deal with the lot not being too workable without great expense for retaining walls. That was none to us, we wanted the feel of living in the mountains and loved the sloping back yard.
Anyway, we worked with our builder, who also had an architect on his staff and was capable of making changes to the house plan to accommodate us moving the air conditioning equipment, enlarging the master bath, and building a half bath on the main floor in addition to enlarging the garage a bit and adding a bunch more windows than the plan called for. A lot of that stuff cost us change order costs, but some of the floor plan changes didn't affect the initial cost and were done with no additional fees.
Our builder is what is known as a semi-custom builder who was willing to allow upgrades at a fee per upgrade plus materials/labor. I was working as a plumber at the time but did not try to do my own work as I wanted his crews to handle the build start to finish.
Ultimately we upgraded a lot of standard finish items so we could avoid having to pay to upgrade them anyway in a couple of years. We upgraded spec'd lino flooring to hardwood (I was able to sell 30 days of leave to pay for that one!), all of the plumbing fixtures and kitchen sink and half bath sink (I'm a plumber, can't leave the fixtures alone!), and changed up a lot of electrical stuff to include separate switches for the ceiling fans & lights.
I was comfortable with building construction and still happy to have a prime contractor oversee the build and we were happy overall with the finished product. There's no way I could have done my full time work and taken on this house build trying to keep the contractors under control. Good luck figuring out which framers will give you the best price/work vs. jerking you around if you try doing it yourself--same with the sheetrock guys, flooring guys, plumbers, electricians, etc.
Plus, getting a bank to carry your loan while you contract your own build can be tough, and making deadlines will be a real PITA. Having your contractor responsible for the construction loan until the build is complete is a great feeling vs. having your neck on the line.
Don't get me wrong, I have a buddy who's now into his third build acting as his own Prime and he made good money on the sale of his last house. His deal is he comes home from long days at work and spends all his evenings working on the house, and a lot of his working hours are spent lining up contractors. It's doable, but you gotta enjoy the ass pain that comes with doing it that way.
Another thing is you need to be competent at reading blueprints--that's the life blood of your build. I was able to pick apart the electrical, plumbing, structural and other items and change what was to be built to what we wanted built. We changed out sliding patio doors for french doors (I'd have changed them after the house was built anyway--I hate sliders) and added several more doors not originally called for; and like I said, I added a bunch of windows and changed the frosted glass in the baths to clear (we have no front or rear neighbors and our two side neighbors houses are offset so it doesn't matter.
We also ended up with a 1400 sq. ft unfinished basement (part of the original attraction to the land/house package--more bang for our buck). Six months after signing for the completed 2100 sq. ft. main house, I started finishing the basement. I brought in a couple of buddies from work who were carpenters (and one was an electrician as well). I laid out the floor plan, bought the lumber and had them frame it up. Then we ran the electric and I installed the plumbing, to include finishing one bathroom with existing roughed-in plumbing and then jack hammering the new concrete and roughing in an additional bathroom. I then brought in the rockers, who sheet rocked the place in two days--that's fast. Then my wife brought in some church friends for a painting party and finally we had carpet and lino installed then I trimmed it all out myself and installed all the electric and plumbing fixtures.
In the end we have a 5 bedroom, 4-1/2 bath 3400 sq. ft house with two living rooms, kitchenette in the basement, two dens, and a bunch of other cool stuff. The important thing is we built the house right before the market tanked in 06, so we got it at a great price, and it's value has been above market for ten years.
BTW--I'm a great facility manager right now and loving my job---but my term is up in less than two months due to lack of budget to continue the position. Anybody needing a great facility manager, plumber, floor sweeper or door greater should contact me with a job offer. Otherwise I'll be the guy at the drive-thru asking if you want fries with that?
