Estimates/ Time to hear back from builder

18 years ago

Hello,

I have been watching this forum for a while now & this is my first post.

How long does it normally take a builder to get back with an estimate? It has been 3 1/2 weeks now and we are getting impatient. Is this normal?

We are also trying to sell our house here in Florida (4 months on market so far) and the stress is just building up. I guess we better just get used to this stress!

Thanks in advance.

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Comments (3)

sniffdog
18 years ago
mommy

chances are that your builder knows that you have to sell first before you start the new project, so he may not be in that much of a rush.

What type of estimate have you asked for? Is it a ballpark estimate or a detailed take-off based on a specification and selections you have made. If it is a ballpark - I would expect that within a month. If it is a detailed take-off, then let the GC take his time and get it right. There is a lot of parts that go into a house and the GC is preparing your estimate while he has other things going on.

We found our builder in July 05. We had an estimate (ball park) back within 1 month. That was after he had his architect look over the house plan we had - determined what mods had to be made to make it cost effective to build - and get some ball park estimates back from his larger subs.

It then took 1 year - yes 12 months - from that time to the time we had sold our house, moved into a rental, finished the plans, did all of the preliminary selections so we could refine allowance numbers, got the loan approved, got the grading plan approved, signed the contract, got the building permits ,and finally got a bull dozer on our property.

Relax - you have a long road ahead of you. It is a stressfull process when done right - and if you rush it you may create a lot more stress than otherwise would be expected. If you need to sell your current house to afford the new house - SELL FIRST then start the new build. We did that and I can tell you that we talked about it everyday - how thankful we were to not have that hanging over our heads during the build.
alliern
18 years ago
It took us 6-7 weeks to get full fixed-cost bids back from our three prospective builders. I had everything picked out from appliances, to hardwood flooring, right down to plumbing fixtures and light switches. It was agonizing waiting for the quotes but worth it in my opinion. We know exactly what we are getting into! Hang in there!
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mommyz
Original Author
18 years ago
We are asking for a rough estimate just to see if we can even afford to build it. We have had to lower our price on our house so much that we figured we better figure out if this is even an option anymore.
Thanks for the info. - makes me feel like we should just be patient.
Yes, we are planning on selling our house before we sign anything since we don't need that additional stress.