My house took 27 months to finish and we're now living here 3 years.

cpartist - Refresh my memory. I remember seeing your home photos, but do not remember that it took so long to build...why?

Grogan Engineering - Beautiful home!!! Love the video.

Our build took 16 months from ground breaking to move in (still not finished when we moved in), but almost two years because of lot restriction difficulties and having the plans drawn up.

We were around 25% over on materials. Labor is another story! Then there were the things that were not included in the build price, like landscaping, a watering system and fencing. And don't even talk about all the extra's with furnishing the place. We mostly used what we had, but did purchase a few smaller furniture pieces, some art work, and miscellaneous decorating objects. Our trips to Lowe's for everything from nails to W-D40 has taken us over a couple of thousand dollars in the last several months. Hope I am not stressing you out!!! 🤔

We have been in the house for almost 8 months and still have some work to be done. Touch-ups, repairs, etc. We are having a set of French doors replaced soon.

The one piece of advice that I can give is to be patient and do it right. In the long run, the process will be well worth the wait!!!

Same here. 10 months in and ready for insulation then drywall. About 20% over budget at this point. Overages don’t seem to be isolated to just a few things. Everything is costing more and taking longer than estimated in early 2021.

Wow-glad to hear its not just me!

Ours started off on the wrong foot when the grader I found dug 5 ft of the basement with a mini ex and then tried to do the rest with a skid steer. I shot the elevations because he didnt have a transit...smh.I was so tired of him and in deep dollar wise with him, I got it to 7ft and gave up. So the house is now a foot and a half out of the ground higher than its supposed to be. Oh and that was supposed to take 10 days and two months later I ran him off.

I work in the industry and figured I had a lot of contacts I could leverage but boy have I ever had to. Went through 5 framers to find the guy I used. Framing labor budget went from $6.50/sf to $8.25/sf, then the stairs and deck were extra but those guys did an amazing job.

I did luck out on the mason, the first one I selected was "too busy" to do our house even though they did the foundations which was all under the same contract. But the second guy was $35k cheaper. However now it change ordering me to death. I still think it will be 25k cheaper.

So yeah subs are the name of the game it seems. We bought all the wood for the house at one time in December and luckily no one stole anything ( I had a few sleepless nights).

Crazy times! There should be books written about building during this time.

IMO anyone attempting to build during this time is asking for issues on all levels and I do not know what kind of engineering field you are in but rarely do first time home builders really have a clue as to what is involved and how long it takes and how much it costs and at this time all of that is magnified for sure I do not find 10 months a long time for a new build I think too may people watch home building shows on TV that give a warped idea of time.

"Crazy times! There should be books written about building during this time."

As well as the value of hiring a good GC with existing relationships.............

Our self-contracted custom build took us about 13 months to actually complete but then we were waiting on permit sign-offs for couple months from the AHJ. I had planned a year so wasn't too far off in that regard.

Build was about 15% over budget and the huge bulk of that was footings/flatwork and septic. I ended up having to run off the contractor who did the footings/flatwork and pay someone to finish his job and fix his mistakes. We also did a good bit of work ourselves which probably insulated us from other price increases.

We finished up summer of 2020.

@Grogan Engineering,

My comments are not anti-engineer (I'm a licensed P.E.) nor anti-DIYer so I hope you won't take them as such. I left a corporate position over 23 years ago with lots of industrial/commercial construction and project management experience--very little of which I found to be relevant in residential construction.

Millworkman is spot on with regard to relationships. Your relationship with suppliers and trade contractors is for a single project. Their relationships with builders produces--or should produce--many, many times more than that. Jobs will be priced accordingly. You won't have the buying power of an established contractor (which is really important when materials are being sold on allocation to established customers only) and trade contractors will price your job for the risks involved (uncalibrated expectations and risk of non-payment.)

If you've never estimated the cost of a residential construction project you're in for an education. And when you choose to build a home during a pandemic, endemic or supply logistics challenged times you're in for an even greater amount of education. And you'll be paying for your education-- the same as contractors do.

If folks want to act as their own custom home building contractor or build a home as a DIY for the life experience, then I say go for it. But, if you're planning to do it for some perceived economy and will take time away from your day job (or give up your day job) to do it, I think you'll come up short.

Fully custom home with a cost plus contract. We broke ground on Nov 2020 and moved in Jan 2022 with lots of things to still finish up. We had to move out of our rental due to a crazy landlord, but we would have preferred to extend the lease for a few more months. For the next 5 months after we moved in we had people working at the house pretty much every day! Still waiting on some things like gutters, under cabinet lights and fire/water bowls for the pool.

Budget wise, we probably ended up 40% over our builder's original "estimate". Some of it was covid price increases, a fair amount was my builder just underestimating the quality level we wanted or not really looking at the whole house plan. A few items were major things we added that were quite expensive (home automation and audio/video stuff).

As an example: cabinets - the house has a lot of cabinets including large kitchen, laundry, 2 mudrooms, 5 bathrooms and linen cabinet built-ins. The original estimate was $64K. When we got the updated quote it was $140K. I think my builder just threw in a number from an average house he had built back in 2018 -2019 and didn't really do the math for all the cabinets doors and drawers that we had on the plans.

Covid actually was "good" for our house value. Although we spent way over what we though we would on the build, while we were building RE went crazy and people were paying similar prices, to what we paid to build, for 30 year old houses that need to be gutted/remodeled! Today we could probably sell our new build for an $800K profit. Or worse case, if we really wanted to just get our money back and get out of the house we would be competing against similarly priced houses that are 30 years older, so we would have an advantage.

Like many here, we had no clue what was coming our way when be bought the lot in July 2019 and the RE market was actually a bit slow/depressed in the area we bought in.

cpartist - Refresh my memory. I remember seeing your home photos, but do not remember that it took so long to build...why?

My whole saga is here on the forum somewhere but it took so long because my builder is incompetent and had 1 supervisor for 10 custom houses and not all 10 houses were even in the same area, so the poor supervisor would have to travel between areas and get to all 10 houses within an 8-10 hour day.

However I was one of the "lucky" ones because at the time he was still hiring the better subs in town and my house was finished in 27 months. Nowadays he's scraping the bottom of the barrel because he keeps robbing Peter to pay Paul and doesn't pay his subs. The houses he's buidling now have taken an average of 42 months to complete and even then, they're not finished.

I remember now...thank you.

@Joseph Corlett, LLC: "You wanted low-priced subs; you got 'em."

I hope this is a general comment and not directed at me despite you quoting me. I can assure you we did not want low-priced subs. We emphasized to our custom home builder on this cost-plus contract that we wanted quality work and were willing to pay for it. We paid, we just didn't get value for money except in the few instances where we requested particular subs. Unfortunately, I had to rely on our builder to hire most of them as is usually the case. I was dismayed when I learned there were some he'd never used before and knew nothing about.

I should mentioned I have been in the residential industry since 2008 and have probably more contacts than most builders because I come across new ones daily. As for the use a builder comment. I should clarify I am 25% higher than my estimate. I am still coming out far better than using a builder. Originally I wanted to get it at $115/sf and I am around $140/sf when all said and done. Builder in the neighborhood is selling his at $220/sf-ish and his quality is awful.

@chispa: "For the next 5 months after we moved in we had people working at the house pretty much every day! Still waiting on some things like gutters, under cabinet lights and fire/water bowls for the pool."

This is what I hoped to avoid. The builder told my husband he could move his stuff into the detached garage, then we learned he forgot to see if it had been insulated (it had not.) It was also missing some lights. Later we were told we should go ahead and order furniture. I postponed deliveries three times before the Certificate of Occupancy was granted. The house still is not habitable in our opinion, but should be soon. I need for it to be safe for a little grandchild we babysit frequently, so we're waiting.

"Budget wise, we probably ended up 40% over our builder's original "estimate". Some of it was covid price increases, a fair amount was my builder just underestimating the quality level we wanted or not really looking at the whole house plan."

Boy, is that ever familiar! I got so tired of hearing about what they usually do. We thought the point of hiring a custom builder was to get away from that mindset. Our builder also failed to study the plan carefully, despite my repeated requests. He ended up making some structural changes to the interior as a result of both his lack of attention to the plan and his subs screwing up the ICF, framing and plumbing.

Forgetting the pain of this build will take longer than forgetting the pain of childbirth. I just hope we both will enjoy the home eventually and are able to mitigate the problems. For now I am focusing on furniture and window treatments, as well as figuring out how to accommodate an unexpected new grandchild in a couple of months.

We are closing this week. 14 months from dirt to balloons. No cost increases as our building contract is a fixed cost contract.

I had a client that claimed the builder was 40 days past the June deadline. The builder replied he guaranteed the home will be finished by June 79th.

Our garage with an apartment over it was quoted at double my budget, which I had already doubled in my head. We have a 20 year relationship with our GC and his firm. It won’t be worst case scenario, but they did not want to mislead us.

We’ve exceeded our budget on windows, plumbing, appliances, and cabinets.

Our original window budget was about $90k. Pricing initially came in around $170k. We were able to make changes to bring the cost down to about $94k without sacrificing window count. We changed French Doors and double-hungs with four-panel sliders (which I thought would’ve been more expensive) and by using casement windows.

Plumbing cost exceeded by $4k to $5k.

Appliances cost exceeded by $14k.

Cabinets by a yet-to-be determined amount.

Ground-breaking was anticipated to be 8 months ago. Probably won’t start until late August.

The vast majority of custom home contracts in our area are executed on a cost-plus basis. Unless you're on a fixed-contract price contract basis, you don't know what your costs are until you actually incur them.

@Grogan Engineering, my structural engineer charges $175/hr. for his services. When calculating the savings vs. hiring a general contractor did you consider the value of your time spent as amateur G.C. at the opportunity cost of $175/hr? If not, at what cost would you achieve break even?

You and everyone else :( Parts of my still-unfinished house were stuck in the Suez Canal at one point.

Hope you end up loving your new place!

@Charles Ross Homes Of course. I would have to design somewhere around 150+/- custom homes for it to not be worth it. Its enough of a delta for me to consider a career change to be honest. As soon as this one is done, I am doing another.

Hah! I wouldn't build a dog house in this "climate" unless the money was..... I. Could, Never. Ever. Ever. Possibly. Need. It. Money. The end.

Eight months for windows, over ten for a Sub Zero.....42 weeks for a couch....

Four new builds at the moment, and I think all four of my clients have learned a new meaning for time, money, patience. Remodel folks? Same thing.

My tombstone will say "She almost........finished".

@Grogan Engineering,

I'm guessing your math is off. I think you'll be better off financially if you keep your day job.

Says the PE no longer doing engineering. And I shouldn't have started a company, and shouldn't have gone to college, and shouldn't have gone to grad school. All risks, all varying rewards. What your engineer is not telling you is not all work and hours in the day are billable. If they have employees, its even less profitable. In reality, the $500/hr sunroom and porch designs pay for the $50/hr custom homes/architect projects that are fun and cool but cut up, don't stack and have 500 beams in them. To each their own. Man so many negative people around here.

Not negative, Neil, just real.

"I should mentioned I have been in the residential industry since 2008 and have probably more contacts than most builders"

"when the grader I found dug 5 ft of the basement with a mini ex and then tried to do the rest with a skid steer."

"Went through 5 framers to find the guy I used."

"the first one I selected was "too busy" to do our house even though they did the foundations which was all under the same contract. But the second guy was $35k cheaper. However now it change ordering me to death. I still think it will be 25k cheaper."

Yet, here you are.....................

The title of this thread is "Anyone else way over budget and schedule on their custom build?"

I'm guessing that characterizes the OP's experience, but I could be wrong.

2 years and 2 months so far. Should finish up in another month or so. Pretty close on budget due to GC providing appropriate estimates given what we wanted for levels of finish.

Its funny no matter where you go, what forum, what topic, what industry, there are always the couple of toxic people that offer no advice or real perspective just hate everything anyone is doing. Party on fellas.

Since it has taken 3yrs. and 7 mos. to almost get a building permit here in Canuckistan, yes we are over budget and out of schedule and devoid of much interest in building.

Just removed the last items from the tear-down today and am pricing demolition. Ceilings have collapsed, water is pouring directly in and Rocky Raccoons have taken over. Will leave it as a lot while we attempt to sell in a depressed real estate market. Figuring C$400 sf. for the new build, up from C$350sf pre-Pandemic. Licenced builder for decades, so I'm probably not out to lunch.

Worthy your experience with this build is so wild. What a frustrating journey it sounds to have been. I was mad our permits took double the time expected. Will you take a hit on this or will it work out? The market is shifting so much right now.

@JP Haus I had to check to see who wrote your posts because I thought I might have accidentally written them myself, in my sleep. Change your overages to 50% (and that's AFTER giving up several things I had planned) and we could be the same person.

Almost 2 years in and finally nearing the end of the most hellish nightmare of my life - building a custom home.

WestCoast Hopeful

My fault.

I've built in four of the six municipalities that used to make up Toronto. But I was blind to the fact that this small adjacent city was a bureaucratic horror show. (Unless you're a big enough wheel for the Mayor to sidle up to on a photo shoot.)

We will be happy to sell the lot and move where the housing dollar goes way further, i.e., anywhere but the Left Coast! A legal 8,700 sf two-family for a couple hardly makes sense. Three worthies have moved on since my brainstorm.

***

BTW, how did you deal with the stream under your basement?

The one time I saw that in person here was a reno where the basement lowering hit a well-known buried watercourse that the renovator could have easily found if they bothered to, you know,read.

(Many other cities have similar resources.)

Things are pretty amazing on the left coast ;)

Streams are super common here and just a part of building. It was likely an error that the builder didn’t plan for it to be honest. We live on the side of a mountain with a creek in the backyard.

I don’t even remember all the specifics or what we did just that it cost a heck of a lot more. More gravel, more digging, more waterproof something and so on. We have a rock pit in backyard that drains out the storm water.

The Toronto basement ended up with two sumps and pumps (with backups) running 24/7 forever. Expect there are no basement apartments there!

Here? We have a walkout basement with rec room and guest room and bathroom. Also a two bedroom basement suite. Lol. We love basements here

We are not really over budget, but are behind schedule. We had a delay of about 2 and a half months due to weather. Our lumber cost actually dropped quite a bit from what the builder had initially budgeted but some of that got offset by higher costs for some other things. However, things have pretty much evened out right now.

Some practical advice mostly schedule and costs:

Completed drywall (textured, sanded & ready for paint, tile, trim, doors) is 1/2 way in my schedule from foundation to CofO. Basements or mass grading adds to the front end. Usually we hire surveyors & geotechnical independently of excavators to work as our quality control.

"There should be books written about building during this time." yea but every consumer would rather get their info from DIYTV and the salesperson wrestling schedule control from the builder. This is not Amazon Prime.

At drywall commencement its time to tie up all open decisions. Doors & trim, tile, cabinets and even paint should be ordered long before and ready once the drywall finish contractor clears out. The home should be heated above 55. Loose ends that don't get ordered will add months. Don't believe "in stock" unless you can see it. Shortages of personnel in inventory counting also not to mention plenty of behind the scenes wrestling for products & materials. Only window schedules have improved. Trades people are plenty busy but show up to jobs with materials stocked and someone willing to pay on their schedule which is usually often as they are not your bank. Changes and/or shortages of materials might cause trade contractors to move to the next job, returning when their schedule clears, not when you want as you made the problem. Make it easy. Your leverage is only one of many jobs they get to pick from.

"Originally I wanted to get it at $115/sf and I am around $140/sf when all said and done."

Either of those numbers would be outstanding. You're also 1/2 way through cost and finishes are usually what kill budgets for most people even if they are the professional budget keepers. Slabs are supply/demand driven and a lot of money is chasing product that wasn't shipping often, concrete & concrete labor increased a few months back, doors & trim are about double since early 2020. Likely the list is "everything is more" plus fuel surcharges.

Assuming your appliances are ordered or you get what is available.

Exterior use a lot more straw (4' wide) or wide rolls of fabric - all cheaper & more effective than cleaning labor.

check water sheading detail brick to deck. Its covered but couldn't see it.

Be wary of online sources (light fixtures, etc.) and trace manufacturers to verify they exist. "Free replacement" is often more expensive than good product. Of course, light fixtures should also be finalized and ordered at this point.

Exterior use a lot more straw (4' wide) or wide rolls of fabric - all cheaper & more effective than cleaning labor.

Huh?

The only straw we used to use (in the last century) was to keep foundations from frost heaving.

@worthy to keep rain water from splashing mud (w clay) onto masonry and staining it from his video. We're seeing similar issues w acrylic stucco staining

@Jeffrey R. Grenz, General Contractor

Thanks! All practical advise.

You are right on the straw not being wide enough-that pic was from the new grader (got rid of the first one) and we were at the beach. Asked him to make it wider and he did some but we had monsoon season before we got back and have a couple of spots that are going to have to be cleaned.

Most of the finishes have been picked. We got samples from the company we are using for lighting, Ordered appliances months ago, should be here any day I would think. Front door finally showed up-that took 7 months. Garage doors are here. We do need to get a deposit in on the hardwood flooring.

Decisions left: stone for patios and porches. Boxing materials (almost done with this), fireplace coverings inside, tile, deck board color and master tub. I think that's mostly everything.

I've gone through all the numbers and need $82k on top of bank draws to finish. Going to just round that to $100k.

On the front porch waterproofing. Good eye-the front lip is flashed to the below grade waterproofing below the slab to send it to the drainage mat. I am flashing the wall with the door this weekend and have to take out some brick because the masons got ahead of me. Planning on using a membrane on top of the slab that drains to the stairs.

30 years ago we were hours from signing off on building a home, when we found one already existing and abandoned ship. The stories above are exactly why I did not want to build. These issues have been around always IMPO. With custom comes communication issues, small batch orders which are not a priority, professionals busy with bigger higher pay back jobs. Read through celebrity renovation disasters and then sign up for that when you have half the money and none of the influence credit!!

Tons of cognitive dissonance and Dunning Krueger on display here.

Used my cognitive dissonance and Dunning Krueger to have a productive week on the project. Got the deck framed up, stair slabs placed and last prep work for drywall on Tuesday. Can't wait to see what it looks like.

Grogan:

I can't wait to see joist hangers on your deck framing.

@Grogan Engineering Where are you able to build so inexpensively? Also, your video says this is a $2M house. So it's like 13,000 square feet?

@Joseph Corlett, LLC

I can't wait to see joist hangers on your deck framing.

OK Ill take a picture for you. The ones for the double 2x10s @ 12 on the porch deck were a little tough to get on.

Where are you able to build so inexpensively? Also, your video says this is a $2M house. So it's like 13,000 square feet?

It will be around 8200 heated when all said and done. 10,000 sf under roof. The price is relative but comparable houses are selling for $1.82 (6100 sf including unfinished basement), $1.22 (4500 sf), $1.05 (3800 sf) , $0.99 (3500 sf), $1.3 (4300 sf).

Going to live here for at least a year maybe two.

@Grogan Engineering Wow, impressive project, and I'm incredibly jealous of the pricing.

@TXGuy Thanks-its been a fun one thats for sure!