New Construction

What to know about custom home costs and timeframes

Given how much time, money, and energy you’ll invest in building your new construction home, you’ll want to make absolutely sure that you partner with a transparent, conscientious, and reputable builder. You need a custom home builder who’s going to keep the new home construction project within your budget, specifications, and timeframe, with no unpleasant surprises.

Design and construction timelines vary, of course, but a custom home can generally take about six months to design and plan, then about a year to build.

Although it’s typically more expensive upfront to build a home than it is to buy an existing one, you have a lot of control over a custom home’s cost by adjusting details of the design, finishes, appliances, and so on. 

Agreeing upon a detailed, complete scope and budget upfront will go a long way toward keeping development within budget. In the long run, a new construction home is often a good investment when it comes time to eventually sell the home.

The Northern Virginia and the Great DC region is a great places to build because home values tend to hold strong here. Thanks to the high proportion of federal, healthcare, and defense workers that the nation’s capital consistently employs, housing is always in high demand here.

Vetting a potential builder

Before you agree to work with a specific builder, it’s worth taking a little time to vet them — due diligence at this stage could save you a lot of time, stress, and energy later.

Ask your potential builder for references. The first thing to take stock of is a builder’s track record. That means viewing a builder’s portfolio and checking up on the quality of their finished homes, of course, but you’ll also want to hear what recent clients say about the process of working with that builder. When talking to one of the builder’s former clients, ask these questions:

• When did you work with the builder?
• Did they stay within budget?
• Did the final result meet your expectations?
• Did they complete work on schedule?
• Do you have any advice for someone who’s considering signing a contract with this builder?

Some builders have a model or custom home available for you to tour, so that’s another way to get a sense of the builder’s quality standards and attention to detail.

How to get a great return on your investment

 
When designing your home, a great builder can help you foresee life changes and design your home to accommodate them — so you don’t outgrow the home in a few years or find it lacking features that you need years down the road.

Even if you’re building a home that you plan to live in personally for many years, it’s smart to factor in the home’s eventual resale value. New construction can be a very smart investment in the long run. A good home builder — or a knowledgeable real estate agent — can help advise you on ways to optimize your new construction home for its eventual resale in the specific community where you’re building.

If you’ll be living in your completed home for years, work with a real estate agent who doesn’t just tell you what the current state of the market is, but also makes informed forecasts of the area’s future housing market. If there’s any kind of housing market shift, you’ll want to be on the right side of it.