Planning a New Home/FAQs Should I Hire a Builder? Building your own home is not as simple as it may appear. For example-Have you had adequate technical training and do you have a working knowledge of the Building Code? You would be somewhat nervous if your builder told you that your house was going to be his first and you may not want to finance his education. For you to take over any function in the home construction process, you should calculate in the cost of your education to do that job. The cost of wasted materials after you have done it the wrong way, and the professional consulting to get the mistakes fixed, can be a difficult and expensive learning experience. A professionally built home instills confidence. If you sell your home down the road, will a purchaser pay more for a novice built home or one built by a reputable known builder? There is a common misconception that the builder adds excessive profits to the total home costs and some people think they can avoid paying the extra charge by building the house themselves. In order for this statement to be true the novice builder and the professional builder would have to have the same net costs. The professional's net cost will always be lower. Construction is a competitive industry and profit margins are lean. There is not a lot of money to be saved by acting as your own general contractor. You might be pleasantly surprised at how little it really costs to hire a professional. Can you devote 3-4 months of essential daytime supervision? Will your current job suffer? Do you have the ability to recognize and stop potential problems as they occur? When you take on the responsibilities yourself, you may find that you cannot hire the better sub-contractors when you would like because they are already booked. Those who have chosen the route of self-contracting commonly speak of frustration, costly delays and headaches. Although they were in direct contact with the subtrades and were able to make their own decisions every step of the way, they were overwhelmed by the sheer volume of decisions to be made. The builder makes it easy for you by making many of these decisions on your behalf, leaving you with the decisions that make your house uniquely yours such as cabinetry, fixtures, and wall and floor coverings. There are so many complexities and other important aspects to building a new house that it is wise to deal with a professional builder and one who can provide you with an independent third party guaranteed warranty. You can get started by going to the list of Registered Builders in the New Home Warranty Program.