We recently purchased a 2-acre lot between Weatherford and Granbury.

Wife and I are about to be empty nesters, and we have lived in 3 homes over the last 20 years but never built. Few questions...

1. Is it better to pay a House Designer/Architect to have a set of plans that we can have a few builders bid - or to select a builder who will provide custom home design services as part of their offering? On the surface, it seems owning plans and being able to negotiate with several builders would be good...but average cost to get plans is $2.50/$3.00 per square foot under roof. For us that's going to be $10-12K for plans.

Noteworthy that I believe what we are seeking is not a unique floorplan nor do we have anything difficult about the build site to contend with.

I'm a negotiator at heart - so it's difficult for me to give up the option to work with multiple builders - but I fear I could be paying for plans that I would otherwise get for no charge and maybe there isn't enough savings potential to mess with negotiating hassles.

Thoughts?

2. Is there a benefit to having a realtor represent me to meet with builders? I can't imagine the builders don't just increase every line item by 3% to pay the realtor commission. What value should I expect to receive from that? Maybe it's worth it, but I need someone to explain to me why and how.

3. Referrals to great builders that operate in Parker and Hood counties would be appreciated


Thanks very much.

I financed hundreds of custom builds over the years and don't ever remember a Realtor being involved. I'm a firm believer in the value of a good Realtor in residential transactions including production builders but don't see the value with custom.

As a custom home builder myself, I can never understand why anyone brings a realtor to the table. I don't pay the commission, you do. It's tacked on to the price of the home.

Also, the majority of realtors that we deal with have zero knowledge about building a custom home and just muddy the waters a lot times. There are some ones with previous experience that are helpful but I'm not sure they provide enough value to offset the cost of their commission.

On the plans, it just depends on the builder. We have people come to us with their own plans but majority work with some plans we already have and then we set them up with an architect we work with to adjust them. It saves our clients a lot of money that way. Working with the builder as you go thru the house design can help you understand construction costs. It would be easy to directly work with an architect and then approach builders with those plans, only to find out you are way over your budget.

Your money will be better spent on a home inspector than a realtor. I'm talking about an active inspection process each phase of the construction. You can't inspect electrical or plumbing if the sheet rock is up.