If you want to have a home Custom Designed for your Family, 
Look no further, you've come to the right place!

How much will it cost me to build this home?

    Virtually everyone must limit their home design, size, style and aesthetics according to their budget. This is true of all of our clients

     Your home's design will not be the only thing that determines whether it costs $80 per square foot, or $200 per square foot.

    Determining what you can afford to spend on a Custom Home is very easy. 

    Simply call your local bank's mortgage department. By asking you a few financial and family questions, they can calculate, using current interest rates and your current income, how much principal you should be able to borrow. 

    This should take less than a few minutes, it will generally be very accurate but keep in mind that interest rates can change tomorrow, and so can your income. Be sure taxes and insurance have been calculated in the equation. As a rule of thumb, 28% of your gross income before deductions can be spent on house payments, including real estate taxes, insurance and association fees, if any. (35% maximum for all payments including car and credit card payments.

How do i spend this money Wisely?

    Go shopping for homes to get a feel for their value. From those prices you will have to subtract the land value, which you will have gotten elsewhere, and the developers profit, which you have no intention of paying.

    Also call some builders to see if you can get some rough estimates. You may not get the answers you want, because you do not have any plans to show builders, but you do need to know about how much house you can get for the amount that you have. 

    A Builders rough estimate can be misleading as their answers can depend on several factors, such as how busy they are, how desperate they are for work and how many homes they have built. However, you have to start somewhere, and without detailed plans, this may be the best gauge you can find for now.

    The vast majority of homes built in the US today are built for less than $120 per square foot. A nice home using standard construction methods with stock materials and fixtures should run $95 to $110 per square foot in the suburbs of the major areas of the Midwest.

    But remember you can finish several phases of construction at later dates, allowing you to spend your capital on rough square footage, instead of paying for all the finish work up front which can be quite a bit of money.

    These numbers assume you will have a Builder for your home. If you are acting as your own general contractor, deduct at least 15 percent, as much as 35 percent in some areas. Do a substantial part of the labor yourself, you can cut the cost by half.

Custom the Way you want it done!

    Now that you have an idea of how large a house you can afford, you need to decide how large a house you need, and design it to fit on your lot. this is called Site Orientation, this is one of the most important parts of building your new home. the wrong placement of your home on your lot can be devastating to market value and livability of a home.

    You should know that there are many house plan web-sites out there who will sell you a set of House Plans with out ever talking to you or knowing where the house will be built.

   Determine the living area you need. click here for help  Ask the Designer

• How many bedrooms?
• How many baths?
• Family room and Living room or just a Family room?
• Do you entertain a great deal? Need a Dining room?
• Study or home office?
• Do you have Children? How many? Playroom for children?
• Library?
• How big of a garage?
• Basement?
• Decks
• Lot Location, what type of environment will the home sit in?

    These are just some of the aspects we will find out and help you determine.

   It is also important that you consider the value of your house on the open market. None of us know what the future will bring. To be safe, resale value should play an important part in the design of your home. A very unique design may be exactly what you want, but may be difficult to sell. A home that does not "fit" in the neighborhood may have a lower resale value even if it is clearly the best in the surrounding area.

Planning for the future and saving money now!

    If you must cut costs, (everyone has too), rather than give up on the space you need, consider building a large house and not finishing the lower level or upper level suitable for a future finish work. 

    By planning exactly where you will expand now, and how big the expansion will be, you can design your home in such a way as to make the expansion easy and relatively inexpensive. The foundation will already be there for you to build an addition later.

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