Well if done wrong you could lose money, lose your marriage, lose your health, I’ve even seen people lose the very home they are trying to build.
What did they do wrong?
We’ll get to that in a minute, but first let me introduce myself. My name is Kelly Kramer, I have owned a small plumbing company for the last six years. We work in all areas of plumbing, hot water heating, and gas fitting. We specialize in finding products for home owners that will make their lives easier, that is why I am doing this now. We have worked with many experienced home builders and some people who have built their own homes. Some have done well where others have failed miserably.
Here is Why People Fail
Well these people (the ones that failed) did not have a clue on what is involved in building a house. They did zero research, had no knowledge whatsoever. They didn’t have an idea in the world on what to do, but they were convinced they could do it anyway. They failed in many areas from finding proper contractors to having contractors show up when the job was not ready for them, and thinking they should not be charged for that extra time that they forced on their contractors. Time is money and if you make the call it is in your hands to pay if things are not ready. Do this one little mistake to much and contractors will walk off the job, charge you twice (or more) as much on extras. They will get even with you somehow, so you must know what you are doing if you want to survive.
But on the other hand
Some of my clients have had tremendous success in building their own home. They had no clue on what to do, but they gave themselves an education before starting. Some people pay a couple of hundred dollars for the required knowledge and some people pay with stress, and huge financial losses. These clients at the end of the whole process found themselves with a cool $100,000 and $150,000 respectively. That works out to 17% and 28% respectively. AND they feel a great sense of accomplishment. They still had some stresses, but these stresses were easily overcome. That one homeowner went on to build two more homes for themselves over the next four years. That was enough to make them mortgage free at the ripe old age of 38. (In a $750,000 house I might add) Not quite as good as one of my builders who makes $225,000 per house about 38% profit. WOW. Another one of my builders makes $90,000, but he builds smaller homes and does a lot of work himself so his profits are about 45%. Both of these builders own $1,000,000+ homes that are mortgage free.
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