How long does it take to design and build a custom home in Florida?
According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Survey of Construction, a single-family home takes around seven months to complete.
Now, this is just an average.
There are a lot of factors to take into account when building your custom home and they can all impact how long your custom home build takes.
To figure out how long it takes to design and build a custom home, let's take a look at the different phases of designing and building a custom home and how long they take.
How long does it take to find a site for a custom home?
The time needed to find and choose a site for your custom build home can vary substantially.
If you’re looking for a particular area, you might have to wait for a site to become available (and wait weeks, if not months) or you might get the perfect location straight away.
So, when it comes to site selection it can take anywhere between a month and a year to get the site you want.
Many potential customers don’t realize how much existing site conditions can affect the cost of the overall build. Be sure to check local conditions with regard to elevation, flood zones, soil conditions, utilities among others to ensure you know what factors to consider that could affect the cost of the site work component of your custom home build.
How long does it take to design a custom home?
If you’re looking for something extremely specific and want to be involved in the design process as much as possible, then it may take a bit longer to come up with a design for your custom home build.
On the other hand, if you let your selected architect go ahead and draw up your dream custom home, with minimal changes needed, the design can be finished a bit faster.
Depending on the extent of procured services for design and how complex the design, it could take as little as 1 month to as many as 3 months to design a custom home.
How long does it take to get a permit for a custom home?
When you start thinking of a timeline for your custom home build, a lot of people often forget to take permitting into account.
Permitting can be time intensive, depending on the jurisdiction.
Permitting can take around 4-6 weeks, sometimes longer and in some cases it can be quicker. It is important to have a well thought out plan with regard to applying and receiving permits so that construction is not held up.
How long does it take to find building contractors?
Finding the right contractors to build your home involves soliciting bids from subcontractors. Oftentimes finding the best price doesn’t necessarily mean the lowest price. The best case scenario allows for receiving multiple bids for some trades, however this does not always happen and can often extend the length of time needed for the bidding process.
This is something that can be done concurrent to the permitting process and can take about 4-5 weeks.
How long should it take to build a custom home?
In our years of experience, we’ve found the typical time to design and build a custom home is about 12 months, give or take. There are, however, a lot of variables that can cause your custom home build to take longer.
These variables can include:
The size and complexity of your custom home design
The efficiency of your contractor and building team
Material delivery delays
Manpower shortages
Challenges with your chosen site (mudslide, hilly area, etc.)
Site logistics
Challenging weather conditions
One common potential delay in building a custom home is related to starting construction prior to having all materials selected or not timing selection of required materials in time to meet the required delivery timeframe.
Homeowners will often change their minds on designs, material selections, and other building decisions once construction has started. This is not necessarily an issue—It is your home after all. You, as the client, always have the option to change anything at any time, however one must be aware of the potential for delays depending on the timing of requested changes.
If you make late changes to order requests, or take extended time to make decisions, it can impact the overall time it takes to complete your custom home.
The easiest way to avoid this is to make all your decisions early on and try to stick to them as best you can. The fewer changes you make, the quicker your home will be finished.
Of course, if there’s something you really want to change or you're unhappy about it don’t let time stop you from having the perfect home!
You can see there’s a lot that goes into a custom home build process, and a lot of it can impact how long it takes for you to build your home.
Talking to a professional early in the process can help you figure out a rough estimate of time for your custom home build.
Book a call with the Coastal Craftsmen team today, and we’ll help you sort out everything.