Finding a Builder

Turns out that finding a builder wasn't as hard for us as one might think. Back in October of 2008, several months before Boo wife and I thought seriously about moving, we went to a Homearama here in town. Now you might ask, if we weren't thinking about moving why go to a Homearama. Well, it wasn't the first one we went to. Boo wife and I would often go to Home shows and events such as this just to look, and get ideas, and see what's out there. This particular event had 7 homes, from 7 different builders, all in one location.

It was a sunny and warm October weekend and so we packed up Anthony, who was 4 months old at the time, and took the relatively short drive out to the show. It was very interesting to view all the different architectural styles of the homes. Some I liked, some I didn't, but I remember entering one home where the info on the spec sheet stated that the 6,800 sq ft home was guaranteed to heat and cool for less that $90/month. Seriously?!, at the time I was paying more, on average, per month for my 2,000 sq ft Condo. The exterior of this home was nice but not my favorite of the bunch but, I really liked the floor plan and overall layout of the home so I decided to talk to the builder to get some more information.

Turns out that they built this home in under 6 months for this show and it was built using Insulated Concrete Forms (ICF) and also utilized Geothermal heating/cooling. He told me about some of the advantages of building with ICF, and of course I asked several questions about design, limitations, and cost. Anyway we talked about a variety of things for the next 10-15 minutes. I took his card and put it in my pocket, never thinking that I would be contacting him less than 6 months later.

NEXT: Finding a Builder Part II