- You’ve finally decided to build that home you’ve been dreaming about. You’ve stopped by to visit one of our model homes and toured some available homes too. So what’s next? If you’re ready to sign the contract, congratulations! You are ready to learn about our building process. But if you’re still thinking about who should build your home, we would like to provide some responses to questions that you should be asking any builder as you make this life-changing decision.
As a professional homebuilding company who has built over one hundred homes, we encourage and welcome this dialogue. We also find that it can be hard to ask questions that we as builders would ask if we were interviewing other builders. These questions go beyond the cost of the home, the personalizations, and the available promotions. So here are a few of the answers to top questions we think prospective homebuyers should ask before building a new home:
Who will run the job?
We will assign an experienced Project Manager to be your main point of contact from the pre-construction meeting through the final walk through. This person will respond to questions in our online portal, assist you with making selections, and work with you on the various walkthroughs to help you make decisions that turn lumber and nails into your home. Learn more about us and meet our team by browsing through our website or contact us to scheduling a meeting with one of the builders.
How do I communicate with my Project Manager?
Knowing how to contact this person is crucial, so make sure you ask how communication is handled. Properly documenting decisions along the way is crucial. Post-it notes, scrap pieces of paper and large binders can be hard to keep track of and quickly outdated. This is another benefit of our online portal; here you can track your questions and responses from the PM, see an updated list of expenses, project timeline, and make all of the personal selections from the comfort of your couch all in one location.
Will workers be there all day, every day?
Understanding the process and how we schedule typical new home construction helps you have a great homebuilding experience. In fact, sometimes (if not often), there are very few people on the jobsite, but that doesn’t mean things aren’t progressing. We wrote a three-part series to detail what this process is like and summarized the steps to building your Silverthorne home, to help clarify what this process looks like.
If you drive by and it seems like there aren’t as many people working as you expected, it could be due to a variety of factors. An inspection may be scheduled, which means we have to wait until we have the approval to move forward; a delivery might be on its way which will trigger a crew to return and continue the work; there are many reasons the jobsite may not look as you expect, and this is where the communication with your project manager comes into play. We pride ourselves on efficiency and consider it one of our core values because we keep a tight production schedule and our business depends on being efficient. Occasional lulls are to be expected and our project schedules have been adjusted over the course of our business lifetime to provide a great balance of efficiency and uncompromised quality.
How often can I stop by the jobsite?
Your project manager can set up a schedule for you to visit the site, meet with him/her, and ask any questions about the project and its progress. Safety is a key priority and unscheduled visits can be hazardous, but also may impact the schedule and pace of work. We know how exciting building a new house can be, and seeing the progress is one of the best parts of the process. Because we recognize this excitement, if you contact your project manager, they will be happy to work with you to schedule additional visits to walk you through the jobsite.
Can you supply references?
We are happy to provide you with a list of people who have recently purchased homes from us and we encourage you to call them and ask about their experience and level of satisfaction as you make your own purchasing decision. Any professional builder should have references at the ready, including financial partners, trade contractors, materials suppliers, and others we work with that can provide a third party perspective on our professionalism and track record of performance. You can browse through our testimonials page and check out our Facebook reviews to get a peek at what current owners of a Silverthorne home have to say about our work.
How do you handle changes?
As much as we try to get all of the decisions made up front in our design meetings, the decision to make changes during construction does occur from time to time. Changes to things in the home are always easier and less costly to make before they are installed, for instance moving the location of an electrical switch might not cost anything before it’s done but might cost a few hundred dollars after it has been completed. It’s also not always possible to make specific changes once certain parts of the home have been built. Things such as moving or eliminating a wall, or rearranging a bathroom layout may jeopardize the integrity of the structure if done after the fact. Talk to your project manager as soon as things come to mind to help minimize cost and delays.
At Silverthorne, our team and processes are dedicated to creating an enjoyable and unforgettable experience as we create your dream home. Armed with the answers to these questions, we think you’ll be more confident in your home buying decisions and more likely to be satisfied with the end result.