saying hi

[timesjoke]

Hi everybody,

Just had a couple extra seconds and thought I would pop in and say hi. Life has gotten extra busy and no time for internet stuff lately.

Most of you know I am in construction and got my contractor license almost two years ago.

Well, I have for years been complaining that there are no "starter homes" (inexpensive basic homes for a young couple to buy as their beginner home) available anymore because of government regulations and fees pushing the price of even a basic home so high that a young couple could not really afford it.

Well, I decided to stop being a complainer and try to do something about it so I have formed an alliance of builders to do just that. We have accuired a subdivision that was up for past due taxes and are working to build homes that are intended only for starting out young people. We have already picked up several sponsors and a few donations from the local community and I am very excited at how everything just seems to be falling into place almost as I work foward.

But, this eats up almost all of my free time. Things like posting here was fdone during dead time at work, my homelife was already full so I had to make some changes. I still do job estimating but I rarely go to the office and work from home. I had to purchase a plotter so I could print full sized scale prints to do my takeoffs with and I take less jobs than I used to because I have to spend so much time on the homes.

I actually put my own pouches back on and am framing again, I never thought I would do that but this is the one way among many ways I am keeping the cost down on the homes.

So far we have 5 prospective young families who have qualified and 7 more in the process, I only have 3 homes close to be ready though so I have to keep up a fast pace.

Just to guve you guys an idea, the average price on what the industry considers a "basic home" is about $115,000 to $125,000 and few young adults can afford to make the payments even if they can get the financing. Our homes are targeting $82,000 and the donations have made it possible for me to offer a line item discount to the first 5 people I already have approved of $3,000, that will give them a new home at $79,000. I still have a lot of fund raising to do and my goal is to get $3,000 for every new home donated.

Anyway, I again was mostly just saying hi, I hope everyone is doing well.

Bye

 

[Chi]

No one missed you. At least, I didn't.

About why you've been gone if that's true, that's really good. Good for you and hopefully they're not shoddy, crappy homes.

 

[timesjoke]

The concept is subcontractors make a profit then the general contractor also adds in his profit,

what we are doing is removing the extra contractor markup and finding other ways to cut the cost like we have a standard pay rate for all labor with all subs and we all share in the cost/profit of the home. We look for every way to reduct the cost such as the lot, an average small lot can cost between 20k to 35k where we have obtained an entire subdivision giving us the average lot cost of 7k, that helps.

I already have CAD so I designed the homes and only had to pay for an engineer who only charged $500 per house because we kept the plans very simple. etc....

The main point is this is all community backed, everyone involved lives in the County and everyone we help must be a resident of the County for at least two years. There are other qualifications but this is all about community involvement.

 

[wez]

Hey TJ.. I'm not you..

 

[ren]

I'm addicted to the HGTV channel but alas homes are so expensive. So I live vicariously

 

[timesjoke]

Well, lot's of stuff going on with this project, we have had 4 couples signed up and approved for a long time because people who I had been contacting about forming this project were skeptical we could find good canidates. This is all being financed in house, we are using our own money to invest in these homes so the first step was to find qualified people before we spent a lot of money getting things started.

So we have had these 4 couples waiting for a long time, so once we got things rolling, many of us have been moving at very high pace to try and get these 4 homes done as fast as possible.

Well we have two almost done and ready for final stage of paint and floor coverings, the other two are about two weeks behind the first two. The plan right now is to have all four done and have a little cerimony to celebrate all the work and dedication that all of us have put into making this happen. As a little thank you for these 4 couples we had always talked about putting in some furnature free of charge because they have been so understanding of our need to move slowly at first. Beds, dressers, and dinning room tables were already selected but today I am having a meeting where some new arrivals to this project are wanting to contribute to this project and one of the things we will be talking about is providing some furnature to all the new homes.

This is getting pretty exciting, this brings to mind the idea of the snowball effect where in many cases it can be shown as a bad thing but in this case, as this grows and more people get involved, I am seeing some great things comming out of this growth.

To date we have had about 130 applicants and those have been narrowed down to about 43 really good possibilities for these homes. Now I get to start enjoying things a little more, I got all the hard and grinding paperwork stuff done and have completed packets of submittals, energy calculations, and Florida compliance for every home we plan to build. I have complete building material lists for every home, as well as all funding in place for in house financing so this has all moved to the fun parts of working for donations and getting more people through the final stage of interviews to set them up with a home.