That's a very large budget. Where in SC? We currently live near Charlotte but my home town is N. Augusta, SC. You might benefit from talking to the local building suppler stores to get recommendations. Track builders are taking over to put the 'most' money they can in their pockets! They build as 'cheap' as possible. Allot of what you don't see!

ugh, that was 'paneful' :-/

Craig I live in Henderson county NC so basically spitting distance from the Upstate. Are you working with an architect or are you hoping to find a builder with *a plan* that you like? If the former, they will be able to steer you to builders. If the latter, you are only removing yourself a half step from the tract home process.

The land is probably 150,000 and is paid for so we are looking at about 400k for the construction. I have spoken to an architect but we have not yet decided to go that route or not. The architect was very forthcoming in saying that with a budget of that size the cost of architectural services can be more costly than the benefit received. We are looking at about 10,000 for those services I believe. The house will be around 2500 sq ft and require a basement. I built a home 14 years ago and there was no shortage of custom builders. It's as if the recession knocked them out and they never came back.

Oh...we are in Spartanburg County on Lyman Lake

My wife works at Lyman Elementary and we are in Greenville Co... there are custom builders everywhere up here, you just have to drive around and jot down their names from the signs out front. For example, this morning I noted 'Peery Homes' based on a site I happened to drive by while taking an alternate route to work. For our future build/budget (approx 350k), I have been given recommendations to contact at A2E, but I haven't reached out to them yet. They do good work. Addison Homes is another that comes up with rave reviews, but they are high-end and expensive.

Hi! Small world. My wife works at Byrnes. I think we are going to have to look towards Greenville. Most of the builders in Spartanburg seem to have retired or would rather do remodel work rather than compete with tract builders. Thanks so much for your reply!

Check out Carson Speer.

Hi Bonnie,

Funny you should mention them. I emailed them the other day and someone from their office called me the other day. Someone is supposed to follow up with us next week. Have you worked with them before?

I have not worked with them. My kids were in a playgroup with the Carsons when they were little.

Craig, I know a number of custom builders went out of business in this area during the great depression. Have you thought about being an O/B if you have the time? You could save 'allot' of money but you would need to get GC pricing. Allot of subs will give you this as an O/B.

I have given that some thought and I have a friend who said he could serve as a consultant for a fee and point me in the right direction. He agrees with you that that approach would save a lot of money. My concern is that I know just enough about this kind of stuff to be dangerous. I would also need to check with my bank to see if they would approve a construction loan that was structured like that. Thanks!

I had a meeting at CBL in Greer last week and was surprised to find that they allow owner-build with their construction loans. The rates, however, were about .5% higher than the national lenders are advertising, so that would need to be taken into account. It's an option we're considering, but I don't have too many leads for contractors at the moment.

I would he curious as to what the cost savings are as opposed to working with a contractor. Have you ran any numbers?

If you are a retired trade, so as to be able spend all your time on the job, and have good industry connections, then yes, it's possible to save money. Even then, the upgrade temptations can sabotage budgets.

Most people "save" virtually nothing by being an OB. They spend more to do many things than a GC will. They then use up any actual savings by upgrading things

Consider the really extended timeline paying that extra interest before being able to convert from a construction to perm. Add in the conflict of how long the bank will actually let a construction mortgage be open. They have deadlines. Deadlines that are difficult to meet unless the job is full time and you have experience.

Also consider that even experienced GC's are having big labor shortages and can't get work done right now. Subs have no incentive to either give you any discount on pricing, or to show up to your job. The contractor that gives them 300K worth of work will always come first. He'll blow you off in a heartbeat. Now you've got a runaway snowball going downhill for everything that comes after. You have to know how to make adjustments and second choices.

Hope I'm not completely hijacking this thread, but I'm looking to move to Spartanburg County and since I saw it mentioned, I thought I'd ask my question. I've seen some nice looking homes in Boiling Springs. Does anyone know anything about the builders in that area, namely Dan Ryan Builders (https://www.danryanbuilders.com/communities/sterling-estates), Enchanted Construction, also in Sterling Estates (https://www.enchantedconstruction.com/sterling-estates) or DR Horton (https://www.drhorton.com/south-carolina/greenville/boiling-springs/river-rock)? Also other recommendations for homes in that area, hopefully in the <300K range? Thanks!