Others say...

"Big on promises, but mostly self-serving"
This was the first book I read when I decided to retire and in some way become very involved in building our retirement home. I ended up reading about 4 others - all of which were more substantive and helpful. The most obvious problem from my point of view is the exaggerated claim on the amount you can save. You would have to substitute a great deal of your own time plus a few other person's in place of the building tradespeople to even approach the author's claims. The other problem is since the time since I read it (2003), the book has become a platform for the author to expand his marketing. Finally, the pictures of the home the author built on his own were very unimpressive to me. I thought it looked really dull.

There was one thing I took from the book - that you needed 1,000 hours to do the job. I did that and a bit more since I had the time. I had a fantastic experience on my house, although I had to pass through ideas of being my own GC or getting someone experienced to act as a mentor. Dispensed with the first as unrealistic and ran into significant problems with after starting down the second path. I ended up using a builder who simply let me participate extensively in the process since I had done so much preparation. I ended up designing, planning, and participating extensively with all the subs. It ended up being done on time, on budget, and with a quality level that exceeded my expectations.



"The Owner-Builder Book: How You Can Save More Than $100,000 in the Construction of Your Custom Home, 4th Ed."
This book is an amazing resource. Of all the books I've purchased, this is the one that will help me the most!

"We saved $90,000 by building ourselves"
Great book. It helped us a lot. This book helped us gain the confidence that we needed to do it ourself. It's the best of the books I read on the subject.

"I've read it"
But I am still scared. Ihave worked some of the networking stuff and do plan to do it myself. So wish me luck

"Written by a seller"
At least at first, the tone is like trying to sell you the book you already brought. Quite repetitive too. Then a lot of pure blank "write-your-notes-here" pages and too many "readers say" pages making you feel "enough already". It says it has 288 pages, but it actually has 274 and pages 251 to 274 are just commercials (ie. "valuable coupons"). What's most irritating is the usage of the psychology of the numbers. 50% here, 10% there, scattered around every page in the book making you feel informed. The author knows that numbers give credibility and abuses this technique to the point that insults the reader's intelligence. Maybe it's that I'm not used to management books...

On the positive side, the book *does* have good tips (although nothing I didn't thought of myself) on buying materials, and quite a lot of tips on dealing with subs, generals, etc. I especially liked the parts dealing with the stress and anxiety associated with such kind of projects, and how it might affect your marriage, something you don't take too seriously at first. Another nice phrase: "We were surprised at our limitations when we began to do self work." - some owner-builders are too optimistic about what they think they can do themselves.

All in all, the book can prove useful, if you can get past the commercial aggressivity with which it's written.


  

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  The Owner-Builder Book: How You Can Save More Than $100,000 in the Construction of Your Custom Home, 4th Edition

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What our customer's say!

"The Owner-Builder Book", While the book tries to convince you to be a owner-builder, it doesn't give you what you need to make the decision. A book that was far better and more closely resembles what you want to know about is Contracting your Home. I bought them both and was ready to discard this book and fell in love with that one.

"Very useful if you're planning your first building project", I bought this book last year before I started my first building project and it was very useful. While I agree with some of the negative reviews that there are too many testimonials and some strange justifications discussed on why to build your own home, I think overall it's helpful.

Here are the things you can get from this book: a plan showing you how to get started, understanding the different steps and trades to build, understanding the planning time required, an idea of the commitment that is required, a structure to set-up your budget, tips to secure your bank loan and ideas for some custom home features to consider.

You will not get much information on the following: details on building techniques, detailed cost saving tips or useful price information.

"Good book! Could do without the "optimistic fluff..."", I've just started in on this book, so my review may change after I've read the rest; but my initial opinion of this book is that while it contains a lot of useful information, it also contains information that is based on favorable chance events and optimism; these should be toned down or at least balanced with conservative planning. One instance shows how to "trade up" or "flip" houses to use the equity of the flipped house to get better properties at lower mortgage payments. This is an optimistic assumption, as is apparent in todays real estate market as of this review, there are a lot of home buyers who thought they could do this and are now stuck in expensive properties they don't want. Information presented like this reminds me of those "get rich" books. Many of the other reviewers have said the same thing: Too much junk information thrown in trying to make you feel good about the book and what you are doing. This space could have been eliminated, shrinking the book, or filled with more useful information.

Optimisim and "can do" spirit is definitley necessary to build your own home, by all accounts it is a very trying process. When using this book as an element in your DIY homebuilding planning, I'd follow the author's suggestions, plan like crazy, plan for the worst and hope for the best. The information in the book is very good. I'd still recommend it.

"motivational garbage", This book is garbage. Nothing more than motivational fluff and a complete misrepresentation of the homebuilding business and process. The Author convinces readers that they can't control or trust an individual contractor to build a house for them but can easily control dozens of individual subs and suppliers without being cheated. Yeah right. The book is chock full of statistics and statements that have no support or reference. It is not surprising that the book is self-published because no reputable publisher would publish a book with so many unsupported facts and figures. If you need motivation and someone to tell you you can do it and you are the king of the world and contractors are the skum of the earth, buy the book. If you want real guidance and grounded advice on how to build your own home, look elsewhere.

"Wow...this puts it into perspective", I always wondered what the profit margin is for a builder and also how much waste they have. Now I know when you compare it to what can be achieved following the items in this book.



 
You might need this...

The Complete Guide to Contracting Your Home
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Building Your Own Home For Dummies
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Build Your Dream Home for Less
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Building An Affordable House: A Smart Guide to High-Value, Low-Cost Construction
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Be Your Own House Contractor
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Read this reviews before You buy...

"If you have the time, you will save money", If you have the time to be your own general contractor, you will save money on your house construction, according to author Smith. This is true; I know two people at least, maybe more, who built their own house in a pricey market and got better results for a lot less. But...they had the time to be a full-time or nearly full-time general contractor.

A general contractor is a business person; a manager. If you can manage projects or people, you can do this. The book has charts, tables and suggestions on how to handle subcontractors. The myths that you cannot buy good lumber or components dashed here. And I can attest that contractor-grade furnishings in houses are often garbage, so much so you have to refit a new house to remove the trash they installed for you. You can avoid this waste by building your own, with your own specifications for windows, doors, brass door fittings, toilets, cabinets.

Don't be fooled; this is a job; you save money because you are doing the job of a professional. But that professional may have gotten into the business at his daddy's knee and really you may have the same skills, just untried. So do read the book first and see if you can manage all the jobs listed.

I liked the tables and checklists best in here. I like guides so I dont forget things. How to handle the subs, including sending knotty, subpar warped lumber back to the lumber yard and how to specify in your sub contract (strike the line that says you pay a restocking fee before you sign with the lumber yard) is worth the entire book price.

If you want some facts; it costs about $50 a square foot to build a house around our area and the builder sells it for about $100 to $140. Think about that.

"All the tricks of the trade in one book!", A step by step plan to constructing and saving on your dream home. This book helps to make your dream home even better, by saving money you can put more into it! We can't wait to start our project, and use this book as our guide!!!

"Great Motivator", This book was an easy read and really motivated us to contract our home on our own. Has some great suggestions on saving money and planning a home build. Read it before you get too far on your project. Very enlightening.

"Good Book", This book has a lot of useful information if you are building a house, regardless if you decide to be your own general contractor.

"good book... a bit redundant but provides good overall advice", This was the first contracting book that I read. Since then I have purchased and read a few more that were recommended in this book. The book drives home the fact that planning is critical and give great tips to help you organize your plan. After reading this book, if you still think you want to be your own GC. I would suggest reading "The complete Guide to Contracting your Home". It gets more into the technical aspect of each phase of construction.

 
 
 

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