Over the past few weeks Joel and I really looked at what we were proposing in our house and made a list of things we could cut out and add in later if we choose.  I then revised the house estimate using the best guestimates I could make.  To make those ‘educated’ guesses, I had Matt send us all of the bids he got from the subcontractors.  In reviewing them I was able to see what assumptions they made for our house.  For example – they had really high end kitchen appliances included.  Although I’m not saying I wouldn’t have loved having a chef’s kitchen, I can do without the top of the line range to cook on.  I revised this and other line items to be more in-line with what we (and our pocketbook) could live with.

Making those changes still left our build estimate more than what we wanted to spend.  The next way to get the price down?  Either get some more competitive bids or ask those subs to work within our budget.

We talked with Matt about all of the changes we were proposing to the house as well as the idea of getting cheaper bids from subs this at our 2^nd review meeting.  Matt was surprised to hear some of the choices we made (especially changing the exterior to all white which will significantly reduce the exterior cost of the home).  And he had already been working on contacting subs whose bids he felt were too high!

So for the next 2 weeks, Matt is going to update the estimate to what the new choices actually would cost (since my estimate was just a guess), as well as contact more subs and get their prices within our budget.

Here’s hoping we still can afford the house we want to build!