Piedmont Personal Builders Frequently Asked Questions and Answers

1. What does Piedmont Personal Builders do?

Piedmont Personal Builders is a custom builder with a difference. We specialize in building homes for customers on the customer’s own land instead of in a community owned or controlled by the builder. We build almost anywhere in Central North Carolina. (See the map under Building area.)

2. Why?

The benefits are many:

• The customer gets to live where they want to live in a home that perfectly matches their needs.
  
• The customer gets a home for thousands less than if they bought an equivalent home from an ordinary builder.
  
• The customer can live on a larger home site and save money on the home site too.
  
• The customer can save money by coordinating part of the work themselves and avoiding builder mark ups.
  
• The customer can save money by doing part of the work themselves if they’re handy.
  
• The customer can create equity for their families and themselves by selectively coordinating the home, options, home site, and location to create a one-of-a-kind home that will likely appraise for significantly more than its cost. Astonishingly, this is like creating money out of thin air, just by smart planning in the way you buy your home!

3. What type and size of homes do you sell?

Our full line of ranches, first-floor masters, and two stories, from around 2,000 square feet to over 3,600. We’ll make any modification to our plans that you’d like. Plus, if you’ve already found a plan you like better, we’ll build your plan instead.

4. What is the price range?

Base prices start under $200,000 and go up to almost $300,000 for the largest home plans. Total costs can run anywhere from under $200,000 to well over $600,000, depending on the home you want, the home site you want it on, and what you want in it. Basically, it’s up to you. It’s all your choice, about giving you exactly what you want. Exactly where you want it.

5. What is included in the price?

These are traditional, stick-built homes, built on your home site by experienced trades people. Our base price includes the selected home to be built on the customer’s land, on a crawl foundation, fully complete and ready to move into in accordance with our Standard Features and Specifications. The price excludes land, site work, utilities, and optional extras.

6. Do I have to own a lot before I sign a home purchase agreement?

Normally, you must either own it or have it under contract before signing a purchase agreement. However, we work with many buyers while they are still in the process of finalizing their choice of home site, and we can help you coordinate your home plan with your home site. Another important part of the process is the Home Site Evaluation Visit. We visit your home site (Or your prospective home site.) with you to give you the benefit of our insights. During this no-obligation visit, we give you our opinion as to the suitability of the site for your proposed home, make recommendations as to the location and orientation of the home on the site, review utility issues, and evaluate potential construction problems or extra construction costs. On several occasions we have been able to save buyers big headaches by recommending against buying a potentially unbuildable home site.

7. What if I don’t own a home site yet?

No problem. We can discuss ways of finding a home site, plus show you realtor web sites you can search. And, chances are, you will be able to come up with several possibilities from which you can choose.

8. Does Piedmont Personal Builders take title to the home site during construction?

No. The customer owns the lot throughout the process. That’s part of the savings. If Piedmont Personal Builders were to buy the lot, it would incur interest and other costs during construction, costing the homebuyer more in the long run.

9. How do I manage to do the site work and utilities?

We help. We will let you know when things need to be done to stay on schedule and what is involved. You decide in advance whether you want to do any of the work yourself, or whether you want to hire someone to do it for you. We can give you names of contractors in your area. Often many of our subcontractors will be pleased to give you a bid to do some of your site work and utilities. You pay them from allowances included in your construction loan.

10. What if I don't have time to bother with it?

Upon buyer request, we can also handle the site work and utilities for the buyer for the actual cost plus a fee.

11. What if there is something I’d like to do that is not contained in any of the Piedmont Personal Builders floor plans, will you build from my house plans?

Absolutely! If you've found a plan you like that meets your family's needs better than one of ours, we'll be glad to build your plan instead. We can also modify our plans to make almost any revision you want! But if one of our plans is not even close to your dream, we’ll be glad to build your home your way!

12. What if I want to do some of the work myself to save money?

Homebuyers can save thousands of dollars by doing some of the work themselves, such as: painting, providing and installing the appliances, flooring, or doing the final cleaning. We call it “Homework.”

13. I'm very handy. Can I do the framing, wiring, and plumbing too?

Sorry, because of code, warranty, and lender issues we limit Homework to non-technical, non-licensed trades.

14. How long does it take?

The whole process from contract to move in typically takes 6 to 9 months. The actual construction itself takes only 4 to 6 months, depending on weather, the size & complexity of the home, and how much of the work the buyers are doing.

15. When will construction start?

We can’t give you a firm date until after you have all of your approvals and pre-start requirements done. We can usually dig about 4 to 12 weeks after signing the purchase agreement, but actual times vary widely.

16.How do buyers finance the home?

• Local lenders who will be glad to provide a construction/ perm loan to finance the home.


• Programs vary from 30-year fixed, to various adjustable-rate programs.


• Rates can be locked in well in advance, or they can float in anticipation of better rates.


• Buyers can also finance the lot if they have not yet closed on it. Down payments can be minimal. (Or even zero if the buyer already owns the home site or if the property appraises well enough.)


• Bridge loans and other creative programs are available to meet buyer financial needs, such as staying in your existing home while building your new home.

17. How big of a deposit is required?

Typically a $5,000 deposit is due when the agreement is signed due to the architectural time and other start-up costs involved. Some exceptions may apply.

18. What if I can’t wait to build a home because my family needs a home right away?.

We also build a limited number of inventory homes scattered throughout the Piedmont Triad in order to display our homes for the public, and also to serve those families that need to buy a completed home for quick occupancy.

19. How do I get started?

• Let’s get together and look at your home site. Or, if you don’t already have one picked out, talk about where you might want to live, and ways to locate the perfect home site.
  
• After we evaluate your home site, we prepare an estimate of site work/ utility costs for your construction loan.
  
• Then you select a favorite home plan and talk about what you would like to see in it.
  
• We work up a final price quote to include everything you might want in your home.
  
• If everything is to your liking, we sign a purchase agreement. And you get started on your construction loan application.