San Diego Housing Market News and Analysis

It will cost you to build -- much more than buying the square footage prebuilt.

Especially if you don't have experience, I recommend that you buy a house that has the square footage that you want, and remodel.

Remodel is trouble enough. But, building additional square footage is a pain with plans and permits, contractors, delays, cost overruns, etc... Not for the faint of heart.

It's tough to find a place large enough in Clairemont on a canyon lot that is for sale. Although the lots are big, the people who have added on are staying put. Also, the canyon lots go up for sale so rarely, you are kind of forced to buy the lot regardless of the house that is on it.

It likely is cheaper to buy it pre-built (which means don't expect to get a return on the investment) as brian says, but adding-on may be the only way. The alternative is wait a long time for the right place, then lose it to a higher bidder.

The big builder here is K-Co. They did our first remodel project. I consider them honest and fair. They are not the cheapest - above average cost but not over-priced. I think all things considered, they are a good option if you don't have "do it yourself" tendencies like I do. Consider having your builder leave the walls ready to paint and ready for flooring and do that yourself.

Add-ons are not too painful in Clairemont, as long as you have the builder deal w/ the permits and such.

Adding on without plumbing is significantly less expensive than adding anything with plumbing, too. Throwing on a game room or bedroom is cheap. Adding master bedroom w/ bath or changing the kitchen is CHA-CHING.

If you want to wait about 3 years, you can buy my place ...

Thanks for the comments. I don't really want to take on an addition so perhaps I am better off just waiting for something that comes "close enough". Hubby and I are not particularly patient but we need to get better at this I think.

We had k-co bid on our granny flat - on the first round of bids. They were the absolute highest bidder, which suprised us because he seemed so down to earth. Even with our issues (more than one contractor, legal fees, etc) we still got it done, in total, for more than $100k less than we were quoted by k-co.

Caveat - we first put out to bid when contractors were not hungry - fall 2006. Things were still frothy. We put it out to bid again, a few months later, as housing was starting to collapse, and bids were half what the first set was. (Different contractors - but more importantly, contractors were more hungry.)

We had good vibes with k-co, liked his work... but the price (at the time) was out of our ballpark.

UCGal, if you don't mind sharing, how much was your price per square foot on your addition?

I'm going to do a garage addition soon and some interior remodeling on my rental house. I think that this fall/winter is a good time to do construction.

I don't think it's relevant for several reasons:
- Our project was a DETACHED companion unit.
- It was hillside development that involved several retaining walls and significant grading. This was a large portion of the budget. It involved more engineering, more inspections (city called for "special inspectors", etc.
- We had labor issues... which resulted in multiple contractors and legal fees. Those were part of my total budget since the money was spent towards the end project.

not typical.

Also - we had costs you wouldn't have had - sewer, water, and power lines all had to be trenched and connected in, etc.

Like I said - our project wasn't typical so a $/sf is not really relevant unless you're talking about a hillside project that involves building permits, stamped structual engineering plans, civil engineering permits...

UCGal, who were your contractors? I seem to remember you had major issues with one. We're in the process of bidding out a large addition and I want to know who to avoid! We've had 5 bids so far and I only like 1 guy.

Our settlement says I can't mention the name anywhere. (I had posted here about him - and had to have Rich remove the post.)

All I can say is with the first guy who shall remain nameless, his CSLB license shows a complaint, and if you click on the complaint you can read all about it - including the judgement.

That's public record, because it's the state's record. But I'm not allowed to say anything.

Don't want to jeopardize anything with our settlement.... But definitely check the licenses of potential contractors.

Look for the following:
* Gaps, even short ones, in their bonding history. This can indicate a bond was paid out and they needed to get a new bond company.
* A switch in bonding companies at an odd (not annual date) time. See above.
* Complaints filed.
* Disciplinary action.

Another red flag (to me) is if they refer to employees in their marketing, but don't have workmans comp. If they have direct employees, they have to have workmans comp.

But - even if their record is clean on the CSLB - there may be complaints filed against them - the CSLB took more than 6 months to vet our complaint enough to agree it was worth posting, and another year to start prosecution. And we were exceptionally well documented in what had happened. In other words - people may have complained, but there's a lag between the complaint filed and the reporting on the website.

Also - look up the contractor (under corporate name and under personal name) in the court records
http://www.sdcourt.ca.gov/portal/page?_p...
(click on court index, then party name search - look for civil cases).

And it doesn't hurt to look to see if they're lien happy - look them up on the county recorders site
http://arcc.co.san-diego.ca.us/services/...
If you see they have a lot of liens filed, decide if this is a contractor you want to work with.
(this would have been a "tell" with our second contractor - and yes we were slapped with a lien for not paying for work NOT provided)

And lastly, check their corporate status (if they're incorporated or LLC) with the Sec. of State's office. If the corporation is suspended that's a HUGE red flag... if the contract is issued under the corporate name.
http://kepler.sos.ca.gov/

And, obviously, check references. Don't just drive by... phone or knock on the door and talk to them about what it was like to work with the contractor.

Cbad
I have a great guy. Will PM you with his name and number. If you havent spoken with him yet I think you will like him.

Thanks guys! :)

UCGal has provided a great checklist for the due diligence homeowners need to do before hiring a contractor.

As someone who has hired contractors at least a half dozen times (and been burned by a couple), I will hold onto these handy links for future reference should we be brave enough to undertake yet another project someday.

Thanks, UCGal!