How to interview a builder: Advice from pros

You want a builder who’ll offer a fair price, deliver true craftmanship, and provide a good experience. But if you’ve never built a custom home or taken on a major remodel, hiring a builder can be an intimidating process. This is why interviewing is such an important step. Interviewing a few different builders can give you the information you need to make a confident decision, especially if you know the right questions to ask.

To make it easy, we reached out to a few trusted builders from around the country to find out the questions they recommend homeowners ask before making a hiring decision.

Here’s their collective wisdom. Consider this your cheat sheet to interviewing a builder!

1. What's your process

“You want to understand how they run their business and manage their projects,” said Nick Schiffer, Owner of Boston-based NS Builders. Feeling confident you’ll be included and informed is key to confirming your builder is a good fit.

Here are the details related to process:

• Project management: How many projects are they managing at once? Who’ll be your point of contact?
• Communication: What’s the cadence of communication? What form will communication take? What’s included in communications?
• Budget: How frequently will you have budget check-ins? How frequently will you be billed? When will bills be due?

All this will help you start to understand if your expectations align with how they work and ultimately if you can trust them. “You need to be able to say, ‘I’m hiring this builder because I want them to be responsible,’” he said.

2. How do you manage changes?

Changes are a part of the custom-building process. You want assurance your builder can adapt to changes along the way and they’ll do so in a deliberate way that avoids mistakes. A “change order” is a documented change to the project scope outlined in the construction contract that’s formally agreed upon by all parties. 

Ask them how their change order process works. For example, Michael Conneely, Owner of Greenside Design Build in Chicago, defines what the change is, prices it out, and gets the client’s signature before executing any change to the scope of work.

3. How do you charge?

Builders use various fee structures, but the two most commonly used are fixed fee and cost-plus. Here’s what to know about them:

• Fixed fee: Under this structure, the builder guarantees the home’s final price, and you agree to that price and the builder’s fee upfront. This structure is most likely to be used when the project is very well defined. It incentivizes the builder to finish the project quickly and limits homeowner control throughout the process.
• Cost-plus: Under this structure, the builder bills you as the project progresses. The “cost” refers to the cost of building the home. You’ll also be paying their fee as a separate line item. The “plus” refers to the builder’s fee. Lots of builders we spoke with prefer this structure because of the transparency it provides. You’ll see all of the costs in your bills. “Cost-plus means there’s no way to be dishonest with you. There’s no way to hide anything,” said Jake Bruton, Owner of Aarow Building in Columbia, Missouri. 

Wondering what’s typical for a builder’s fee? It’ll vary depending on things like the experience they offer and your location. A typical range is 10–20% of the total construction costs, but builder fees can also be much higher. This is another reason it can be helpful to interview multiple builders and involve your architect in the process of selecting a builder. It’ll help you understand what range is typical for builder fees in your area.

4. How does bidding work?

If you’re in a market where bidding is common, you’ll need to provide your architect’s plans in order for a builder to develop a proposal. Ask them about their process. Specifically you’ll want to understand the answers to these questions:

• What documents will you need to develop a bid?
• How long does it take to develop a bid?
• How do you handle follow-up questions as I’m working to understand your bid versus a competitor’s?

Bidding isn’t the only way to hire a builder. In some places, it’s hardly practiced at all. That doesn’t mean you can’t compare builders, but there’s more to understand. Perhaps, most importantly, you’ll want to understand the benefits of pre-construction services.

5. Do you offer pre-construction services?

If you’re in a market where builders don’t bid as a general practice, this is an even more important reason to opt into pre-construction services. Through those services, you’re getting the builder’s expertise on construction costs and feasibility during the design phase so you can make sure the plans and budget align, and you can start to understand the true cost of building. 

You’ll want to understand the following details about your builder’s pre-construction services:

• What services and deliverables are included? Generally you should expect the builder will join you and your architect in many or even all the design meetings and they’ll deliver a budget and schedule based on the final design.
• What are the contract details? A pre-construction contract typically won’t commit you to hiring the builder to construct the project. It’s usually a separate contract, although there may be some incentives if you hire the builder for construction.
• How’s the fee structured? The details will vary from one builder to another, but it’s not uncommon for the fee to be structured in a way that’s advantageous to the homeowner’s cashflow as they’re paying multiple pros at once.
• How long does pre-construction take? Ask about the timeline for pre-construction: Should I expect it’ll add significant time to the design phase, or will it work concurrently with my architect’s process? You might also ask about the impact pre-construction will have on construction. For example, will it make for a faster transition to that next phase?

Find out more about pre-construction, and why it’s such a valuable service in the context of building a custom home or taking on a major remodel.

6. How do you ensure good collaboration with the architect during construction?

If you opt to keep your architect involved through construction, you’ll want to make sure everyone is working as a team. Find out how the builder has kept the architect informed on past projects. For example, ask:

• Can you include the architect on project updates?
• How will you involve the architect as you encounter problems or need to propose changes to the design?
• Will you invite the architect to come onsite regularly?

“You want to make sure you’re getting the house that your architect designed,” Schiffer said. To that end, he documents his projects every single day with a log of 10-plus photos and a 1–2-minute video walk-through once per week. This allows the client and the architect to see the project unfolding, and to call out anything that’s not right. Getting details like this can instill confidence that your builder will be an effective collaborator with other project partners.

7. What kind of warranty do you offer?

Builders and contractors typically warranty their work. Within our industry of windows and doors, we often say a warranty gives an indication of quality because it speaks to the manufacturer’s belief in their own product. You could think of the builder’s warranty similarly.

Ask for details like this:

• What falls under warranty — workmanship, materials, etc.?
• How long does the warranty last? One year from the date of completion is not uncommon.
• How do you make a claim?

Knowing your builder takes their warranty seriously means they’re quality minded. “We’re never going to direct [homeowners] to cut budget on building envelope systems, like mechanicals, windows, and roof,” said Heather Tankersley, Co-Owner and Vice President of Operations at Tankersley Construction in Sacramento, California. “Those are the pieces that support longevity and comfort over time.” 

8. What’s a mistake you see homeowners making you could help me avoid?

There’s no wrong answer to this question. The point of asking it is to gain insight into your builder’s personality and management style. The answer they give will no doubt speak to their strengths. For example, Conneely noted homeowner indecision as a major setback that throws off the construction schedule. His solution of involving interior designers, phasing decision-making, and providing lots of resources shows he’s serious about keeping a project on schedule, and that he’s proactive in his approach.

Interviewing builders gives you a unique opportunity to interact with them. Here are a few signs that you might not want to work with a particular builder.

A price that’s too good to be true

A price that’s significantly lower than everyone else’s should be subject to a high level of scrutiny. Any builder will tell you they’re all paying the same price for windows and 2x4s. They’re all paying the same price for labor. So you really need to understand where their cost savings is coming from, and you’ll want assurance it’s not coming from cutting quality.

High-pressure tactics

Personality alignment is key when you’re signing on for such a meaningful project. Someone who’s pushing you to commit before you’re ready probably isn’t going to be a great partner in the long run. You want someone who listens to you, asks questions, and whose personality is a fit with yours — not someone whose focus is landing a sale.

Poor communication

Everyone is busy, and builders are onsite a lot of the time. Still, if someone is taking an extended period of time to return a phone call, it’s probably a sign you’re going to have a hard time communicating throughout your project. Good communication is a fundamental of professionalism and will be crucial to maintaining rapport over the course of what could easily be a two-year project.

There are certain things you can do as the homeowner to help the project go smoothly. Here are three ways you can help:

1. Know what you want

This can be very difficult, especially if you’re sharing the decision-making with a partner. If you’re better at knowing what you don’t like than what you do like, there are some steps you can take. One, take the time to reflect on your priorities so you have a solid understanding about what’s most important in the big picture. Two, get help from either your architect or an interior designer on the interior selections, which are numerous, and can be challenging to coordinate both logistically and from a design perspective.

TAKEAWAY: The risk in not having a clear vision is your decision-making could take too long and could throw off the construction schedule.

2. Be transparent about your budget

Every builder and architect we spoke with emphasized this message. Sometimes homeowners think they can hold their professionals to account by withholding the full budget, but often it leads to less-than-ideal outcomes. Their expertise is in service of your vision. So if you tell them the budget, they can advise on how to make the best use of it — some elements of the home, like the building envelope, are especially important. “If you’re realistic about the budget, we can avoid value engineering when we didn’t have to,” Conneely said. 

TAKEAWAY: Figure out what you can afford and share it. This could mean getting pre-approved for a loan if you’re using bank financing. 

3. Trust your pro

Just as you want to rely on your doctor’s training and experience to perform an exam and give a diagnosis, you want to lean on your builder’s training and experience to construct a home that’s beautiful, durable, and high performing. Doing your research can help you build trust, but nothing really compares to working directly with the person, which is yet another reason pre-construction is such a valuable step. 

“We’re making sure you’re not leaving opportunities by the wayside, asking the good questions, and really understanding what it’s going to take to execute the project before starting,” said Schiffer. “It also gives you the chance to ask yourself, ‘Do I want to work with this person for the next two years?’” he said.

TAKEAWAY: Think of pre-construction as an extended interview. You get a preview into how your builder thinks and how they manage their business.