Whether you are building a new home in Northwest Indiana or Southwest Michigan, you want to know that you are buying a good quality home from a reputable home builder in your area. Here are our tips to help you choose the best builder.

Make an initial dream list of possible home builders. Once you have thought about the style of house you want, you can create a list of potential builders that either specialize in a certain style or one that has experience in building many styles of homes.

Contact your local home builders’ association to obtain a list of builders who construct homes in your area. You can find your local HBA at nahb.org/findanhba. Generally, builders like to stay within a 150 mi radius of their home base. Daily site checks, monitoring progress and quality control can be quite time consuming. If your home builder is spending a lot of time in his car rather than working for you… That is not a win/win for anybody.

Look in the real estate section of your local newspaper for builders and projects they are working on. Looking through the ads and reading the articles can help you to learn which builders are active in your area, the types of homes they are building and the prices you can expect to pay. Match the builders who are within your price range.

Local real estate agents may also be able to help you in your search. Agents have an in depth knowledge about everything Real Estate in your area. They will know many of the home builders, personally and know which ones have a quality reputation and build a quality home.

Ask friends and relatives for recommendations. Ask about builders they have dealt with directly, or ask them for names of acquaintances who have recently had a good experience with a builder.

What Questions Do I Ask The Home Builder?

When you have your initial list of potential builders, it’s time to start asking lots of questions.

Call up your top prospects and set up a time to Interview these home builders to get the answers to all the questions you have. Here is a list of questions to ask builders from the NAHB (National Association of Home Builders)

I know some builders in Northwest Indiana and Southwest Michigan build spec homes, so clients can see a live portfolio of their work. And there is a chance you may catch them there on the weekends, either doing final touches or meeting with potential buyers.

Drive around some of the subdivisions they build in, homeowners may be outside doing chores or errands. Introduce yourself and say you are considering buying a home from the builder who built their home. Talk to several owners, and try to get a random sample of opinions. People love to give their opinions! Both good and bad. That’s the beauty…They won’t hold back and you will certainly get the truth. The more people you talk with, the more accurate an impression of a builder you are likely to get.

Some questions to ask home owners include:

Are you happy with your home?

If you had any problems, were they fixed promptly and properly?

Would you buy another home from this builder?

Take along a notebook to record the information you find about specific builders and homes. Doing so will help you to make comparisons later. If you are really energetic, start an Excel spreadsheet with the Pro’s & Con’s.

Wrapping It All Up

From personal experience, generally, for home builders in Valparaiso, Chesterton, Michigan City and others around Lake, Porter and LaPorte counties, they all have pretty good reputations. Yes, there is always a few bad apples… and those are the ones you need to avoid at all costs.

Building your dream home should be fun and you should look forward to making many, happy, family memories in it. Doing your homework and asking the right questions can put you on the right path to do just that.

If you think you are ready to move on and take the next step, check out this Blog that is the Home Buyers Dictionary. It will quickly educate you on the construction industry and real estate commonly used words.