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How To Communicate With Your Home Builder?

By Ryan Siebert

In today’s world of instant gratification you can find yourself very discouraged if you don’t know how to communicate with your home builder when it comes to building  or remodeling your custom home.

It is important to know what steps you should take early on to assure your communication with your construction crew is a 10 from start to finish.  I used to find myself questioning the preferred communication method of my clients.  I now make sure to answer three questions when meeting with a client to assure that our communication is as close to perfect as I can get.  Make sure when interviewing the company that may build or remodel your custom home you ask these questions so you know how to communicate with your home builder too.

• What time is appropriate to contact you? – For me as a builder knowing what time I can expect my clients to be off of work is key to when I schedule my follow up time with them.  The last thing I want to be doing is talking to a voicemail system each time I have an important question.  As a client you too should understand your potential builders schedule so you can communicate with your home builder on a regular basis.  The odds are that your builder has a routine they follow, and while they will adjust their schedule to accommodate you, it may not always be at the time where you have their 100 percent focus.  Also, if you personally do your best thinking on the weekends, communicate with your builder.  As a builder we understand that our most impactful conversations often happen on the weekends when you are away from the job.  However, some builders value their weekends as well and we don’t often post our hours on our website.  Make sure you know what is the appropriate time and day to have impactful conversations and communicate with your home builder.

• What are your expectations for a response time? – We have all sent that important email, text, or voice message expecting an immediate response back, only to be ignored for 48 hours.  After all,  you took your time to think through the message and made it very clear it was urgent and needed to be dealt with asap.  Make sure to have the conversation so you understand how to communicate with your builder when it comes to response time expectations.  All the same, your builder doesn’t want to be waiting around for you to respond to them.  Think through your normal response time and what ways you can be more proactive to respond in a timely manner.  I think for all of us a simple acknowledgement that the message has been received and is being reviewed is often the best way to show respect for one another if you cannot respond in a timely fashion.

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• What is your preferred method of communication? – It may not be as complicated as when you are living the single life and debating whether to text or call a recent date, but it can be.  I think this is the most important question of all when it comes to knowing how to communicate with your home builder.  When it comes to a big financial transaction like this we all want to be mature and say that phone or in person is the best way to communicate, but is that the truth?  If you are a texter or prefer email so you can read through the comments and soak in the content, then let your builder know.  Some clients that I have worked with can’t make decisions in person, they hate the pressure, and they want the details.  Others get nervous when you are showing them so much numbers and simply want to see the confidence in the builders eyes so then can rest assured that they are getting the best product on the market.

I think all too often clients don’t allow themselves to open up communication with your home builder suffers because of it.   Your relationship with your home builder should be one that is full of trust and allows you to be open about your expectations and it starts with communication. Yes, your builder is trying to make money on the transaction.  However, if they provide a stunning product, hit your timeline, budget, and quality goals and provide a stellar experience full of communication for you from start to finish, then that is a builder that you will be happy to build with over and over again.