Bringing your dream home visions to life can take time and consideration, and may even occupy a few years of your life! Therefore, it’s important to choose a builder you can trust and have confidence in to maintain a harmonious relationship throughout the whole building process.

At Cobalt Constructions we foster open, positive relationships with our clients. Here are a few tips we recommend for a good working relationship with your builder!

Communicate

Clear and open communication is key when fostering a good working relationship with your builder. It’s important for both parties to be honest with each other and maintain frequent contact throughout the build.

A great way to ensure this is to set clear expectations about how you will communicate with each other from the very beginning. Discuss your preferred communication channels – emails, phone calls, site visits – and how often these updates will need to happen. A good builder will listen and give reasonable suggestions to what is possible and will work best.

Collaborate

It’s important that your builder understand both your needs and wants when building your dream home. Working together and having upfront conversations will help avoid any misunderstandings in the later stages of the building process.

One way to collaborate is to provide your builder with a set of questions and answers detailing the different aspects of your home building project. This way you can clearly outline:

• Your exact budget for the project.
• The best results you would like to see.
• When you would like to begin, and a preferred completion date.
• If there are any areas in your current home you would prefer to be left as is, or that need to remain private during the build.

This way, both you and your builder know everything, and this creates a great working environment throughout the entire building process.

Agree to a Contract

A solid contract outlines all the essential aspects of the building process while addressing boundaries which will assist with diffusing any disputes during the build. Contracts are a great resource to refer to, ensuring both parties are satisfied and clearly understand expectations throughout the build.

Things to consider outlining in the contract with your builder can include:

• Client responsibilities, such as property access and facilities needed.
• Schedule of payments and initial deposit agreements.
• Resolution of any disputes.
• Communication channels and frequency of building updates.

Learn About Your Project

The best way to develop a deeper understanding about your project is to ask any questions that come to mind, and to do some research on matters that are important to you. This can help you know exactly what your building project entails, and give you a better understanding about how your build is progressing. Not only will this give you peace of mind throughout your build, but you’ll also be able to check that your builder is adhering to all required standards.

Learning about your project increases your knowledge and can assist you by:

• Being aware of your project’s timelines so you can ask for schedule updates and understand when milestones should be met.
• Giving you a better understanding of your project so you feel more confident to ask specific questions.

If you’re ready to begin your building journey, we’d love to hear from you. Contact us to start the conversation today.