The House Building Guide is an excellent resource for people building a new home. Since we first offered it more than 7 years ago, we have old more than 10,000 copies. It provides an overview of the building process along with money saving, convenience and healthy home building tips. However, many of our visitors have requested a more detailed building guide, something that goes into greater depth.
We are now pleased to be able to offer you such a training course.
The Successful Home Building Training Program is normally provided in a seminar format at a cost of $395. These training seminars are attended by both consumers planning on building a new home, as well as builders that want continuing education. The Home Study version of this seminar is now available to you for a cost of $97 (plus shipping)

The Home Study Course was assembled by a licensed building contractor who has built more than 500 custom homes, and has a Masters degree in Adult Education from Florida State University. His seminars are offered in venues such as Alaska, Hawaii, Mexico, the Caribbean, and extensively throughout major markets in the southeastern United States.
Since 1983 this course has helped thousands of people and now you too can successfully build your own home. This program is ideal for new contractors who want to be organized and profitable from day one. It is also a must have for anyone planning an addition or remodeling project.
Learn secrets only the pro's know. This is not home building theory; these are proven techniques of a successful current home building professional.
The Successful Home Building Training Program includes:
- 15-chapter, 200-page Successful Home Building Manual.
- 7 hours of instruction, professionally recorded on 4 CD's.
- All of the forms, procedures, schedules, and contracts needed to successfully build your own home.
More than 10,000 home building manuals have been sold through seminars since 1983. This program is for anyone interested in building a new home, whether doing it yourself or hiring a professional builder.
This course walks you step-by-step through the entire home building process (see detailed course outline below). Review the manual at home and listen to the CD's to and from work. Learning to build a custom home has never been made easier!
Included in this course is a 15-chapter manual with over 200 pages of narrative, forms, procedures, documents, and contracts necessary to help you successfully build your own home. It also contains 7 hours of recorded home-building instruction on 4 CD's, walking you through the entire construction process. This course will help you avoid unnecessary and costly pitfalls while preparing you to build the home of your dreams.
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Successful Home Building Course Outline
Chapter One
- Review options for building a new home: turn-key, construction management, builder as consultant, and owner-contracting
- Review 7 greatest pitfalls of custom home building
Chapter Two
- Determining what you can afford to build
- Analyzing factors which influence cost per square foot
- Exercise in evaluating cost per square foot
- Managing mortgage principle prepayment
- Understanding 15 and 30 year amortization schedules
Chapter Three
- Site evaluation and selection
- 26 site amenities and how they impact the home design and budget
- Review 17 item pre-purchase site checklist
Chapter Four
- Purchasing your property
- 5 financial considerations in purchasing property
- Preparing the contract for purchase
- Title insurance
Chapter Five
- Developing your custom home plans
- 8 key elements of a complete set of plans
- An exercise in reading blueprints
- Review 61 guidelines for the design of kitchens and baths
- Establishing the description of materials (specifications)
- Understanding the level of detail needed in custom specifications
- A recommended process for customizing your house plans and specifications
- A system to organize materials, models and color selections
Chapter Six
- Funding your building project
- Building your budget
- Options for obtaining a construction loan
- A review of lender requirements
- Review 110 item cost breakdown form
- Summarizing your cost breakdown
- Disbursement of construction loans
- How to create a "45 day" payment cycle for materials purchased
- Obtaining discounts for prompt payment of materials
- Managing finances for the home built "out of pocket"
Chapter Seven
- Securing proper insurance protection for your property, workers and completed operations
- Workers' compensation insurance, liability coverage
- Builders' risk insurance
- Confirming adequate insurance coverage of construction personnel
- Understanding the mechanics lien law
- Procedures and forms for waiver, claim, and release of liens
- How to avoid a lien being filed against your property
- Reviewing pay request and waiver of lien procedures
Chapter Eight
- Managing construction inspections for quality control and code compliance
- Obtaining a building permit
- 44 item permitting and inspection checklist
- Review of 24 construction inspections and their sequence
- Review sample energy calculations
Chapter Nine
- Understanding the intricacies of various construction options
- 7 considerations to determine the appropriate construction method
- Turn-key construction, conventional method
- Principles of construction management
- Contracting your own home
- Executing the "right" contract
- Construction bidding process
- Review 3 unique construction contracts
- Understanding and managing common allowances
- How change orders are structured
- Cost-plus construction (percentage or fixed fee)
- Identifying, selecting and hiring subcontractors
- Developing good subcontractor proposals, reviewing sample contracts
- Review sample payment schedules
- Maintaining control through the use of retainages
- 4 contract options with subcontractors
- System for maintaining tight control over your costs
- An exercise for comparing subcontractors' bids
Chapter Ten
- Estimating material and labor costs
- 48 formulas for estimating materials
- 13 guidelines for developing the dimension take off
- Material quantity estimating
- Guidelines for developing the dimension takeoff
- Material quantity estimating
- Guidelines for estimating foundation, framing, roofing, brick, sheetrock, trim, flooring and other areas of the home
- Procedures for organizing count items
- Determining when you or your subcontractors should purchase supply materials
- Subcontractors bid calculations
- Understanding how 25 subcontractors bid their labor and materials
- An exercise for understanding construction pricing terminology
Chapter Eleven
- 7 final preliminaries before construction begins
- A review of detailed construction procedures
- 200-item review of the sequence of events with construction procedures and timelines
- Avoiding the most common scheduling snafus
Chapter Twelve
- 8 Factors affecting the appropriate foundation for your home
- Understanding 6 types of foundation designs
- Role of the foundation subcontractor
- Applying 4 technical points to ensure foundation accuracy
- Exercise in squaring, shooting grades and estimating concrete
- Review 20-item foundation checklist
Chapter Thirteen
- Drying in the house
- Defining the role of the framing subcontractor
- Developing labor and material bids
- 5 factors to consider when choosing your major material supplier
- Review 35-item checklist to be performed prior to hanging sheetrock
- Techniques to insure proper credit on materials returned
Chapter Fourteen
- Review 144 specification options available for your custom home including: plumbing, Heating & Air conditioning, electrical, exterior doors, roofing, wall & ceiling finishes, ceramic tile, cabinets & countertops, interior trim, painting & staining, garage doors, kitchen appliances, bath accessories, exterior finishes, and more
Chapter Fifteen
- Establishing residency
- Obtaining the Certificate of Occupancy
- Lender and building department requirements for occupancy
- Closing your construction loan and final disbursements
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