In This Post:
– Advantages of Building a House on Your Own
– Disadvantages of Building a House on Your Own
Investing all your life’s savings in a house is a big investment, but it is worth it, if the end result is exactly what you want. This is perhaps one of the reasons why people prefer building a house over hiring a contractor to do the job. However, there are some downsides too for those planning to construct their dream home on their own. From procuring good quality construction materials, visiting the construction site, to negotiating with labour force, workers and painters on a daily basis is a painstaking task – both physically and mentally. In this blog, we will take a deeper look into the pros and cons of building a house on your own.
Pros and Cons of Building a House on Your Own
Creating a pros and cons list can be a good step in deciding whether you should hire a contractor or build a house on your own. There are two ways to go about building a house. Either you hire a building contractor who oversees the entire project from scratch or build the home on your own.
Taking approval of the building plan from relevant authorities, procurement of construction materials, negotiating with the labour force and supervising the entire project is the responsibility of a building contractor.
However, if you prefer to bargain on construction materials or want to oversee the entire project on your own, then you only need to hire labour contractors whose job is to oversee the labourers at work. Apart from that everything else is done by the building owner himself. This includes negotiating and bargaining at shops to buy construction materials, overseeing the project, visiting the site off and on to ensure that the construction work is being carried out up to the standards. The task of labour contractors is to employ a workforce who will then carry out the assigned tasks as delegated by the labour contractor.
The building owner will pay the labour contractor as negotiated in the beginning of the contractor on a per square footage area. Once the labour contractor gets the payment from the building contractor, he then pays the workforce.
In order to understand the advantages and disadvantages of building a house on your own, we must take a look at the benefits of building a home on your own. So, let’s get started.
Advantages of Building a House on Your Own
Following are the pros of building a house on your own
- Lower construction costs
- Customised house plan
- Make changes as you go
- Negotiate market rates
- Select top quality construction materials
- Oversee the project on your own
Let’s discuss each of them in detail.
Lower construction costs
When building a house on your own, you can cut down on construction costs. The costs that are otherwise spent on paying the fees of the building contractor is now utilised in procuring construction materials.
You can easily bargain and purchase the construction material on your own and thus reduce construction costs. If you hire a building contractor to do the job, then you have no control over the quality and quantity of construction materials used.
Customised house plan
You can construct the house the way you want. A customised design for the house as per your needs and preferences is made. You can design the house on your own without having to pay a hefty amount to the contractor. There are simple tips and tricks in designing a house without an architect. You can create a small model house to help you walk through your dream home before its final execution.
Only you know how many bedrooms you want. Whether you like to have an open kitchen or a closed one? Do you fancy a BBQ spot in the verandah? All these intricate details can be dealt with when building a home on your own.
Make changes as you go
If you plan on making some slight changes to the house plan, then you can easily do it in the later stages as well. This is perhaps one of the biggest benefits of building a house on your own. The chances of common house construction mistakes are also less if you do proper research and talk to relevant people before constructing the house.
Negotiate market rates
Building your own house in Pakistan means you have to visit markets to purchase construction materials. So, for instance, when buying modern flooring tiles for your house, you can easily bargain and negotiate on the market rates. On the other hand if you hire a building contractor, everything from procuring construction materials to finding the right wooden door for the master bedroom lies on the contractor. There is nothing much you can do about it.
Select top quality construction materials
If you are building the house on your own, then you can easily choose and select top quality construction materials. You will take extra effort and spend more time choosing the right quality of construction material for the house. The type of tiles you want for your bedroom and bathroom will depend upon you and not the contractor.
Oversee the project on your own
When you are constructing a house on your own it means you have to oversee the entire construction process as well. Managing labourers, ensuring the construction material is provided to the labourers on time to avoid unnecessary time delays and to be present in person to make sure everything is done according to the plan.
Disadvantages of Building a House on Your Own
Here are some downsides of building a house on your own
- Frequent site visits
- Added responsibility of overseeing the project
- No involvement of experts
- Buying construction material on your own
- Designing the house
- Getting relevant approvals
Let’s discuss each of them in detail
Frequent site visits
If you are planning to build a house on your own, then gear up for the frequent site visits. There is no middle man in between so everyone is waiting for your decision. So, expect a few phone calls at odd hours. Also, labourers asking for their wages and giving you a hard time in executing the projects are some of the common problems faced by the building owners.
Added responsibility of overseeing the project
The onus of how the house is built lies heavily on you. You can’t blame the middle guy for any of the bad construction ideas or wrongly executed layout plan. From the start to the finish, it is your baby and you have to be extra careful in observing even the teeniest of mistakes because that small mistake is going to show really bad once the building is completed.
No involvement of experts
One of the downsides of building a house on your own is that you don’t have any expert involved in the process. From designing the house, getting the relevant approvals to executing the project in the end, only you are your own boss. Without the presence of a professional architect, a building contractor there could be some errors in house construction that you might regret later.
Buying Construction material on your own
While it is good that you can maintain top standards when constructing a house on your own, the hassle of going to the market every time you need tiles or faucets for the bathroom is quite time-consuming. Moreover, you need to pay for the transport and choose for the right hardware, kitchen countertop, flooring tiles, wooden doors all on your own with no expert guidance.
Getting relevant approvals
The house building process in Pakistan involves getting approvals from relevant authorities for the layout. This is a major drawback of building a house on your own. The building owner has to go to relevant authorities and get the layout plan approved. When designing the house, you should also follow the authorities’ guidelines and rules. If you are building the house in a society, there must be some rules of that particular housing society that you should keep in mind when building a residential unit.
So, these were some of the pros and cons of building a home on your own. If you haven’t bought land yet, then take a look at these comprehensive area guides on some of the most important cities in Pakistan: Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad and Peshawar. Don’t forget to write to us at blog@zameen.com and we will surely get back to you.
For those who want to build your own house in 2020 then read our blog on the complete construction cost to build an A category 5 marla and 10 marla house in Pakistan. If you are interested in designing the house on your own, then have a look at these detailed 5 marla and 10 marla floor plans. Stay tuned to Zameen Blog, the best lifestyle and real estate blog in Pakistan.
