The Americas Home Place Design and Contract Phase

Anyone who has previously built a house knows the design specifications and contract phase of building a home is one of the most important steps of building a home. Americas Home Place has it down pat. Our sales person, Arron, was the Asheville, North Carolina, office's previous Office Manger, whose role was to oversee all home construction and project managers for that office. He too was a graduate of a university in Utah with a major in construction with down-home and friendly manner, a good person all around.

We were very happy to sit down with him in August, 2005 to make custom changes to Americas Home Place stock plans, sign the contract after the plans were formalized, and get started on our new home that sits on a mountain top in Weaverville, just north of Asheville. As part of the process, the sales person and project manager walks the property we purchased to determine the best placement of the house on the property we purchased from a local developer in a new restricted community.

Everyone at the table was anxious to be starting on our new home, which was one of Americas Home Place most expensive plans, a 2351 square foot two story colonial entited the Hill IV. The base price for the house was $66 per square foot, plus the costs of clearing the land, the well, septic tank and any extras including a driveway, etc. So, the base price of the house was approximately $180,000 plus approximately $20,000 for allowances which can go up or down depending on the depth of the well, specific land parcel clearing costs, the septic tank and any extra block they may need placing the house on a the crawl space foundation.

Relatively few changes to the stock plans were considered, including a walk-in pantry, moving the half bath on the main floor to under the stairway, and something important for handicap access to all the rooms which was 36" wide exterior and interior doors. The rest of the house seemed acceptable as it was 'out of the box'.

The Americas Home Place office in Asheville has a 'mock-up' model home right inside the office complete with a standard master bathroom and a kitchen. So, we looked at counter-top and cabinet samples, vinyl floor colors, and siding colors, and shingles. As the Americas Home Place office was in a strip mall, ceilings were standard drop ceilings so the comment of what the ceilings look like never became an issue at the time.

The house plans were then sent to the home office in Georgia to be drawn up and came back several weeks later on 8.5 x 11 paper with very small type. Everyone seemed happy with the plans (pretty much the same as the stock plans), so the contracts were signed and Americas Home Place began the construction process with guaranteed money from the mortgage company.