I had a 24x36x10 stick built, vinyl siding, metal roof with trusses designed for proper floor loading for upper storage rooms -- built during the first month of the pandemic, feb 2020. I won't mention the price because it will depress you folks who are trying to get things done today. But that is not why I am posting.
I pretty much was resigned that I would have to do without a garage on my new house because of horrible performance of local contractors, conservative financial management etc. But I had a chance encounter with an Amish builder when I just noseyed up to a site where he was finishing off a building project near me. When the owner shared the cost of the structure, I was looking at it seemed too good to be true but the Amish builder offered to stop by my place on his way home and sure enough he did. He took a quick look at the building site, told me what ground prep to do, went over some sketch pad specs about concrete pour, type of walls, roofing and over hangs, doors etc, and he said he had a month before his next commitment. Without further ado, I said let's get started prepared mentally for a big nasty cost overrun surprise somewhere. Just an old man about to get taken kind of worry. He gave me a list of materials including truss specs for me to use getting permit and I went to work digging out a bank with tractor to allow enough room for a driveway around building.
He always kept me informed as to when he and his crew would be here and simply got the job done, during some rainy, snowy days. I paid him in four installments as the build went along, but way behind what his already installed materials cost yet I was not too concerned about him walking just because of the nature of the guy. Top it all off, because of the "winging the specs" aspect of how we worked out our agreement, I had overlooked some things, but I would ask him during the build how much would he want to add some feature. This included plumbing for a bathroom in the pour ( I did the placing, he took care of during the pour), later added two windows, different garage doors, different siding, etc. Next day he would give a price and it was always a go and did not phase the man. That was simply because he was not hiding some profit cow somewhere in the build and he had the integrity to just answer my question honestly. He would simply tell me how much up charge to the build he would be happy with and we did it. I always reassured him I was happy with his performance and was not trying to get something for nothing in making these changes, and that I understood that he needed to include the cost of any impact my midstream changes would affect his profit margin, and if he did not want to deal with the change I understood.
These kinds of builders are out there. They seem to prosper, I don't think they are getting rich, but their life style protects them from much of the up and down aspects of the economy. When things are slow, they just do improvements to their farms and go with the flow.
Someone who doesn't want to understand what different things cost, and who cannot fill gaps a particular builder may have may find it impossible to work like I did with these guys, and might wind up with something that does not meet expectations, and no doubt there is some risk in not starting out with everything spelled out. But in my case, I wound up with far more than I could have possible gotten by trying to nail down everything from the get go in order to get a totally predictable cost.
