You’ve finally decided to build that dream house and have invited us into your living room or have visited us one of our sales centers. What is the next step?

As a 35 Year Veteran Professional Homebuilder, we are well prepared to answer any questions you might have as you make that final decision and one of the most important financial choices in your life: Who will I select to build my home?

We always encourage and welcome this dialogue, and we often find that homebuyers aren’t typically prepared for that opportunity – or in many cases – challenge. The questions asked are limited to how much does a new house cost (or cost per square foot), what are the carpet or cabinet choices, and whether we can cut a deal.

While valid questions, they only scratch the surface of what homebuyers really need to know to help ensure an enjoyable experience with our company or any professional builder.

So here are the top five questions we think prospective homebuyers should ask when they are on the cusp of building a new home with us…and why they matter:

1. Who will run the job?
 We will assign a Project Manager with at least 10 years of experience in new home construction to be your main point of contact from the pre-construction meeting, through the final walk through, and beyond. It is always important to know who that is and how to contact him or her. Your point of contact will provide you with the most accurate and up-to-date information as well as answer your questions about your new house as it goes from concept to creation. We believe this gives you the best of both worlds; a dedicated supervisor as your week-to-week “go to” person along with availability from our entire staff in support of you and your new home.

2. Will workers be there all day, every day?
 Understanding the process and how we schedule typical new home construction is critical to having a great homebuilding experience. In fact, sometimes (if not often), there are very few people on the jobsite, but that doesn’t mean things aren’t progressing. There may be an inspection scheduled or a delivery on the way that will trigger crews and subcontractors to return and continue their work…perhaps even later that day, if not the next morning. We keep a tight production schedule and our business depends on being efficient, but there are occasional lulls in the process that we’ll point out when we go over the building schedule with you. Our schedules have been tweaked over 25 years to provide the best balance of timeliness and un-compromised quality.

3. How often can I stop by the jobsite?
 Your New Home Specialist at Ainslie Group can set up a schedule for you to visit the site, meet with the Project Manager, and ask any questions about the project and its progress. Unscheduled visits can affect the schedule and pace of work…and be dangerous depending on the work going on.

4. Can you supply references?
 We are happy to provide you with a list of people who have recently purchased homes from us, (over 3,000 in the past 25 years) and we encourage you to call them and ask about their experience and level of satisfaction as you make your own purchasing decision. Any professional builder should have references at the ready, including financial partners, trade contractors, materials suppliers, and others we work with that can provide a third party perspective on our professionalism and track record of performance.

5. How do you handle changes?
 As much as we try to get all of the decisions made up front in our Design Center, the decision to make changes during construction does occur from time to time. As you make your initial selections, we create your Buyer Selection Addendum, which is in fact, a detailed list of specifications for your house necessary to produce all of the work orders and purchase orders before we break ground, but we also have change order policies and procedures in place — which we share with you up front and in the Purchase Agreement — to account for changes after building begins.

At Ainslie Group, our entire team and process is dedicated to creating an enjoyable and unforgettable experience as we create your dream home. Armed with the answers to these 5 questions, we think you’ll be more confident in your home buying decisions and more likely to be satisfied with the end result.