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The Best Home Building Tips for First-Time Custom Homeowners in Shawnee

Written by Richard "Rocky" Rhodes | Mar. 17, 2025

No one can deny that even the thought of building your very first home is exciting. There is nothing quite like thinking about how to customize a house to get your home just right. After all, when you plan to build your first home in Shawnee, you get to design the place where you will reside for the foreseeable future precisely as you’ve always wanted.

However, with this excitement can come stress – it’s only natural. But you can minimize this stress by learning a few custom home-building tips. In this blog, the team at Dusty Rhodes Homes has shared a few of our best home-building tips for first-time custom homeowners in Shawnee that will help you prepare for your project. 

Our insights will empower you to make the right decisions and build the home of your dreams with less stress and more enjoyment. It might even help you identify a few questions to ask your custom home builder or tweaks you might want to make to custom floor plan ideas!

What Are The 5 Best Home Building Tips for First-Time Custom Homeowners in Shawnee

Modern homes in Shawnee, KS, might not take blood, sweat, and tears to build, but they do take time, understanding, careful budgeting, and the right design-build firm on your side

To help you build the home of your dreams the right way, the first time around, we’ve shared the best home-building tips for first-time custom homeowners in Shawnee. You might want to add them to your custom home-building checklist. 

Know Your Custom Build Budget

According to data, it's believed that around 70% to 80% of people tend to go over budget when building a custom home. With figures like this, it's understandable that you need to know your budget before creating the home of your dreams. 

However, budgeting for a custom home in Shawnee can be challenging. Building a new home can involve quite a few costs, many of which you might not even realize at first. Fortunately, once you speak with a design-build firm like Dusty Rhodes Homes, you’ll have a better estimate of what things will cost. 

A design-build firm can tell you the costs of materials, labor, taxes, permits, and additional fees. Knowing these costs will allow you to budget accordingly and look for home financing if needed. 

Understand the Shawnee Building Process

Choosing to build a new home isn’t solely a big decision. It’s also a huge investment, considering it will be a place where you live and reflect your taste, lifestyle, and personality. Understandably, it can be a pressuring experience if you want to get it right the first time, but to do this, you must understand the custom home-building process. 

If you understand the process of building a custom home in Shawnee from the get-go, you have a better chance of ensuring a smooth process that leads to an end result you’re ecstatic with. 

So be sure to do your research on what the process should look like and ask home builders what you should expect. The more you know about the process, the better equipped you will be to handle any challenges that pop up along the way. 

Hire the Right Design-Build Team

Carefully choosing a custom home builder is important. A builder can make or break your dream, so hiring the right team of professionals is crucial. When selecting a builder, you have two options. 

You can choose each professional individually and hope each will live up to your expectations, or you can select a design-build company with all the professionals you need already in-house. Those who choose the latter option often experience a far more pleasant custom-built experience when building in Shawnee. 

Regardless of your choice, it's important to look for professionals or a company you can trust and who will constantly communicate with you. It's also vital to select builders with a good reputation and experience. 


Be Realistic About Build Timelines

Everyone wants their home built as quickly as possible, but it's important to be realistic about the custom home building timeline. Often, custom homeowners don’t realize how long the process actually takes, and this can lead to frustration and unmet expectations. 

That’s why speaking with your custom build team is incredibly important to establish early on how long it will take to build your home from beginning to end. You should also know that external factors can also impact how long a home build takes. For example, material shortages, skills shortages, weather conditions, and unplanned events can all affect the timeline. 

So, try not to get disappointed or frustrated if delays occur. If you have concerns, speak to your builder. They can help you to realistically understand when a custom build in Shawnee will be completed. 

Plan for the Future

One of the biggest mistakes to avoid when building a custom home in Shawnee, is not planning for the future. Unfortunately, many first-time homeowners build a house for their current living situation and don't consider how they might need to use their home in the future. 

For example, are you planning on aging in place? Or do you plan to have a family in the next few years where you will need extra rooms, or will you potentially have an older parent coming to live with you when they get older? These are all factors you need to keep in mind when building so that your design-build team builds accordingly from the outset. 

Speak with Dusty Rhodes Homes about Your Custom Home Building Dreams in Shawnee

We hope that the tips we shared will help you during your journey toward becoming a first-time custom homeowner. If you’re looking for custom home builders in Shawnee, we recommend contacting our team at Dusty Rhodes Homes. 

We’re adept at handling the first-time home building in Shawnee process and can help guide you every step of the way. With decades of experience, an excellent reputation, and a communicative team, we’re a good choice. So, contact us here and let our team help you bring your vision to life.