Make sure that you are knowledgeable enough in the home building and/or general contracting field before you try to get started with building your own home. Being your own general contractor and never actually being a GC, general contractor, can cause many problems throughout the building process and also with your financing. There are time frames you will need to keep, rate locks to worry about, subcontractors to deal with and manage, draw requests, building plans and specs, and so very much more that a GC has to deal with and this is a lot of work for someone who is not experienced enough with dealing with this. Sit down with your mortgage broker and find out all of the lenders guidelines before a big project like this gets started so that everyone is on the same page from day one.

When you build your own home, it is typically very difficult to obtain 100% financing. Be prepared to put a down payment of at least 5% toward the construction. In addition, you will almost always be required to have at least 2 months worth of mortgage payments in savings. This is to prove that you have the ability to make payments on the loan.

Most banks will also want you to have at least 2 years experience in the home construction trades if you are going to build your own home.

It is also so very hard to get contractor for a one shot deal. Builders get a better price because they can keep the contractor busy.