Build your own home

In a city where the median price for a single-family home recently hit $483786 many aspiring homeowners are searching for an affordable way to make their dream come true. Dave Pocock says he is offering a solution: build it yourself.

Pocock is a home builder apprenticeship program manager for the Alberta government and author of a book on how to be the contractor in the construction of your own home. In August he approached the Town of Nanton with a plan. Nanton 45 minutes south of Calgary has been struggling to sell 70 residential lots in the town-owned Westview Phase III.

“I heard on the radio they were selling lots down in Nanton and I thought ‘well that’s great you can sell lots but who’s going to buy them if they don’t know how to build a house?’ So that’s where I come in” he says. “We’re looking at families who would like to get into a new home and don’t mind going through the process of building it themselves.”

Together Pocock and Nanton have organized the U-Build Housing Program in which participants will choose a lot in Westview and take a 10-week course with Pocock to learn how to hire trades people to build their entire house. Owners can also participate in the building of the house but only the jobs they feel competent doing cautions Pocock.

“The program is designed to go through the management planning organizing hiring or contracting and controlling their budget estimating scheduling and then starting construction” explains Pocock who says he’s helped hundreds of people through this process.

He says the main appeal will be the potential cost savings to participants. In addition to lower land prices in Nanton the town is offering a relaxed payment schedule. On top of that Pocock says in acting as their own contractor owners will save money by cutting out the middle man — paying trades people directly instead of a building company that charges extra to cover business costs.

“Thousands of people have built their own homes in Alberta and it’s not rocket science you just have to learn how to do it” he says.

Though building a home may not be rocket science journeyman electrician Josh Robinson who is in the market for a house says it’s not a simple process either.

“[Let’s say] someone says ‘I want to be my own contractor’ but if you don’t know anything about building it’s going to be a real pain” Robinson explains.

“You could definitely save a lot of money doing things yourself it’s just the education end of things. How do you bring people up to speed on everything?” he says in regard to hiring the right people for the job. “The fire code electrical plumbing HVAC? And each of those requires permits…. HVAC if you set up the furnace wrong you could kill everyone with carbon monoxide…. You frame something wrong and it caves in.”

Dan Kowalchuk and his wife are also in the market for a new home. He says they want to leave Calgary for a small town but he’s skeptical about the advantages of managing his home’s construction.

“I don’t think I would mainly because I’m far too busy…. I could hire a contractor to do it for me but I think if I went ahead and did that it would probably end up costing more” he says.

“There’s too many questions on the table” he adds explaining he wouldn’t feel comfortable being solely responsible for the project especially when he knows he could “buy used” and be able to move in immediately.

In Calgary there are scant opportunities for wishful home buyers with moderate incomes to enter the market at current prices. Coun. Brian Pincott who sits on the boards of the Calgary Housing Company and Attainable Homes Calgary Corporation (AHCC) says it is the skyrocketing land prices that make homes so expensive in Calgary so he can see why people would consider the U-Build idea in a town like Nanton where land is cheaper.

“For the same amount of money they buy more house but the trade-off is they spend two hours a day commuting” says Pincott. “I think a lot of times they don’t make [their decision] in a very conscious way. We’re very sticker-price driven.”

The AHCC loans money for down payments on a home. Development manager Jamie Findlay says the program is popular but struggles to secure enough units to keep up with client demand. Since its inception in 2009 AHCC has arranged the sale of 500 homes — a drop in the bucket in a city that grows by nearly 40000 ever year.

Pocock admits the 70 lots available in the U-Build program won’t alleviate the housing crisis either but for buyers with “an entrepreneurial flair” and a lot of time on their hands it may be the solution they’re looking for.

U-Build is holding information sessions in Nanton on November 15 and 19.