I will be building a house soon, on property I already own. I will be interviewing several builders in the next few weeks. For those who have built before, what was your deciding factor to choose one builder over another? Also, what questions should I ask, other than the obvious (timelines, cost, etc)?

One thing I would advise is whoever you build with should have written specifications with allowances that accompany the plans as part of the contract. Good luck.

I did a lot of looking online at tons of builders' websites. We picked our top 5 based on the styles of their builds and pictures online. We asked basic questions (made a list so we asked the same ones each time).

Once we got a feel for them and their rough general cost, we took or plans to our top two for an actual bid.
(We had already started our plans independently with the plan of having our choice builder help with the fine tuning and final touches)

We then did a line by line comparison of their bids, and did some reference checks.

I will suggest doing reference checks by word of mouth, and not just the list the builders give you. We learned some extra info from people who weren't on the reference list that definitely helped make our decision.

https://www.nahb.org/en/consumers/home-buying/home-buying-articles/how-to-choose-a-home-builder.aspx

Ask the builder to speak with customers he is building for at the current time- anyone in the past will not be an accurate reflection of the current financial security /availability of subs etc. Our builder in BCS (9 years ago) was the president of the home builders association and he turned out to be a disaster to put it mildly.

AggieAces06, would you be willing to say who you used and give a reference based on your experience. I have a list narrowed down, but still feeling the stress of choosing.

Oh no, that is aweful csnole! Would you be willing to share the builder you used so that I can steer clear? Please email me at camera_alerts1@yahoo.com

I'll shoot you an email later