How Much Does a Building Permit Cost? The Real Number

0:00Your contractor is standing at the permit counter with your whole project in his arms. 20 pounds of drawings, calculations, engineering reports. Over the next 15 minutes, three things are going to happen, and every one of them can come back on you months later. While you're handing over what it costs and whose name ends up on it, the middle one surprises people fastest, but the third one matters the most. I'm Bill Reed, your home-building coach. Residential construction expert here with 35 years of experience. Building permit fees, what's in the package, and the signature that shifts all the liability to you. Let's dig in. Welcome to the Awakened Homeowner. Thinking about a new home or a remodel that feels lost in a maze of decisions, you're in the right place. I'm William Reed, and for over three decades, I've coordinated the design and construction of hundreds of remodel and new home projects.

1:03I know the process can feel overwhelming, but trust me, you can do this. Here we break it all down step by step so you can feel confident, empowered, and even excited about your project. No stress, no guesswork, just the guidance you need to bring your dream home to life. Let's dive in. All right, a quick note. Before we start, there's now a number where you can put your building questions straight in my hands. You can call it, you can text it. It's 530-289-6368. It's 530-289-6368. That's the number, and your question could be the next episode. All right, your contractor is standing at the permit counter with your whole project and his arms, the 20 pounds of it, right? By the time you're ready to submit your plans to the building department, you could have what feels like a fire log of printed out plan sets.

2:10You've got drawings and calculations and engineering reports, some and application filled out, sitting on the top, and over the next 10 or 15 minutes of that window, three things are going to happen to your project. Somebody is going to check whether that package is complete. Somebody is going to tell them what it costs, and somebody is going to sign it. So there's three separate things here. It's at the same counter at the same 15 minutes, and every one of them can come back on you months later. So let's take the middle one first, because it's the one that surprises people fastest. How much does a building permit cost? The person behind the glass asks a routine question. She asks, what's the valuation on this project? And your contractor gives her the number right off your contract. Let's say it's $180,000, just as an example. And so she types it in, and she looks at her screen for a second, and she says, I'm going to use a different number. So it's not really a negotiation. It's not really a dispute. She isn't accusing anybody of anything. She pulled up a

3:16table. She looked at your square footage and your construction type, and that table produced a figure that isn't the one on your contract, and your permit fee gets calculated off her number, not yours. So that's the money question here. I get asked more than any other part of this process, this permit application process. And almost everybody asking it is working from an assumption that doesn't really hold up. They think the fee is a percentage of what they're paying their contractor, and frequently it isn't. There's a mechanism underneath all this, and it's knowable weeks in advance, and if you don't know it exists, the number that comes back can be a real shock at a bad moment. But I don't want you thinking today is only about money, because money is part of this you could probably recover from. So let's go back to those three things at the counter. The first one is what you're handing over, and that package is assembled from a lot more people than you'd guess.

4:18Enough that your submittal date isn't really set by your architect at all. I'll show you who it's actually set by, and the third one is the signature, and that's the one I'd argue matters most. And like I said, the middle one is the cost. So the third one, which I called the signature, and it's a lot more important than it sounds, because somebody has to sign the application. Somebody becomes what that paperwork calls the responsible party. The person that the city holds accountable for this work being done correctly and legally. So again, in my 35 plus years of doing this, I've watched homeowners sign that line without anybody explaining what they just agreed to, including sometimes a person who handed them the pen at the counter. So that's today. What's in the package? What it costs, and whose name ends up on it? So there's three things at one counter. Let's take them in order. So we keep calling it this 20 pounds of paper, but let's break it open

5:19because knowing what's in there tells you a lot about whether your project is ready to submit for a building permit application or not. So a residential application for anything substantial, typically includes some version of the following submittal documents and requirements. You've got your architectural drawings, and that's the main set, the site plan, the floor plans, the elevations, the sections, the details, and this is the bulk of it, and I'll get into what these actual plans are in some upcoming episodes. I'll explain exactly what they are, but for the most part, these are the drawings that you architect themselves or your residential designer, maybe even hired a drafts person that have drafted or created this design and the architectural set of plans. And those are the pages usually titled by with A101, A102, etc. And then you have the structural drawings and calculations prepared by a, usually a separate structural engineer. So on

6:26anything more than a light remodel, that's a separate document set with math behind it. So the structural drawings are usually a consultant that your architect hired to actually design, we'll call it the bones of your house, and they have their own set of plan pages that get inserted in the plan set. And then you have things like the energy calculations prepared to your state's energy standard. It's a separate specialty and often even a separate consultant. And then of course you have your soils or geotechnical report if your project requires one, and more and more now they're building codes requiring a soils report for new construction and sometimes even substantial remodels. So you have a separate, just like you have a separate structural engineer, you often with new construction, new residential custom home construction or major remodels. You have a soils engineer on the project. And that's because a foundation gets designed to the dirt, it's really sitting on and somebody has to go out and test that dirt and then your structural engineer and your

7:30architect designed to the output of what the structural engineer is analyzed below your ground surface. And there's something about that list that's easy to miss. Every one of those items is a specialty. So your architect, like I'm saying, does not produce structural drawings. Your structural engineer does. They don't produce the energy calculations. These are separate disciplines, separate licenses and separate liability. So the person you think of as running your project as at this stage, partly a coordinator chasing documents from people who don't even really work for them, although they've hired them as separate third party consultants. So then depending on your project, a list of supporting documents that homeowners rarely anticipate, planning approval documents. So we've talked about this in some recent episodes about the difference between a planning department and a building department. So the planning approval documents, if your project

8:33went through the planning approval process, that's the approval letter we talked about back in episode 73, a civil engineer's work for grading and drainage. And if you're moving earth or changing how water leaves your property, you might be constructing site retaining walls. You'll be building roads and driveways and fire safe driveways. You might be designing a septic system. You might have a well involved. So the civil engineer often gets involved in all of the aspects of a project outside the boundaries of your main structure. You also sometimes need to provide a tree protection plan provided by a certified arborist. If you have protected trees and a lot of urban and suburban areas have this requirement and you have to be really careful up front when you make that visit to the planning department, like I've mentioned in the previous episode, it's one of the questions you're going to be asking is you may want to build right where a protected

9:35heritage oak tree is or something. And then a fire sprinkler design provided by a fire sprinkler contractor, a solar design provided by a solar contractor. So now let's look at that list again and notice something because this is the part I want you to actually take away. That's not one document from one person. That's a set of documents from an architect, a structural engineer, an energy consultant, a soils engineer, a civil engineer, maybe an arborist, a sprinkler contractor, and a solar contractor. So eight different parties potentially here, each with their own schedule, their own fee, and their own idea of when they'll get it to you. Which means your submittal date is not set by your architect, it's set by whichever of those consultancies the slowest. And if that sounds familiar, it should. It's the same structure we talked about last episode with the five reviewers, the people reviewing the documents inside your city building department. And you're waiting on that last one, not the average one. So here's the practical question to ask

10:40your design professional and ask it really early months before you plan to submit. What consultants does this project need? And are they all engaged, engaged and not identified, not well, we'll get somebody under contract with a schedule. Because an incomplete application doesn't get reviewed slowly. In a lot of jurisdictions, it doesn't get accepted at all. The intake person checks your package against a list. And if something's missing, you're not in the queue. And you're out, there's a standing in the lobby. So one of the one of the cautions here is when you do go to submit your project to the building department. And it's often that a homeowner building a custom home that has an architect, they will task their architect to submit the plans to the building department for them. But if you are the person that is submitting the plans as the property owner, it's a really good idea to not just drop the plans off and leave. It's a good idea if your

11:41building department works this way is to have them review your check-in so that while you're there, you can get any any questions that come up and try to answer them or get it back to your design professionals to get them answered. So that's a real rough look at what you are planning to submit into the building department. And to protect your experience and your timeline in the building department, the quality of your submitter is really paramount. Make sure that you can get through. If you submit an inadequate plans by let's say a drafts person or somebody that you hired, it's not a professional. You forgot to get the soils engineer. You forgot this fire sprinkler design. You didn't know about it. You're going to just it's going to triple the the amount of time that it's going to get for you to be able to get a permit. And that's what I've talked about in the past. And of course that's submission here is to basically help you get to know what you don't know. All right, let's talk about the money. The building permit fees are almost universally calculated

12:45off something called project valuation, not your contract price, a valuation method that they have internally. And most homeowners assume those are the same thing. They are not necessarily the same thing. And the gap between them is where some of these surprises live. So here's the mechanism. There are published valuation tables in wide use across the country. They take your project type, your construction type, and your square footage. And they produce a dollar figure that represents what a project like yours is generally understood to cost a bill. So your city adopts one of those tables or a version of it. And their fee schedule runs off that results. But when your contractor writes your contract number on the application, the intake person checks it against the table. And here's the part that matters in a lot of jurisdictions. If your stated number comes in below what the table produces, they use their own tables. So the days of you going in there to

13:49get a building permit and you're doing a $1 million renovation on your project and you tell the building department that it's $500,000, those days are kind of gone. And they would base the permit fees off your valuation. And that's pretty much out the door now. So again, let's sit with that logic for a second because it's actually reasonable once you see it. The city isn't calling your contractor a liar. They're protecting against a system where anybody could simply understate their project cost like I'm saying and pay smaller fees. So they set a floor. If your numbers above the floor, fine, they'll use yours. If it's below, the floor applies. So but the practical effect on you is this. Your permit fee is not fully under your control and it's not a straight percentage of your contract. So if you negotiated a great price with your contractor and generally got a good deal, your permit fee may not reflect that at all. The city will still price it as though

14:50your project cost when a project like yours normally costs. So now let me give you the shape of the number because I know that's probably what you're you're you're looking for it. All right, quick reminder, everybody. Everything we're talking about today and so much more is in the awake and homeowner book. At less than one 10th of 1% of your project cost, it's the best investment you'll make. Grab your copy on Amazon and keep it by your side throughout your entire project. Trust me, you'll refer to it again and again. For most residential work, the base building permit fee tends to land somewhere in the range of 1 to 3% of the project valuation. So that's kind of a wide range and it varies enormously by the jurisdiction. So treat it as an order of magnitude and nothing more. On a hundred and eighty thousand dollar project, let's say that's roughly two to five thousand dollars for the base permit alone. And I want to be precise about this phrase base permit because that is not your permit bill. That's the first line on it. And I want to head that off

15:56that obvious reaction because homeowners hear this and they really get annoyed. You might be thinking, well, that's not fair. I should pay based on what I'm actually spending. Well, maybe, but consider what the fee is paying for it. It doesn't pay for your cabinets. It's paying for five reviewers to read your drawings and for inspectors to come to your site for the next year. The work the city does on your project is driven by the size and the complexity of the building, not by how good a deal you got negotiated. So seeing that way, valuation is a more honest basis than your contract price. It just isn't the basis most people assume. So here's what I want you doing with this and it takes one phone call call your building department before you submit. Describe your project and ask two questions. What do you use for valuation on a project like this? And can you walk me through the fee schedule? Sometimes you can find this published online too. And they'll tell you this is this is public information and they're not hiding it. It's usually published on their website, but hardly

17:00anyone calls. So most people find out at the counter. So one call weeks ahead and it converts a surprise into a line item. But remember, we just talked about the baseline estimate. I've I've planned projects out many times where we're doing one to two million projects and the permit fees sometimes reached over a hundred thousand dollars, believe it or not. Okay, so let's build the actual bill because the base permit is one line of several, like I mentioned and the other lines are where the budget gets hurt. First, we have the plan check fee. So this is a separate charge covering the review itself. Those five reviewers we met last episode reading your drawings and it's not a small add-on. It's it commonly runs a substantial percentage of the base permit fee in many places. It's more than half and some of the approaches are exceeds the permit fee itself. So here's the timing detail that catches people and it comes straight out of how the process actually works. You pay the plan check

18:02fee at submittal upfront before anybody has reviewed anything. The rest of the permit fees come later when your permit is ready to be issued and you go pick up your you know your stamped plans and don't forget it's possible that you've already paid a planning review fee and if you're doing a custom home or a substantial remodel in an urban or suburban area, especially well established, you know higher end neighborhoods, a planning approval process could cost you five to ten thousand dollars alone. So again, it's not this isn't one bill. When we look at the base permit fee, then we look at the plan check fee. It's really two payments. You know when you when you go to submit the the plans, you pay the plan check fee and then when you pick up the permit, you pay the second payments. So it's two payments separated by however long the review takes which we said last episode is four to twelve weeks. Heck, it's probably even more than that in some cases. You

19:03have to remember to get planning review, planning department approved. That could be four to twelve weeks before you could even submit to the building department. So again, this this is a broad expression of what permit fees are permit timing it takes because you could be doing a kitsch remodel or you can be doing a small addition or if you're doing a you know, twelve thousand square foot custom home, that could take you a lot longer and pay a lot more. So but if you budgeted one number for one moment, the first one arrives earlier than you expected and the second one is bigger than you remembered. So the second one here is the trade permits. So electrical plumbing, mechanical, these are frequently permitted separately with their own fees. Sometimes they're bundled into the building permit, sometimes they're not and it depends entirely on your jurisdiction and how your contractor handles it. So ask specifically whether trade permits are included in the number you've been quoted or additional to it. Those two answers produce very different budgets.

20:09And then third, in this category does the real damage on larger projects. The impact fees and capacity charges. So these aren't payments for reviewing your plans, their charges tied to your projects effect on the public systems and services, school district fees, water and sewer capacity charges, park or traffic fees and some jurisdictions and believe it or not, technology surcharges. They typically get triggered by adding square footage or adding bedrooms or increasing demand, your houseplaces on the city systems and they can be substantial way more than the cost of the base permit fee. So on a significant addition, they can rival or exceed everything else on the bill combined. And I want to flag one specifically because homeowners never see it coming and it's the school fee in a lot of places adding habitable square footage triggers a per square foot fee

21:09paid to the local school district. So you're not building a school, you're not sending anybody new to the school. It doesn't matter. It's assessed on the square footage and it's collected before your permit issues and it also it could be more than one school district collecting money from you. It could be the elementary school district and the high school district. So you're going to want to check into that so that you're prepared. So put all of this together and you get the honest answer to the question that we started with. How much does a building permit cost? On a meaningful residential project, it is realistically a multi-thousand dollar line item. And on a large addition or a new home, it could run well into five figures. Once impact fees are included. So it's not really a rounding error here. It's a budget line item and it deserves to be in your budget from the beginning rather than discovered in month six. Not to say that you would design

22:09your project around what the permit fees cost, but it could affect the amount of money that you have allocated for the project, which would help you make other financial decisions. For the project and let's go with one more thing here, timing, because it affects when you need the cash and nobody lays it out. So impact and school fees are generally collected at the permit issuance, the same moment as the balance of your permit fees. In fact, a lot of times you're required to go to the different school district offices, pay the fees, get the receipt and then bring it back and they will issue the permit to you once that you've proven to them they've paid the school fees. So that second payment, the one that comes weeks after the first is frequently the large one. The base permit balance, the trade permits and every impact fee all landing together right when you're eager to start. So I've watched that moment stall projects not because the

23:10homeowner couldn't ultimately afford it, but because the money was allocated somewhere else that week and nobody told them it was coming. So when you make that call the building department, ask the third question too. What's do it submittal and what's do it the issuance of the permit? Two numbers and then we got two dates and then you're going to want to write them down both. And I'll just reiterate, you know, I'm just giving you kind of a shape here on how this works, not an actual specific quote. So your jurisdiction is the only authority on your actual fees and they will tell you if you ask. Okay, now this is an interesting one and I think this is the one that might matter the most. Every building permit has a responsible party, a person or an entity whose name is on it, who signed the application and who is accountable to the city for the work being done correctly and legally. And that's normally your license contractor and that is how it's supposed to work in a most projects. That's how it does work. There's another way it can go and you need

24:12to understand it before somebody hands you a pen. You can pull the permit yourself as the property owner. Most jurisdictions allow it and there's a specific declaration you sign to do it. And when you sign it, you become what the paperwork calls the owner builder. And there are legitimate reasons a homeowner does this. If you genuinely are doing the work yourself or you genuinely acting as your own general contractor and hiring licensed subs directly, that's a real path and people take it on purpose with their eyes wide open. That's not the situation I'm worried about. The situation I'm worried about is the one where you've hired a licensed contractor to build your project, a real contractor, a home builder, a real contract. He's doing the work and somewhere in the process, he asks you to pull the permit instead of him. And the reason offered always sound kind of practical. It'll be faster. I'm backed up. It's simpler if it's in your name. We'll save some time. And if

25:17that happens, I want you to understand exactly what's being proposed. You would be taking on personally the responsibility that your contractor is supposed to be caring, not sharing it, you're taking it on yourself. And let me tell you what's actually written on the form because this is the part that that gets me and you can go read this yourself before you ever sit down at the counter. The disclosures homeowner signed for this typically say in plain language that building permit are not required to be signed by property owners unless the owner is responsible for this construction and is not hiring a licensed contractor to assume that responsibility. So let's read that again. The form is telling you that if you've hired a licensed contractor, you shouldn't be the one signing. And a lot of these disclosures go further. They state outright that you may protect yourself from potential financial risk by hiring a licensed contractor and having that permit

26:21filed in that contractor's name. That is a government form at the moment of signature advising you really not to sign it. So I know how to make that point more strongly than the paperwork already makes it. So what are you actually taking on? The disclosures spells it out. And it's a longer list than a lot of people expect. You become the responsible party of record. The city's accountability for that work runs to you. You take on liability for injuries to workers on your property and your homeowners insurance may not cover those injuries. And we've talked about that in the relatively recent episodes. So that's that's actually stated directly on the forms not as a warning about the remote possibility. But as a thing, the disclosure wants you to affirm you understand. So you take on responsibility for verifying that everybody who works on your project is properly licensed and carries workers compensation coverage. That verification burden moves on to you.

27:28You can become liable for material and labor costs that your contractor doesn't pay. If a sub doesn't get paid by somebody upstream, back in the land on you and on your property. And you may take on employer tax obligations. Now, if even if you don't sign permit application, when it comes to the actual financial liability of the project, honestly, you're still on the hook for that. Because if your home builder, general contractor doesn't pay their subcontractors and the subcontractor file files the lean process properly, which I just spoke about in a previous episode as well. It that's still going to circle back to you. But there's one more that reaches further and into the future than anything else on this list. If you sell that house, you can be held liable for the financial or personal injuries sustained by a later owner that result from latent construction defects, defects in workmanship or materials that nobody can see at that time. You didn't swing the hammer, you signed a form and that exposure can outlive your ownership

28:31of the house. And you sign all of this under your good old penalty of perjury. That's not that's that's not decorative language. It's it's on the declaration actually. So now here's the piece that makes this genuinely consequential rather than merely alarming. When your contractor's name is on that permit, you have recourse. He's licensed. He's bonded. Hopefully. There's a state licensing board and there are mechanisms available to you if the work goes badly. When your name is on the permit, a lot of that recourse evaporates. You weren't a customer of a licensed contractor on that job. You were the responsible party who hired some people. The licensing boards that handled consumer complaints report that a meaningful share of the complaints they received involve owner builder projects and that they're often unable to help with the financial losses because the protections that would normally apply were signed away at the counter. So I want to be careful not to overstate this because there's a version of this conversation that turns into paranoia and

29:36that's not useful either. Plenty of contractors have perfectly ordinary reasons for a scheduling conversation about who goes down to the counter. Filling out forms, standing in line, that's logistics and logistics, I guess we're negotiable. Was not negotiable is the responsible party line? That's the thing to hold firm on and it's narrower than it first appears. You can be completely flexible about who runs the errand while being completely inflexible about whose name carries the accountability. So what do you really actually do? If you hired a licensed contractor to build your project, the permit should be in his name. You're listed as the owner of the property, but the contractor is also listed on the application and that's the default. That's what the forms contemplate and that's the protective position. So if he asks you to pull it instead, that's a conversation. Ask him why? Ask it plainly and without accusation because there might be an answer you can live with.

30:39But know that a contractor who can't or won't pull a permit in his own name is telling you something about his license or maybe his insurance or his willingness to be accountable for the job. And that is worth knowing before construction starts rather than after. So one more thing because because it's useful and it doesn't come up that often, there's usually a middle path here and you can authorize an agent to apply, sign, and file on your behalf. Typically your architect or your contractor or the responsible party question is handled correctly. That's a standard mechanism and it exists on the forms. So somebody else has to physically go down there. It's not the same as your name goes on it as a responsible party. Those are two different things and they get collapsed together constantly. Okay, so this brings us to the logistics of filing a billing program application and who physically makes the handoff. So there are a few options here and which one is right depends

31:41on how you've approached the design, whether you paste it together yourself, hire a design professional to run the whole thing or landed somewhere in between. And here's the general rule. The more you're in the middle of this, the more responsibility you take on and the more stress and aggravation, you're likely to experience. Every billing department takes projects in differently. Some are purely administrative. Somebody that counter checks your application, takes your fee and you're done. Some take appointments and do a cursory review of your materials while you're standing there, which is what I recommend. Some offer what they call express plan checks and you review your plans right in front of you. And that's usually smaller scale residential remodel projects. And more and more of them have moved to online submittal, which is efficient if you hand them a quality application and if you don't, your plans disappear into the abyss, which I've talked about. So here are two steps I want you taking regardless of who's making the hand off, even if you have no

32:46intention of participating in the permitting process at all. So step one, call the billing department, explain your project type and ask what the procedure is to apply specifically. Does this entail being a delivery person with a checkbook or does it include somebody from the city doing an in-person, detailed review of materials where questions can come up in real time. Those are very different events and they call for different people in the room. So if your particular billing department does occur through a review, I recommend you have your design professional there to answer questions right on the spot. Otherwise, you could get hung up there. So step two, ask your design professional whether they'll be handling the application. Then match the answer to what you learned in step one. If the city is going to review materials and questions might arise, I want your architect present to address them on the spot. And then you can decide whether you'd like to attend to. I'd encourage

33:48it. You can learn an enormous amount about your project and its requirements standing in that room, things that otherwise may never get fed back to you. If it's a simple handoff, maybe you'd like to handle that yourself rather than pay somebody to do it. Just be careful because if you're inexperienced questions can still come up that you can't answer. And if it's an online process, I suggest your design professional handle it, but they should include you as a contact. And that's usually the case. So you would get all of the communications and emails so you can monitor the progress and know when the questions arise. And there's one more reason I push humours to attend when there's a live review beyond hearing the questions. You learn how your city operates. Every building department has a personality and what they're strict about, what they wave through, what they always ask for. That's institutional knowledge. It isn't written really down anywhere and you pick it up by being in that room. And if you plan to own this house a long time or you think you might do another project

34:51someday, an hour spent watching your city work is an hour that keeps paying off. That last detail is small and it matters more than it looks. Being a contact on this submittal is the difference between knowing where your project stands and calling somebody to ask. Okay, let's bring this all together. What you're submitting isn't one document. It's a package assembled from as many as eight different consultants, maybe even more. And your submittal date is set by the slowest one. Ask your design professional which consultants your project needs and whether they're all engaged. Engage not just identify it. Your permit fee runs off project valuation and the city may use its own number instead of your contract price. Then plan check on top trade permits on top of that and impact your school fees on top of that. It's two payments not one separated by weeks, sometimes even months. Call your building department before you submit and ask them to walk you

35:54through their fee schedule. It's public and a lot of people never ask and they get really blown away when they go to pick up their permit. And whose name goes on the permit is not a formality. If you've hired a licensed contractor, that permit should be in his name. The forms themselves will tell you so. I think I'm going to go ahead and put together a worksheet on this one as well with two halves. One side is every fee line to carry in your budget so nothing arrives as a surprise. The other side is the question to ask for anyone signs an application, including the ones to ask your contractor if you'd rather you pull the permit. The link is going to be in the show notes for that particular micro tool that I've developed. And then you can always go to the book, the Awakened Homeowner at Amazon or many other places that's the book is slowly getting traction. People seem to be picking it up and reading it. Yeah, this is the kind of thing that you're thinking about a project. And or even if you're in the middle of design and you could just have

36:55this as your companion for you know 20 bucks or whatever it is. And and if you're and if you're in the planning stage right now, take a look at what we're building over at buildquest.co. It's a planning platform for homeowners and it's actually going to also work with professionals. It's in development and it's it is getting near completion. And some of my future episodes, I'm going to start talking more about it in detail so that so that you can get a sense of where I'm going with it to help you. But you can sign up on the form there for early access to the application. I mean there's no cost or commitment for that. And you can always email me directly with your questions. And I think in the beginning of the episode at the end of this episode, there's a phone number you can even call in, leave a message. And let's talk about your project. See how it might be able to help. The next episode, your application is in and the clock is running. We'll talk about what comes back from those five reviewers and why a 10-page list of

37:55corrections is not a disaster it looks like. And the one question you must ask your architect, the moment those comments land, then inspections, the final sign off, and how a permit gets closed out. Because a permit that never gets closed follows the house, not you. All right, everybody. I'm Bill Reed, your home building coach. I hope you enjoyed this episode. And as you know, I'm here to enlighten and power and protect you. Let's go make it happen. All right, hang on before you go. I've got something new. I've opened up a call in line. I read a number where you can ask me about your project directly. So here's why I get emails. I answer them. But an email strips out everything I actually need. I want to hear that frustration, the hesitation, the thing you're not quite saying. When I can hear it, I can help with it. So call or text this number 530-2896368. Tell me what's going on. If you leave a voicemail, I may play part of it on the show. So only use your first name and

38:55keep it to what you're comfortable sharing. And if you'd rather stay off the air, that's okay. Say so and I'll keep it between us. Thanks for tuning into the Awakened Homeowner. Remember, you've got the power to take control of your project from day one. If you're ready to dive deeper, grab the Awakened Homeowner book in Amazon. It's your roadmap to success. Join our community at the AwakenedHomeowner.com and download our free story, The Tale of Two Homeowners. And here's something exciting. I'm developing an app called BillQuest that's going to revolutionize how you plan and manage your project. Visit BillQuest.co to become a founding member and test drive the app when it launches. Follow us on social media and hit that subscribe button. All the links are in the show notes and bio. Got questions? I'd love to hear from you. This is Bill Reed. You got this.