This past Saturday as I found myself hunched over in my crawl space attic running ductwork for our two bathroom exhaust fans that had been installed and run into the fiberglass batting for the past 33 years by the amazing contractor who built this little gem, I was envisioning what my next home would bring me. I can see both sides of the argument for building/buying, and admittedly, after what I've had to fix and improve, only to still not really have the house I truly want, I'm leaning more toward building (eventually). It's no where in the immediate future, I'm just more interested to see what everyone here has done, wants to do, or would do differently given the chance. So let's here it.
If I lived in a rural area, I would 100% build and contract myself. That would be an easy decision. We chose to buy this time because we chose to live within the city. Not many vacant lots in the city. And I will never live in the suburbs, so that wasn't an option.
Depends on your market, in my area you can buy existing homes for about 20 percent below new construction of similar quality, providing your your own GC. That said the 20% premium to get what you what where you want maybe worth it.....value comes when you can buy preexisting at below that 20% threshold....it's a hell of a market right now to get value. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
If only I was not the youngest, I could have a had a custom built house for free labor. Me, my Dad, and my Brother basically built my parent's and my brothers houses. The only thing we contracted out on either were the foundation pouring, the shingles, and sheetrock finishing. That's it. We did everything else ourselves. Both houses appraised for 5x what they paid. Makes me sick when my parents tell me how much they pay for their monthly mortgage My Dad owned his own home building company for 30 years, FYI
My wife and I are preparing to move on from renting sometime in the next 12 months and this is a debate we are having right now as well.
We built. I did almost everything, and subbed out what I didn't want to tackle. It was a long process. About 16 months. I worked my full time job, came home and changed and went to work building the house every night of the week, usually working until 10 or 11, and most of the day on the weekends. For me, it was totally worth it. I know everything about the construction of my house. I can tell you the only things that I have had problems with, are things I had subbed out. When I look at some of the work home builders are putting out around here, I have to laugh. They don't build them like they used to, and home builders are like doctors, they bury their mistakes. If you hire a home builder or sub it out yourself, you need to make sure you are there a lot, supervising and making sure they are doing quality work.
My wife and I are in this process right now..........buy a home in the country or build a home in the country. As much as we wanted to build, once the costs of drilling a well and installing a septic system are figured in, it takes a very big bite out of money we wanted to use on the home.
We bought our house new in 2005. We planned on living here for 15 years and then building when we found the piece of land we wanted. Now, we found the land we wanted, but it comes with a house. Its an older house that is much smaller than we want, but if we do indeed buy the place we are going to renovate the inside enough to live in for 2-3 years and then add on. It'll be a huge adjustment going from a 4br 3.5 bath to a 2br 1 bath house, but the land will make it worthwhile to live in it for a few years.
If you have a spot to build one then I'd definitely build so like you said it is what you want. I know around here if you have to puchase land as well its gonna be pretty pricey. I do concrete construction for a living and we do about anything you would want except for the colored or stamped concrete, jus because it takes more patience than any of us have, but within the past 6 months to year materials have been steadily goin up. This time last year a yard of concrete was about $80 and by the time we shut down for year it was $100-120 in some places. We've been telling people that cal with the "we're jus thinking about doin something" attitude that if they have the ability to start to grt on it. Like you said though if its something you can do to get what you want I'd build.
since im still in college i just dream about the house i would like to build with surrounding land to hunt on. but until i have a steady job and i know where i want to live for awhile ill probably rent out or possibly buy. I still have time to figure that out though.
We are in this same situation. We have land in the city and live out in BFE and need to be closer to things. Plus the $ we spend in gas, we could dang near pay a mortgage payment. We want to build but, the land we have, we want to build our dream home on. At this time we can't afford to build it but, can't really afford to keep living out here either. So, we are looking to buy a smaller 3 bed 2 bath 1500 square foot house and live there for 5 years or so then build. Once we build, we will rent out the house. If we could afford it, we would build right now!
This is one of the motivating factors for me toward the building aspect. I may be close minded and bit judgmental, or maybe it's that I'm in a poor area for quality contractors, but I've seen far more BAD examples of work done by contractors than good. Honestly, whoever built my home back in 1979 should never have even picked up a hammer. I've never seen so many corners cut and just poor work. The guy who owned it for most of its life and tried to "improve" it wasn't much better, and he was a contractor. My sister and brother in law just built a $50K three bay, two story garage. All of the electrical boxes are mounted flush with the studs, and 1/2" behind the drywall. That is basic construction 101, if that! Another local contractor here who has a reputation for building ungodly mansion size homes also has his own brand of quality work. My dad's best friend was remodeling his sons room...gutted it to the studs and found they ran the romex ACROSS the face of the studs and underneath the drywall! I just think there are far more bad contractors than good. I don't know if I have the time in my life to do a lot of the work myself, but I would for sure be out on the site EVERY day, watching and prying everything.
House across the street from me near the University area is going on the market soon. The original owner and neighbor, pretty much built it. PM me if you want more info.
I lived a subdivision for the first few years after I got married. I couldn't stand it after growing up with 20 acres of my grandmas land to roam on next door growing up. Saved up and bought 3 acres of woods in an area with all 3-5 acre lots. Cleared enough for a house, yard and septic field. Was my own general contractor and had a friend who owns a construction company build my current home. We did a lot of the painting/staining work ourselves inside. Borrowed a tractor and did the yard ourselves too and then built our deck over a couple weekend BBQ/work parties. One change I would make is having an outdoor wood fired hot water heat source. I know a few people with these and they are nice. Hopefully I'll be retiring in a couple of years and moving to the country. Looking for 200 or so acres hopefully. But probably not the property I now own for hunting. It's a little too far from roads, electric and usable water to make it worth the cost. Plus I'm not sure I want to live in the screwed up state of IL. Might look into moving out West, maybe Nebraska, Kansas, Wyoming or Colorado. Outside chance Iowa gets a good look too. I'll probably look for an existing home when I do move. It's a lot of work building new again. Just hope I can find what I'm looking for. If not I guess I could do it again to get what I want. Just not that interested in doing as much stuff myself this time around.
My wife and I are in the early stages of building right now. It's a complicated, detail ridden, and tedious process but when it's all over we will have our dream home built and I'll be 28 years old. Before building was an option we needed to pay off all debt which will be accomplished in the next 6 months. We were lucky enough to have favor with her family who let us have our choice of building sites on their roughly 5000 acre spread for only 1000$ acre. We selected a 20 acre piece on a limestone bluff surrounded on 3 sides by black jack oak tree line, a beautiful creek bottom, and native Kansas pasture. We will have beautiful sunset views to the west and of the black jacks changing color in October. Most importantly I'll be able to walk to all of my deer stands! So far out of pocket we have established a road, dug 2 water wells ( one for the house one for the barn), and our utility poles are placed. We will fence off our 20 acres this spring and in 2014 we will be pouring slab and finishing the home. It's been a long road and a lot of budgeting, but our dream is so close to coming true.
