Home: build vs. buy

BigClay

BigClay

Knower of useless ZJ things
Joined
Sep 24, 2008
Location
Winston-Salem
Just looking for opinions on what people think about buying a house versus building a house. Are the head aches of building worth it?
 
not in this market you can get a nice house for about 3/4 the cost if not cheaper. unless you are extremely picky and want a certain design or style of house that cant be easily bought
 
It really depends on what you are looking for. I was looking for a nice piece of land in an area I liked. The only houses I could find like that were waaaaaay out of my price range. Also, I wanted to build small first, then add on later. I am glad that I built my house, but I do regret not buying a house that needed work, fixing it up, profiting, and then repeating until I had enough to build what I wanted.
 
The reason I am asking is I can't seem to find a house in an area I like with as much land as I want. I found a lot, and now trying to figure out if it is worth building, or should I sacrafice having land.
 
BigClay said:
The reason I am asking is I can't seem to find a house in an area I like with as much land as I want. I found a lot, and now trying to figure out if it is worth building, or should I sacrafice having land.
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The principle that made my mind up is: You can always build more house, but you can't build more land. Thats particularly true in a neighborhood where everything is already built up. I've got a decent chunk of land, and theres 90 acres behind me that is owned by a neighbor, that I will buy one day when I arrive.
 
BigClay said:
The reason I am asking is I can't seem to find a house in an area I like with as much land as I want. I found a lot, and now trying to figure out if it is worth building, or should I sacrafice having land.
Click to expand...

We were in the same position a few years ago. We could not find a house on a large lot (5-10 acres) that we liked. After looking for a long time, we decided to buy a lot and build a house. It then took a long time to find a lot that we liked. It has been a very stressful and time consuming project so far, and they are just now going to be pouring the footings today. We spent months looking through house plans before deciding to hire an architect to draw exactly what we wanted. I believe it took us a little over a year with the architect to get the house to the final design. We talked to about six different builders before finally selecting one. When building a house, you have to choose EVERYTHING, and so far I have found the process of making those decisions to be very stressful and time consuming. I will also add that during this time, our son was born, which has made the whole thing more difficult. We also had to sell our old house, which was stressful too. We are now living in a rental house. Used houses are probably 15-30% cheaper than building a custom home, but any of the used houses we looked at would have required 15-25% more on top of the purchase price to make changes we desired and to update the home. Used houses also have the possibility of needing the roof, HVAC unit, deck, stove, etc replaced within the first few years or so you live there. A new home should need nothing for many years if constructed properly and built with quality components.
 
Building a house can be very rewarding. You can get everything just like you want it, maybe. If you act as your own contractor you can save money, maybe. Construction time may be out of control if you do it yourself, maybe. If you don't drive every nail yourself you then depend on others-sub contractors. Their are good ones and not so good ones. If you are a first timer every relationship with a sub is brand new and unknown. If you use a good general contractor they already have a pool of good subs making the whole process smoother and under control leaving you to be to make decisions about what you want not distracted about how to accomplish the actual work.
 
1. Buy land
2. Install mobile home
3. Save $$$
4. Start building house
5. Finish house
6. Leave mobile home

Bonus points for building right behind the mobile home and never moving it.
 
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