Has anyone done the 'build on your lot' thing for a new home??

[ProfJohn]

I have been looking at homes for about a month now and am pulling what little hair I have left out.

Found a house that I liked, but it is a repo and has become more hassle than it might be worth.

I have also found some beautiful model homes that I absolutely loved, but they are located in communities that I am not interested in living in.

BUT!!! I think I have a solution!!!

I found a lot that I like and it is located in the same small town as my brother. The lot is perfect for what I want. Basement lot, wooded, backs up to a green area so no one will ever live right behind me and it is within walking distance of a little community park with a boat ramp so I could get a boat, drop it in the water and just drive my car+trailer home and then walk back to boat!!! Sounds perfect!!

In order to make this work though I have to find a builder and have them come in and build the house for me. (I don't have the knowledge or time to be my own GC)

What I am wondering is if anyone has gone this route themselves.
How was the process? Are you happy with the results?? And would you do it again??

 

[HelloWorl]

I have been looking at homes for about a month now and am pulling what little hair I have left out.

Found a house that I liked, but it is a repo and has become more hassle than it might be worth.

I have also found some beautiful model homes that I absolutely loved, but they are located in communities that I am not interested in living in.

BUT!!! I think I have a solution!!!

I found a lot that I like and it is located in the same small town as my brother. The lot is perfect for what I want. Basement lot, wooded, backs up to a green area so no one will ever live right behind me and it is within walking distance of a little community park with a boat ramp so I could get a boat, drop it in the water and just drive my car+trailer home and then walk back to boat!!! Sounds perfect!!

In order to make this work though I have to find a builder and have them come in and build the house for me. (I don't have the knowledge or time to be my own GC)

What I am wondering is if anyone has gone this route themselves.
How was the process? Are you happy with the results?? And would you do it again??

Which town/state are you looking to build? Any idea of what it will cost vs how much a similarly already build home would cost you?

 

[ProfJohn]

I am looking in Tega Cay South Carolina, just across the boarder from Charlotte.

Lot is $25-50k
Found one local builder with models from $100-200k.

One floor plan I liked would end up costing me perhaps $200 for a 3000 sqft home which is cheaper than what the houses already in that are are selling for. (that price is lot+house+basement)

It is an older community and most of the houses I can afford are either old or ugly cookie cutter homes.

Doing this way I can customize my plan and get the feature I want and the floor plan I want.

 

[sdifox]

really depends on your municipality and your neighbours. Getting your plans approved is the single biggest challenge. That also include no neighbours bitching about it.

 

[dawp]

you could go the modular route.

 

[Linflas]

My parents did that and I can tell you that there are a lot of pitfalls unless you have a really good contractor.

 

[boomerang]

I did it 22 years ago. I'm living in that house now. I'm not certain I'd go that route again. There are pluses and minuses.

The builder had his idea of how the house was to be built and I had mine. Mine was all drawn out in the blueprints as I had hired an architect. The builder and I ended up barely talking to each other. He wanted to go the cheapest route on everything. For instance, I had told him what cabinetry I wanted in the kitchen, he agreed to that and then tried to put in something different. He gave me a $300 lighting allowance for the house - inside and out. He tried to wire the house to code (things like number and spacing of outlets) although the architect and I had discussed all this and had put it all down in writing. Remember, that the builder bid the house to those prints. I could go on.

The pluses are that the house turned out just fine structurally. I had about 15 years of virtually no maintenance around the house. I did find out that he put cheaper shingles on the roof than the prints called for. The furnace he put in was not at the efficiency level the prints called for and it was about twice as big as the house required. Things like that I discovered over time.

It took ten years for the market to bring the house up to what I actually had in it. This of course will vary and may not even apply in your situation.

Here's what was not included in the price that I had not thought about. A finished driveway. The lawn. The landscaping. The gutters. Those are the ones that popped quickly into my head. I'm not blaming him for these.

You will also have costs for window treatments, etc. There are a ton of little details that you don't think too much about but your builder is. He will probably have a different notion of what is acceptable than you. Everything that you try to upgrade as the job moves along comes out of his pocket. Think about that.

Things may certainly have changed but during the era I had my house built the economy was getting markedly better and a typical builder wanted to make 30% of the homes value as profit. That is what he built into the bid price.

I don't want to sound too negative. Every home out there was new once. So it's not like it's an insane thing to do.

Edit: Some additional thoughts.

After working with my hands for a number of years, I decided to try selling real estate. It wasn't for me and it took me two years to figure that out. But, in that time frame, I met a lot of people in the area in the construction trades and numerous builders.

I ended up knowing personally the following trades that worked on my home.

The excavator
The rough carpenters
The plumber
The electrician
The finish carpenter

I did not know;

The block layers (block basement)
Insulators
Tile people
Roofers

The point is that I should have contracted the house out myself. However, what you pay a builder for is his knowledge in scheduling, materials delivery and many other things I probably haven't thought about. There's lots of things going on in the background that are not that obvious too. Permits. inspections, bank draws, etc.

While I'm thinking of it, unless you are paying in cash, you will need construction financing (with resultant interest) and the home will have to be insured at some point during the construction process to protect the lender. Here, the property itself must be paid off too. That may have changed over the years, but my guess is that it's back and in full force now. Just a guess.

 

[PottedMeat]

Heh my parents thought about doing that for 2+ years. They even paid an architect to make plans, talked to a bunch of local contractors/builders, bought a lot. Then some dipshit in a backhoe working in the lot next to theirs ripped into a gasoline pipeline. The pipeline owner ended up buying all the area lots and their plans. They wound up building a house where the builder owned the lots. I wouldn't want to live so close to a gas pipe anyway.

 

[Vette73]

you could go the modular route.

Yea if you don't mind the "generic" design then this would probable be the way to go.



I am doing a 1000sq/ft addition on my house right now. I am the GC for the framing and I am doing the electrical and plumbing. If you "custom" build add in at least another 10% to what you think it will cost.
With Mod. home at least the price should be set and maybe even a warranty.

 

[kalrith]

My parents did that and I can tell you that there are a lot of pitfalls unless you have a really good contractor.

Same here. The guys would work on the house until they had a question about what my parents wanted, and they would just leave for the day even if it were 11 in the morning. Because of this, it took about a year to build.

Another problem they had was with the painter that they're contractor used. My parents picked out paint for all their rooms at Lowes, and then the painter went and bought the paint from a different brand. That wouldn't have been so bad except that he went by the names instead of the paint chips. So, he used Green Apple by Sherwin Williams that looked nothing like the Green Apple from Valspar. They wound up paying extra to have him repaint the rooms (I wouldn't have done that), and then within a year they repainted a couple of the rooms as well.

They also drew out their own plans, which was a big mistake IMO. For example, they figured out what size they wanted the guest bedroom to be, but didn't take into account the large walk-in closet in the room. Because of that, the room is crammed even with a full-size bed in there, and a queen would practically take up the whole room.

It was really sad, because they've wanted to build their own house for 30 years, knew what they liked, and then did many things wrong or had to cut big things out of the house for budget reasons. By the time they moved in, they were already talking about the changes they were going to make. IMO building a house yourself should mean that no changes have to be made after it's done, because you picked exactly what you wanted in the first place.

Unless you can afford to build exactly what you want and can find a good contractor, then I wouldn't recommend going the building route.

 

[Pegun]

What about heating and cooling in modular homes, though. Has anyone heard stories about whether the houses are cold because everything wasn't put together in a customer fashion? That's just what I've heard.

 

[ProfJohn]

*update*
I have found a couple of local builders that will come and build one of their model homes on my lot.

So in theory it should be very similar to buying a house in a big development, except the house will be on my nice little wooded lot.

The nice thing is that I can look at existing homes that will be essentially the same model and the cost is known up front.

Seems like a much better idea than buying a house in a development or buying an older house and pouring $20k and countless hours of do-it-yourself work in it to get it to what I want.

 

[OutHouse]

my sister did it. she used the company ubuild-it she saved a boat load of money and designed the house the way she wanted.

 

[JMapleton]

Depends on where you live, but where I live there are always older houses you can buy and be in a more convenient location and have a larger house for less money, rather than living out in the sticks. But some people want their own customized house I guess.

 

[OutHouse]

They also drew out their own plans, which was a big mistake IMO. For example, they figured out what size they wanted the guest bedroom to be, but didn't take into account the large walk-in closet in the room. Because of that, the room is crammed even with a full-size bed in there, and a queen would practically take up the whole room

when my sister did her plans they were inspected by architects and she had to make several changes before the architects would sign off on the design part of the project. they looked at code, structure and design flaws like in your parents situation. did your parents have their plans reviewed, just wondering.

 

[ViviTheMage]

*update*
I have found a couple of local builders that will come and build one of their model homes on my lot.

So in theory it should be very similar to buying a house in a big development, except the house will be on my nice little wooded lot.

The nice thing is that I can look at existing homes that will be essentially the same model and the cost is known up front.

Seems like a much better idea than buying a house in a development or buying an older house and pouring $20k and countless hours of do-it-yourself work in it to get it to what I want.

Did you read what the other posters have been saying ...

 

[kalrith]

when my sister did her plans they were inspected by architects and she had to make several changes before the architects would sign off on the design part of the project. did your parents do this, just wondering.

I don't think so. They were working with an architect (at least I think they were, they might've just been dealing with the contractor) but didn't like any of his plans, so they decided to draw up their own. I can't imagine an architect approving a very small guest room and second bathroom (I forgot to mention that one) for a 2600-sq-ft house.

They also got scared about having so much brick on the house, so they used a lot of siding as well. It was really sad when my dad took me out to the back corner of the house and said, "This is the prettiest view of the house." It was the only corner with all brick and stone, whereas the front of the house has a lot of gray siding on it. It's strange because they drove through a lot of nice neighborhoods trying to decide what look they wanted for the house, decided that they liked the all-red-brick-and-light-gray-stone look, and then chickened out and went with 30-40% gray siding mixed in there.

 

[Muse]

I am looking in Tega Cay South Carolina, just across the boarder from Charlotte.

Lot is $25-50k
Found one local builder with models from $100-200k.

One floor plan I liked would end up costing me perhaps $200 for a 3000 sqft home which is cheaper than what the houses already in that are are selling for. (that price is lot+house+basement)

It is an older community and most of the houses I can afford are either old or ugly cookie cutter homes.

Doing this way I can customize my plan and get the feature I want and the floor plan I want.

Looks like the way to go, then. Think it through, I'd advise going to a lot of open houses to get ideas. Doesn't cost you a dime except transportation. Be polite, keep your eyes and ears open. Plan your house. Read some books, even the Dummies books can really help. I read Home Buying for Dummies when I bought my house and it was great. The only Dummies book I've ever read. Good luck!

PS Get and check references very carefully (talk to customers face to face, visit properties they are or have been working on) for any pros you use, especially your general contractor and if used, architect. You want to be sure about these so you don't have problems such as this:

I did it 22 years ago. I'm living in that house now. I'm not certain I'd go that route again. There are pluses and minuses.

The builder had his idea of how the house was to be built and I had mine. Mine was all drawn out in the blueprints as I had hired an architect. The builder and I ended up barely talking to each other. -snip -

 

[Zargon]

my parents did this when I was 7. They said they will buy another already built house again. Their first two were existing and loved the a) eperience of doing it and b) the end product

 

[StageLeft]

There are definite risks, even if you get a well reputed contractor. Basically once you start construction you're locked in and if the contractor does some really silly sh*t that is still technically to code there isn't much you can do about it.

Basically it is the only way to get exactly what you want, though. Also if you're of the opinion you want certain things done like unusual but superior insulation approaches, it's more realistic to do on your own house.

 

[vi edit]

I could write pages. But instead I'll be brief. I'm in the process of having a home built from scratch, on a lot we bought on our own.

Here's how it can break down:

Option 1) Be your own general contractor
It's basically a full time job, you pick out all your subs, do all planning, apply for all permits, and generally have to project manage the thing start to finish. You might save $50k-$100k. You might not. You will have a nightmare and a huge time hole, doubly so if you have a complex home and have no prior building experience.

Option 2) Go with a builder that will GC for you

Which leads to more options...

Option A) No custom at all short of maybe flooring and counters. You get a house completely designed with no flexibility in arrangement/size by the builder. You walk in and they sell you a house they want to build.

Option B) Psuedo-custom. The builder has a set of general plans that he likes to use that you can make bigger smaller/and flip around things like doors, windows, siding, garage sizes ect. And you typically have full control over your allowances. You walk in, they ask you a price range you are looking at, and then show you some options and ask you what want to change about the plans.

Option C) Full customization. You walk in and they ask "What kind of a house do you want us to build you?". You can either take in a plan you like and they'll draw one up based on it, or you can sit down with the architect and you guys can slave away on every little detail until it's YOUR home.

....

We looked at all three builders and settled on option "B". The builder had a very good idea of costs almost down to the board on what it would be to build the homes we were looking at. We also had the ability to change up room sizes, layouts, ect without having to sweat every little detail. We were turned off by the first type that didn't even listen to what we wanted, and too overwhelmed (mentally & financially) by the full custom option.

If you are currently a home owner, building is not easy. Many banks will require your home to be sold or solid offer on it before you can get going with the construction process. And since the construction process is typically 4 months to over a year depending on the home staying in your current place just isn't feasible.

If you are renting it's not too hard.

Probably the hardest thing to do is stay within budget. There are just so many places that you can get out of hand. I budgeted for $20,000 for a well & septic system (no public water where I am). My $10,000 well turned into over $25,000 when I couldn't get water going shallow bore. So I just blew that budget by over $10,000 when you factor in the cost of drilling the well and adding in an RO system to make the water drinkable.

Same with flooring. Your builder might give you a $7,000 flooring allowance. We actually had $12,000. Which sounds like a lot. But we had over 3200 sq/ft to cover. That's $3.75 a sq/ft. Cheap hardwood is $3-$4 a square foot. Plus another $2 a sq/ft for installation. Tile installation is even more. Carpet can vary wildly by price and quality. It's just very hard to keep on track with that stuff, especially if you aren't going to do any work yourself.

The thing I can not empasize enough is DO YOUR HOMEWORK!!! Ask around about the builder, check his BBB rating, ask for piles of references, ect. If you guy by the cheapest you are likely going to get burned. Go by the best referred. Our builder did houses for 5 coworkers of my wife and every one of them was very satisfied with the quality, value, and construction process of their home. He also has an exceptional reputation around the area. He also is nationally recognized for his energy efficieny and construction methods in his homes. So that was a plus too.

Which is my second next point...the advantage of going custom/pseudo custom is you can control your efficiency of your home better. Insulate and seal as best as you can and save on your bills without any fancy or expensive alternative energy methods. Just simply build a good home!

Which is another point...you probably aren't going to keep the place forever...don't get too cheeky with it. Unique tastes in homes take unique tastes to buy them. Many people don't take risks on such big purchases. Be mindful of any crazy options/upgrades/designs you do. It might cost you bigtime down the road.

 

[hanoverphist]

My parents did that and I can tell you that there are a lot of pitfalls unless you have a really good contractor.

this is true. also, getting a contractor that has good relations with the other local guys you will need is key.

my stepdad was his own GC when he built his house in the U.P. turned out very good, and some of the contractors up there are so down-home nice they did parts for free. for future favors, im sure. he said the permit part was the hardest for him as well, but it wasnt nearly as bad since he is indian, building on indian land. the only real snag he had was dealing with the govt on building close to lake huron (like 150ft from the shore)

 

[bruceb]

Besides being careful about your builder and sub contractors, the very first things you need to do are:

1): A detailed survey so you, the town and the builder all know exactly where
your property limits are at.

2): A check with the town / state for any Liens or other restrictions, like a
wetlands area that would prohibit building on it.

3): Check to see if local utilities, Gas, Telco, Electric, Water, Sewer are
either nearby and can be extended and if needed will the companies do it.
They would charge to extend them.

4): If you do not have Water or Sewer available, then you need to find out
if you can drill for a well and expect to hit water. And a Perc test needs to be
done to see if a Septic system can be installed.

After all this is known, get your blueprints and plans, file for Building Permits
and hire reputable contractors. I would suggest a General Contractor to oversee
the entire project.

 

[StageLeft]

Which is another point...you probably aren't going to keep the place forever...don't get too cheeky with it. Unique tastes in homes take unique tastes to buy them. Many people don't take risks on such big purchases. Be mindful of any crazy options/upgrades/designs you do. It might cost you bigtime down the road.

This. I see some homes on HGTV et al. that are custom and unique and completely retarded. Nobody but the owner would ever want to buy it.

For example this ugly piece of sh*t that the idiotic owner spent a million dollars building:

http://www.dezeen.com/2009/01/19/sliding-house-by-drmm-2/

 

[Red Squirrel]

I considered it but ended up buying. If ever I buy another house it will probably be built, but I would get contractors to do some of the work that is not viable to DIY like the foundation (I don't own forms or a cement truck!) but lot of the stuff I'd do myself and just get inspected as I go. It would take longer, but it would be much higher quality then what typical builders using the cheapest stuff possible, would do.

Something custom and totally out of this world would be cool too, but when you get outside of standard construction it really starts to get pricy!

Labor is like 80% of the cost so if you do some of the work yourself you save a lot. Easily, I would do the electrical myself, and probably learn plumbing and do that myself too. The actual framing is probably not all that hard either. The roof I would maybe leave to a pro. Have to consider the cost of renting certain equipment like a crane though... sometimes it ends up being cheaper getting a pro to do certain things.