Building on your own lot...

[danielhv]

My wife and I are planning ahead here.... We are planning a move for sometime next year, and we want to explore options of buying a lot, and having a house built on it.

Is it much more expensive than buying one already built?

For instance, say our budget is $250k, and we want a 1-3 acre lot. If we find a lot for sale that already has a house on it, and look up the tax appraisal, it shows the tax value of the land.... In this case let's say $50k. Does that mean that house costs roughly $200k to build?



Confused yet?


Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk

[Mach1]

I'd love to do the same thing and I also have similar questions.

[Hmbre97]

Depends on what you want in the house. I talked to a few builders earlier this year and a typical home build usually costs around $80-100/sq.ft. I say typical meaning build quality on par with most national builder homes (dr horton, pulte, etc).

We were going to go the build route but land has gotten fucking stupid expensive out here in austin.

Edit: Another thing to budget for depending on how much land you get and where it's located is utilities. You'll probably have to put sewer on most lots and you may also need a well. A cheap piece of land can get expensive pretty quick if it has no utilities available to it.

[03mustangdude]

if its a new house then it hasn't been reappraised yet with house on it and still has taxable value of only 50k. Usually they will bill the customer/builder after they finish building and get everything inspected for part of the year.

Most county sites dont show monthly tax bills only annually so that's how you got the weird number.

I had a friend ask me about the same thing recently and told him to download a program called chief architect or buy it if he is so inclined, and experiment with it in his free time. Build the house and usually you can add 20-40% on the ballpark prices they give you.

[fordracing19]

I would figure $95ft on up unless you want crap finish out.

[Country cracker]

I plan on buying at least 10 acres of land. building a 40x60 shop and frame up walls inside.

[FastFord19]

I'm currently building on my 5.5 acres. 2x6 construction all brick with some dry stack rock on the front. Decent build out inside but its not real high end either. Its going to cost about 96sqft.

Plus $13,000 for the well.
Plus $5,000 for running the power.
Plus a gravel driveway but I have not done that yet.

I paid those things myself.

EDIT: 96sqft is only for the house. I already own the land.

[mustang1200]

Hell I can't even find a decent piece of land to buy that isn't 200K.

[8mpg]

Good luck.. Land is expensive and tax appraisals are way off. The further out you go the cheaper it will be. Like someone said above, its $80-110/sqft to build. I doubt you will find any decent land under $100k/acre. Hell, some lots in NRH are going for $75k-100k for a 10ksqft lot. Its much cheaper to buy used though add in any renovation expenses to see where you get.

Check out these guys:

http://www.ourcountryhomes.com/series

I have gone through many of their homes and like them. They have nice floorplans. This will give you an idea. These prices are for the house only, no land. If you build custom, the more square you can build it, the cheaper it is. Also building up rather than out. Think 1500sqft upstairs and 1500sqft downstairs. You only roof 1500sqft and only pour 1500sqft of slab (plus driveway and garage)

[Nash B.]

Damn, what do you define as "decent"?

[mustang1200]

Good luck.. Land is expensive and tax appraisals are way off. The further out you go the cheaper it will be. Like someone said above, its $80-110/sqft to build. I doubt you will find any decent land under $100k/acre. Hell, some lots in NRH are going for $75k-100k for a 10ksqft lot. Its much cheaper to buy used though add in any renovation expenses to see where you get.

Problem is..... Those lots aren't selling. I just keep watching them sit.

[Frank]

I'll warn you the pitfalls I didn't give enough credit to. Driveways, landscaping, walking paths, dirt work, lawn, culvert, trees are all things you don't think about so much when the focus is on the house and the builder, but that shit is expensive and sucks when you don't have it done when the house is built. The kind of stuff you think you can do yourself or do it later, seem to never materialize like you hoped kinda takes the shine off the whole experience. I would rather have had a smaller house and have a nicer driveway, some nice landscaping, and some little better matured trees.

[Hmbre97]

Problem is..... Those lots aren't selling. I just keep watching them sit.

And they will continue to sit. In my 6 months of shopping for a lot, there were 3 things I ran into.

1. Lot was cheap due to shitty location/out in the middle of nowhere or no utilities

2. Developer that can afford to sit on lots and wait for doctor/lawyer/train conductor to come along and pay inflated price.

3. Genuine good deal pops up and gets 10 offers first day on the market


From speaking to the few custom builders I did, they're building houses for people with choo choo money, someone got a lot from a friend of a friend before it even hit the market, or someone is building on land that was gifted to them from family.

So if you're just an average joe with no connections and don't have any rich family to gift you land, good luck. I threw in the towel and realized I will be stuck in suburbia hell until I make substantially more money.

[Rreemo]

That's what we did....we bought our lot first, 1.3 acres for $42K (in 2005). Built the house the following year for $87/sqft. I put half down on the lot and it had a really low payment, then I took out a construction loan to pay for the build. During the build process the builder takes draws to cover the subs as they complete their work. Upside to this is that they didn't get paid unless my wife and I signed off for each draw, which gave us control to ensure quality of work....plain and simple, if we didn't approve, they didn't get paid, and trust me....we had to play that card a few times during the process. The downside is that these construction loans typically run prime plus ~2%, and the more draws they take of course the higher the principal and payment becomes...and the longer it takes, the more you are paying on that higher note. It took them 7 months to complete our house, and by then we had sold the old house (actually within the first month, much quicker than we thought it would).....once the new house was all done, we simply converted the construction loan into a regular mortgage, which also rolled the lot in, and we added our down payment from the equity in the old house. It was a bit nerve racking while we were building, but looking back I'll say that it all worked out pretty well for us. The builder had estimated 6-months to complete, but there was a few things that had to be redone and also a big hold-up waiting for our brick, which pushed it into the 7th month. They weren't obligated in the contract, but they actually reimbursed us for that 7th payment on the construction loan....which was pretty stand-up of them I thought (especially with how crooked builders can be).

One point to note.....our lot was already "improved" with utilities on site. That's something to be mindful of when you are considering your build cost....it can be VERY costly to run utilities if they aren't already at least to your property line. My brother bought 25 acres in Caddo Mills about 7 years ago, and when they eventually got ready to build it cost them almost $40K just to deal with the utilities.

EDIT: Forgot to mention, times have changed a lot too.....there are only a handful of vacant lots left in our development, and they are all owned by a new builder out here (Royal Crest). I've heard that they are getting $75K-$85K for 1-acre lots (depending where they are situated), and their build jobs start around $110/sqft (after the lot). They build some damned nice homes though. Since they built the new Choo-Choo BNSF/GE plant 5-miles away, everything is getting snapped up....the pre-owned homes are going for $115-$125/sqft. I had a realtor approach me recently guaranteeing that she could get close to $100K more than we paid for our place. We aren't at all interested in moving though, we like our house, the location, and now especially our neighbors...which I've learned from past experience is pretty important too.

[snacksnack]

Problem is..... Those lots aren't selling. I just keep watching them sit.

Jorge paid a ridiculous amount for his ity bitty lot on nrh.