# The possibility of building a house (and the logistics)...



## ChanceTheRapids (Apr 29, 2011)

I am sure I'm not the only one who's been in this situation, but I'm not finding any great results online, so I'm hoping people here can chime in.

Right now I'm in a 4bed/2bath (~1900 sq. ft.) house with 2 other people in my family. We would really like to purchase some land and build our own slightly-smaller house on it, but I've crunched the numbers 1000 times and still don't like the results.

See, I'm in North Texas, and land is funny...I've seen it often go for 100,000 / acre, and I've seen it go for 12,000/acre. But it seems if there is a house on it, the price of the land seems to be less. If that makes sense...

So if we want to buy _just_ 5 acres, it might cost ~$100,000. If we bought a house on 5 acres, it might cost $170,000. The predicament is that the house on that land would probably cost $130,000 to build. :bash:

So I feel I am stuck either way. If I buy just land and try to build a house on it, there's no way I'll stay below my limit of ~170,000. Not to mention I'll have to live somewhere while the house is being built, which costs additional money. 

If I buy land w/ house on it, I could live in the house while building a new one, but I will still go over my budget. 

:grit:

Anyone else been in this situation? What did you do... just keep looking for an amazing deal on land? Buying land and slowly building on it would be a great alternative, but I fear inspectors and permit-people would not be thrilled by that.

For what it's worth, I'll add a bit of background about myself. I have never built a house, but I do understand the process fairly well and have assistance from my family, who I assisted in building part of a house a few years ago. 

Thanks for letting me blow off a little steam and trying to figure this all out.


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## MushCreek (Jan 7, 2008)

In this economy, it is almost always cheaper to buy an existing home. The caveat is- Is the existing home what you want? Is it well built? Is it energy efficient? Those are all good reasons for building rather than buying, assuming your pockets are deep enough.

In our case, we couldn't afford to buy everything at once. We had enough cash to buy the land, period. 5 years later, we've saved up (almost) enough to build, so we have started. I'm doing most of the work myself; the only way we could afford to build new. The house will be very small by today's standards, and very energy efficient. Sweat equity will allow me to do a lot of both practical and ornamental upgrades that would push the home far out of reach. We're going into this knowing full-well that the house and land probably won't be worth what we have in them on the open market, but we're not building for the free market, we're building for us. We want what we want, where we want it, and are willing to pay in both time and money to get there.

Added on: You can sometimes great deals on land with a mobile home- I've seen them go cheaper than the raw land itself! Live in the mobile while you build the new place.


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## ErinP (Aug 23, 2007)

Do you have to stay in the area you're in? Or, even if you have to stay in the area, are there counties in your area that have looser laws?

We searched for years, in the three states in our area, actually, for land that was big enough for our needs, yet small enough to afford. 
We ended up finding some in a county with no building regulations whatsoever, beyond having your septic inspected. When you finally GET one, that is. 

We bought a used trailer house for $500 (story here) and pulled it in. We now have as much time as we need to build our "real" house. Which is actually both good and bad, btw.


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## wy_white_wolf (Oct 14, 2004)

Could you buy a house on 10 acres and live in the house while you build a new one. Then split the lot and sell the original house to get back under budget?


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## motdaugrnds (Jul 3, 2002)

Since the land is so expensive where you're wanting to buy AND since you're wanting to build your own home, I too would suggest you find the land and move a trailer onto it. You can live in the trailer until your house is build to your satisfaction, then sell the trailer having the owner(s) move it off.


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## texican (Oct 4, 2003)

Your looking in all the wrong places, if you're only seeing 12K/acre in Tx.

170K? I could build an up to code house for 10$/sq. foot, and still have a lot left over for land. IF you build it yourself, you can save a lot of money.

Only codes around here are for the city folks, or folks with mortgages (banks require inspections).

I had zero experience building, when I started... made lots of mistakes, and fixed them... learned all the trades, by reading, and practicing them before doing them in the house. Afterwards, I always could find work, as folks knew I could build them whatever they needed. Current house was done for around $6/foot (in 87)... Kennel house this year for $10/foot.

Have to imagine it'd be a lot easier, with the internet available, versus searching libraries and bookstores for necessary and applicable books.


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## ChanceTheRapids (Apr 29, 2011)

Sorry, I will try to respond to everyone...

My family is tied down to this location (or, at least about a 20-mile radius of this location...) so moving hundreds of miles away for cheaper land is not an option. Unfortunately :grump:

I'm looking at 2 counties in particular, and both have limited information on their county website. One charges $75 for a building permit, and one charges $200. Septic permit is a lot more (like $400 +/-). The thing I'm not sure of is how long the permit is good for; i.e. I am planning on building it in stages, as opposed to all at once. I'll have to look into that another day...

Mushcreek, you pretty much nailed what I think I'll have to do, unless we're able to find some acreage with a house similar to what we're looking for (we can always modify!)

wy_white_wolf - that's a great idea... I had thought about that in the past, just never took that idea much farther. But it is clever. And land is only getting more expensive! lol.

texican - hello fellow Texan  - $170K (though imaginary) would be the price on the market that someone would sell land + an equivalent house for. Not the building price of a house. I would like to build something large, but very basic - rectangular floorplan, simplistic layout, basic roof, etc. 

Thanks to everyone for the replies and kind words


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## Phalynx (Nov 3, 2005)

Chance, you might want to recheck the "building permit". Texas has a law that specifically prohibits counties from having a zoning, permitting, and inspection process. Only incorporated areas (cities) may do this. The only exception is for septic systems and water wells which may be under a "water protection area" and they can charge a permit for "recording" the well. This makes Texas a fantastic place to build yourself! Also, seriously consider 10.01 acres or more. 10 acres is the threshold where many things open up. #1 - ag exemption. #2 - some counties don't have a permit for septic for over 10 acres. #3 resale on 10 acres later is better because of #1.


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## MO_cows (Aug 14, 2010)

A rundown house on a piece of land will drag the value down. Take a look at some "distressed" properties. A fixer-upper or even one you want to take down and re-build.


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## ChanceTheRapids (Apr 29, 2011)

Thanks Phalynx and MO Cows. I wasn't aware about the permitting and inspection stuff, so I will check it out more! 

Beginning to figure this out, a little more each day. Thanks again to everyone!


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## Phalynx (Nov 3, 2005)

Also, if you have 10.01 acres or better and your property becomes annexed by a city, you can still fire a gun and hunt on your property. If you have less, they can prohibit you from firing a gun on your property.


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## TenBusyBees (Jun 15, 2011)

Well, our original plan was land(acrage), a temporary house to live in, and then build.

We looked for 2yrs at just land. Ran into similar isues. We got our acrage for a song last year because it had a mobile home on it. MHs really bring down the price tag. Might be something to consider... something to live in while you build and just a matter of towing it off when done with it. At least that was our thought process. We've since changed our mind about building a new house. As it turns out the only thing really wrong with our DW is cosmetics. The house suits our needs.


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## lonelyfarmgirl (Feb 6, 2005)

Look for foreclosures. There are alot right now. Someone else's disaster, your gain. We just bought a farm that was a foreclosure. As soon as our house sells, were outta here. All the buildings need work, and the house is junk, but so? We got it for a fraction of what it could of been.


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## 3DayFarm (Nov 19, 2011)

Your preparing for a very important stage of your life.... In our case we were looking for some land, we had three different parcels of land that added to 65 acres. I decided to sell two of them and then bought some land that was next to the one I kept. Now I only have 40.5 acres and we finally built our house back in 2010. Overall it was an experience...sure there are a couple of mistakes that we made, I contracted different people to do different jobs. Are there things that I would change....sure there are. So my advice to you is plan it right, make sure you know exactly what you want, go check the open houses on the houses are for sale there locally. 
Be careful and best of Luck..
God Bless You..


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