Does building a house make any sense for me

amother

Navy

Sun, May 13 2018, 11:01 am

I am having a very discouraging house search. The area I am looking for a a 1800+ sqft house that needs work will go for at least 600k. There are some tiny houses like 1000sqft that sell in the 300s. It is almost tempting to buy a tiny house and put a extension and second floor on. Even if it costs me 300k I’m better off in the long run and I’ll have a bigger nicer house.
I would have to take a construction loan out as I don’t have that cash. The very thought of dealing with architectics and designers and picking everything really overwhelms me. It would all fall on my head dh wont do a thing.
Am I crazy for even thinking of buying a tiny house and putting on extension or crazy not to?

Ruchel

Sun, May 13 2018, 11:06 am

Many dream to build, the truth is that it's a mine field (plus really expensive). If you do it, you'd have to make sure you trust the builders and get a competent architect.

amother

Teal

Sun, May 13 2018, 11:10 am

Construction takes longer and costs more than you think it will. I've done construction on 2 houses (one major job, one large interior job) and loved the results, but it's a part time job staying on top of the work. We also gave ourselves a ten percent cushion to allow for surprises (who knew there was a pipe there???) and the occasional "as long as we're at it" splurge. If you have the time, patience and financial resources, construction is wonderful because it gets you (almost) exactly what you want. Otherwise, consider renting for a while.

amother

Salmon

Sun, May 13 2018, 11:22 am

amother wrote:

Having done a full gut renovation, I agree with everything above, with two exceptions: Keeping track of the construction is a FULL-time job, not part-time! And I would strongly recommend a 30% budget buffer, as you'll blow through 10% in no time.

amother

Navy

Sun, May 13 2018, 1:35 pm

Op. I live an hour away from where we are looking at houses and would theoretically build. Would I have to go down at least once a week to check on construction? If that’s the case I’m going to toss the idea.

amother

Royalblue

Sun, May 13 2018, 2:03 pm

amother wrote:

You will need to be there every day!!!

amother

Emerald

Sun, May 13 2018, 2:05 pm

You may be able to get an interior designer who will essentially do all the project management and stay on top of the builders.

amother

Coral

Sun, May 13 2018, 2:11 pm

I bought a small house a few years ago for less than $250k. We are living in the house while extending. When we move out of the small house, we will redo the inside of that, to change the function of the rooms.

By living this way, we get to literally watch the construction every single step of the way. It is amazing and I love it.

We also have a great contractor fully on top of everything. I would trust him to manage the whole project with only bi-weekly stop-ins. We've caught a few mistakes in the building process, and as soon as we notified him, he had it fixed.

amother

Salmon

Sun, May 13 2018, 3:22 pm

amother wrote:

That's what contractors are for.

If you want to completely leave it to your contractor, you can, but you will likely have a lot of headache down the line when you find out the corners that were cut and decisions that were made in your absence. They absolutely know if you come, and how often, and what they can get away with, or even what time they show up (if they show up!) and leave.

I'm the poster above who did a full gut renovation and said it's a full-time job. It took about 10 months, and almost every day, DH stopped by once in the morning and once in the afternoon, and I stopped by once a day as well. Even with that we had our share of aggravation. I can only imagine how much worse it would have been if we hadn't been actively on top of it.

amother

Beige

Sun, May 13 2018, 3:24 pm

amother wrote:

It doesn't sound like it's for you. It's really not for the faint of heart, very hard on anyone.