Build a house??

[Rangerdeepv]

Material prices have gone insane. We are doing a reno and the prices for anything are crazy and getting crazier by the day.

[motomania]

interesting read on 'forever homes'...............life is always changing.

Retirees Spend a Lot of Time and Money to Buy Their ‘Forever Home.’ Then They Sell It. - WSJ

[posmallie]

I'm kind of in the same boat. Closed on a 3 acre piece of property a few weeks ago. Even if I had everything together right now, builders are booked out to summer/fall 2023. Luckily I like my current house, and have a lot of equity in it. I'm going to take a few years to continue paying off the house, the land, and save money. If things don't turn around somewhat in the next 2-3 years I'll sell the land and stay where I am. If things do turn around I should have my current house paid off which will give me quite a bit of collateral for building. I don't mind paying a lot for a house that I design, but I don't want to be house poor. It's amazing how 2-3 years of increased home equity and savings can really cut down how big of a loan you need for your next house. I'm in no hurry.

I was walking my dog to day and talked to some contractors building a house in my neighborhood. They said they're already seeing a slowdown in work. So who knows what will happen...

[Cgs1967!]

Wait. Prices will drop next year for sure.

[sll]

Currently building right now in TN,total chit show.Wish I could hold off for a few years....LGB

Same here.....material costs is beyond stupid again now. Right now I have a $50K basement and will start laying floor trusses come Monday. For those of you thinking of starting I would plan on $250sq ft and you may not be in too big of a surprise with sticker shock as you progress through it and that is not going with extravigant material. Lead times are horrendous....I ordered my garage doors and windows in December and they are still not showing up yet. My truss package went up $11K from what I was quoted 7 weeks ago.

[Mcrider55]

A year ago,, we retired and left the suburbs of Des Moines, bought a 4500sq ft home on 5 acres in the Rich Mts./Ouachita National Forest of Sw Ark. Its a 3 stoplight town with Walmart being the dominant store. Nearest large city is 60 miles in either direction. This place is REMOTE and exactly why we came here.

We completely gutted the home with a top to bottom remodel. We beat the massive increases and shortages of today. Biggest delays were about 3 months for new appliances and windows, but they arrived on schedule. Total $ in the complete home are about $300k, yet in this remote location with poverty everywhere, there are a very large number of homes that dwarf ours. It's become a retirement community for ex military, and we are EVERYWHERE here.

Yesterday our realtor called and wanted to meet with us. Mind you, we aren't selling. She has 3 clients who want to move here and told us she could start the bidding for our home at $450k and predicted it could go well over half a million! Sale would be cash only. She also stated once word got out, more bidders could be expected.

All 3 clients are from Cali and desperate to move. Land is available, but contractors and subs are booked 6 months in advance and material shortages have pretty much thrown any kind of ability to predict completion dates and costs, right out the window. It's an open ended crapshoot.

I really feel for you who want to move and build. We thought it was difficult what we went thru. It's gotten way worse in just a year.

[12poundbass]

We did not have this included in our contract when we signed which was right before lumber prices went through the roof

^^^^^^This, we got lucky!!!

[f16 1ub]

Unless you’ve got a move in ready home there’s no way in hell I’d go through with a move now. A friend sold his house for $250,000 more than what he paid for it. Moved closer to the kids to build new home. Renting an apartment & storing furniture. House was supposed to be completed in Aug 2021. They haven’t broke ground yet. Builder said he’d dissolve contract. It’s more complicated than this but you can sell a house in hrs & then where the hell ya gonna go. And you just don’t go out & find another builder. For that matter, try to get your property surveyed.

[lakebouef5]

If I intended to build another house , I would start buying lumber and appliances and store them. Had a lot of damage to our house when Hurricane Ida came over it last August. Found out just how much lumber, shingles, paint, sheetrock, windows, doors, and appliances went up. I used to frame houses when I was young, so I did a lot of the repairs myself. Hard way to get to remodel your house.

[nightbasser]

A year ago,, we retired and left the suburbs of Des Moines, bought a 4500sq ft home on 5 acres in the Rich Mts./Ouachita National Forest of Sw Ark. Its a 3 stoplight town with Walmart being the dominant store. Nearest large city is 60 miles in either direction. This place is REMOTE and exactly why we came here.

We completely gutted the home with a top to bottom remodel. We beat the massive increases and shortages of today. Biggest delays were about 3 months for new appliances and windows, but they arrived on schedule. Total $ in the complete home are about $300k, yet in this remote location with poverty everywhere, there are a very large number of homes that dwarf ours. It's become a retirement community for ex military, and we are EVERYWHERE here.

Yesterday our realtor called and wanted to meet with us. Mind you, we aren't selling. She has 3 clients who want to move here and told us she could start the bidding for our home at $450k and predicted it could go well over half a million! Sale would be cash only. She also stated once word got out, more bidders could be expected.

All 3 clients are from Cali and desperate to move. Land is available, but contractors and subs are booked 6 months in advance and material shortages have pretty much thrown any kind of ability to predict completion dates and costs, right out the window. It's an open ended crapshoot.

I really feel for you who want to move and build. We thought it was difficult what we went thru. It's gotten way worse in just a year.

The problem with areas like that is the that say some cali or new york folks move in... They tell 10 more people they should move here too... all of those in turn tell 10.... See where this is going? Pretty soon the whole reason you moved there is destroyed! The ones that really get screwed are the families that have lived there for several generations!!!

[Mcrider55]

The problem with areas like that is the that say some cali or new york folks move in... They tell 10 more people they should move here too... all of those in turn tell 10.... See where this is going? Pretty soon the whole reason you moved there is destroyed! The ones that really get screwed are the families that have lived there for several generations!!!

Agreed, to a point. If a person wants to move to the south, they need to understand straight up, it's an entirely different mentality down here. We are at the SW corner of Ark and Oklahoma, and there is very little here that those from big cities would find here they would be used to. No movie theaters, no shopping malls, no big discount stores such as Lowes or Target. That alone is going to be a huge negative for most women.

[nightbasser]

Agreed, to a point. If a person wants to move to the south, they need to understand straight up, it's an entirely different mentality down here. We are at the SW corner of Ark and Oklahoma, and there is very little here that those from big cities would find here they would be used to. No movie theaters, no shopping malls, no big discount stores such as Lowes or Target. That alone is going to be a huge negative for most women.

That will all change once enough move there!!! The area will be transformed forever and not for the good... Many small towns in the southeast are being destroyed in this manner

[Mcrider55]

That will all change once enough move there!!! The area will be transformed forever and not for the good... Many small towns in the southeast are being destroyed in this manner

I forgot to say, many counties, including mine are "DRY" meaning there are either no alcohol sales, or very limited. Here. there are 6 restaurants that can sell drinks with meals in the entire county. If drinking is important, then one has to drive about 60 miles to a wet county that has liquor sales. I don't drink, wife likes a glass of wine once in awhile, so it's a non issue for us, but the real estate agents hate this law. We are considered the "buckle of the bible belt" and the Baptist churches aren't likely to support changing this law anytime soon.

[blakesfav]

I moved last year to a town that has a housing shortage. My wife and I sold our Wisconsin home for an inflated price so we made the move knowing we were going to pay an inflated price where we moved. It has been crazy as homes are going way over asking and being bought with cash from out of state folks flocking to the area. We decided to build to get what we wanted after seeing what we were going to have to pay and what we could get. Started working with a builder first of november of 21 and bought a lot. When we started the builder gave us a size range and we discussed as long as we didn't go crazy with foundation lines and roof lines that we should be in budget pending any major price hikes. We got our floor plan finished through design and exterior design done a couple weeks before Christmas. Vendors quite quoting first of December and didn't start to price things again until the last week of January. We got pricing back mid February and the home came in 100k over what we wanted and 50k over our max that we set.

We decided to build it anyway. A lot of the increase was labor increases from subs along with material increases. For reference we were looking at building at 200 a SF not including lot and now are at 250 a SF. I had the county equalization put a tax number to it which was 1200 a year less than we budgeted, insurance was 600 a year less than we budgeted, and our interest rate we locked ended up being 1% less than we budgeted. With those things decreasing my estimated mortgage the increase in price kept things close. So we decided to build it and are just starting.

I looked at all the estimates for the home from the builder (which has been great and very transparent) and from what I see in potential savings to wait and see if things come back to normal, made to where it wasn't worth waiting. (As info I'm a construction estimator / project manager so I had a good feeling for cost of materials and what the trends have been.) Ultimately I could see costs coming down and us saving about 30k but with those potential savings we would pay more in the long run if interest went up another 1% by the time costs came back down.

All you can do is find a builder you trust and see what it would cost you. Find your max you want to spend and see if you can find a bank that will lock a interest rate on a build. My bank locked my rate at the days current rate plus .125% for a new home build to be complete within 15 months. A floor plan and lot location and you can get a insurance estimate and tax assesment from a equilization office and know exactly what your mortgage will be. Ulitimately we are cutting some things down on the house like not doing wood overlayed garage doors, or having anything finished in the basement that I can finish my self with out the builders mark up.

Good luck to you. If you want to talk it out shoot me a pm and I'd be happy to discuss what I've seen in the past couple of months and my wife and I's experiences.

First class offer here - I’d drop him a line.

[nightbasser]

I forgot to say, many counties, including mine are "DRY" meaning there are either no alcohol sales, or very limited. Here. there are 6 restaurants that can sell drinks with meals in the entire county. If drinking is important, then one has to drive about 60 miles to a wet county that has liquor sales. I don't drink, wife likes a glass of wine once in awhile, so it's a non issue for us, but the real estate agents hate this law. We are considered the "buckle of the bible belt" and the Baptist churches aren't likely to support changing this law anytime soon.

My county was too... All it takes is crooked elected officials to get in place to change this when the wet dry vote comes around again...I have a friend that works in local government... the statement was made that going wet was gonna "pass" wether it did or not... I was told one of the slimy real estate companies were involved with this as well.

[JTN]

Pretty good bet that it will never be cheaper to build a house. Materials and cost won't ever drop enough to cover the increase in interest rates that is most certainly going to return to historical norms in the near future.

I doubt it...If interest rates return to historical rates the gov would not be able to service its debt,the stock market will crash,a bizzillion dollars in retirement income and paper wealth vanish...and houses will be cheap.

[big_o_tom]

So the wife and I had plans to build our forever home (with the kids still at home) this spring. We've kinda held off initially with paying off some other debts and such. Now with material costs and new interest rate hikes scheduled I'm wondering what to do? I understand no one has a crystal ball, but maybe some experience or insight is out there. Anyone have suggestions on going ahead and pulling the trigger ASAP or waiting it out and seeing what the future holds. In the end we'd still like to build in the next few years just looking for some guidance.

I am in the same boat as you. I bought a doublewide in the country. I built a 30x38 garage with a second level. The upstairs was originally going to be a man cave. But, now we would like to do an addition and move in.
I absolutely can't stand the idea of paying $50 plus for a $8 sheet of osb. I have put this build off for about 3 years now and I am gonna finally have to cave in I believe. It is absolutely ridiculous the price of everyday lumber.

[Rangerman2006]

I doubt it...If interest rates return to historical rates the gov would be able to service its debt,the stock market will crash,a bizzillion dollars in retirement income and paper wealth vanish...and houses will be cheap.

This guy gets it

[kbad]

I may be right there with you Stein.

[Bill2e]

I'm kind of in the same boat. Closed on a 3 acre piece of property a few weeks ago. Even if I had everything together right now, builders are booked out to summer/fall 2023. Luckily I like my current house, and have a lot of equity in it. I'm going to take a few years to continue paying off the house, the land, and save money. If things don't turn around somewhat in the next 2-3 years I'll sell the land and stay where I am. If things do turn around I should have my current house paid off which will give me quite a bit of collateral for building. I don't mind paying a lot for a house that I design, but I don't want to be house poor. It's amazing how 2-3 years of increased home equity and savings can really cut down how big of a loan you need for your next house. I'm in no hurry.

I was walking my dog to day and talked to some contractors building a house in my neighborhood. They said they're already seeing a slowdown in work. So who knows what will happen...

We are doing the exact same thing.

bought the lot, paying off and saving up pile o cash before the build. Win win.