any experience with land & prefab?

[4tify]

I have a long time dream of getting a piece of land and putting a one of those cool prefabs on it but have no idea where to begin.

Anyone experienced with doing this? Is it a dumb dream? I would love a retreat in nature.

Thanks!

[waltworks]

Price out running the utilities, or setting up for off-grid/septic/well.

Consider if you really want to drive 3 hours to get baking powder. 

Good place to write your manifesto, on the plus side.

-W

[4tify]

The distance is a great point @waltworks . I'm hoping to find something no less than an hour away from baking powder.

Have you actually done this? Maybe just a pipe dream...

[Fishindude]

I have such a retreat in the boonies about five hours from home.   Primarily go their hunting and fishing, but sometimes just to loaf too.
Rather than a modular, I built a post frame building, all metal sides and roof so very little maintenance.   About 2/3 of it is finished out very nicely into a 2 bedroom living quarters with full kitchen, bath, bedrooms, great room, wood stove, heat, AC, etc.    The other 1/3 is garage space.   It also has a nice covered porch.

This location happened to have municipal water at the road, so no well needed, but I did have to get a new electric feed and septic system.   All told, I've got right at $100k in the place, not counting the land cost.

[Jon Bon]

Yeah this is something I dream about as well. I think there are a few ways to go here.

If I just build a cabin/house whatever for me and my family I would proably keep it pretty simple. Maybe less prefab and more of a kit type thing. Then a truck just drops everything you need. Tons of places offer these.

However I feel like all I would do is spend time maintaining it. I am a bit of a worker so if its my house im sure I can find something to fix on it. Also Id worry that the kids would get sick of it by the second visit.. Winterization as well as security is a major concern. Also walt's point is a good one.

Thus why my dream would be to go in with 3 other families and build 4 small cottages. That way you could split out many of the costs, as well as getting some economies of scale. You will have 4 sets of eyes keeping an eye on the property rather than 1. Now you would need a bunch of planning on how all of this is managed and maintained, but I feel having built in friends would make this much more attractive. Lots of Air BNB potential as well, family reunions, guys weekends etc.

Just my .02

[Poeirenta]

Yes to the land part, but no to the prefab b/c we didn't find anything we liked that was passive solar and earth bermed, which is what we built. Best advice I got was to get a copy of Finding and Buying Your Place in the Country by the Schers. We are 8 miles from baking powder but you'd think we were 30.

[MayDay]

My aunt and uncle did although it is their primary residence, not a vacation spot.

They live on a very rural farm so getting it built locally wasn't really an option as their aren't homebuilders locally. They'd be paying for a company to come in from a town somewhere. It's a poor area so no big demand for housing construction- everyone either has an old farmhouse or a newer manufactured home pretty much.

They tore down a falling apart farmhouse so they already had well, septic and electric run to the site. They had a basement dug so their site work was more significant than slab construction but probably balances out similar to if you are having electric/septic/well done.

Overall they are very happy with it. They upgraded some surfaces as the base level wasn't particularly nice- more like the cheapest option you can buy at Menards. You can tell it is manufactured if you are into houses but it wouldn't be apparent if you weren't paying attention. It certainly doesn't look like a mobile home!

[Dicey]

This thread may interest you...
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/real-estate-and-landlording/help-finding-diy-house-kitplans/msg2661823/?topicseen#new