We’re moving to a new city in 6 months, and starting to look for a house. The city is Wilmington DE, so COL is medium, market doesn’t experience a ton of growth but there is a large market.
Anyways, the ideal house for us is not very big, but smartly designed as most here would probably want. <2000 sqft, 2-3 bedrooms, 2 bath. Preference for open concept, no vestigial rooms like dining rooms, better to have multipurpose rooms. Its hard to find that combination of stuff. Most of teh market is either lower end stuff that would require too much work and wouldnt be worth investing in, or very expensive and waaay too big for us.
Therefore, i wonder about building in order to get what i want, but don’t know whether this is just a foolish endeavor financially speaking. If this were our final house, then sure, I’d build, but this is likely to be a 5-10 year house for us. Part of me thinks that there are other people like me out there that have the same tastes as me, and will be desparate for the style of house I’d built. If this were true, then perhaps i can sell the house at a premium later down the line. But, I have no idea if building from scratch tends to result in the homeowner putting in extra money wihch they never recapture.
I want add that while I’ll DIY to some extent, building inthis topic refers to paying contractors to build for me. I can do a little DIY, and so I might leave an unfinished basement for me to work in gradually, but it would notbethe major thrust of the housr building by any means.
Any general feedback? Is homebuilding only really worth it when you want the house a certain way, but that usually costs you a premium that you never recapture? Better to stick with ‘used’ houses then new, from a mustachian perspective?