Author Topic: Want to build a small, ultra modern house outside city - has anyone done this?  (Read 2645 times)

texaspaint

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We're wanting to build a small, modern home -- 1000 sq ft max outside of the city where we have some breathing room. I looked a bit at prefab options that sit on a foundation for durability, but I'm not entirely sold that it's much cheaper to go that route. We can get land we like for $45-75k and would ultimately like to keep the project around $200k. Anyone have experience with this?

I realize eventually my search will end with talking to contractors, but was hoping there were some folks out here with experience going this route.

texaspaint

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This is great, super helpful. I meant modern in both ways, I suppose. Just like minimalist, clean lines. Have you used Jamaica Cottage Shop?

Mother Fussbudget

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I lived in a 3,000 Sq Ft mid-century modern, passive solar home with southern facing clerestory windows, and plenty of room for solar panels.
I have the plans, so in my mind, I would cut out the large 'living room' space, bringing it down to around 1,500 sq ft. (edited picture)

Also picked up an older book of 'modern cabin plans' with plans for homes with similar modern designs all less than 1200 sq ft. 
[I'll edit this post to include the title once I'm home.]

Roland of Gilead

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We are considering building outside the major cities and one thing you might not think about is the cost of permits and connections when starting on raw land.

It might look like this:

Raw land: $50,000
Building plan review: $700
Building permit: $1500
Sewer connection fee (or septic install): $8500
Water connection fee (or well): $5000
Electrical connection fee: $2000
School impact fee for new construction: $3000
Road and park impact fee for new construction: $2500
Other inspections (foundation, framing, electrical, plumbing): $1500
County breakroom needs a new pool table inspection fee: $500
Just because we can inspection fee: $500

Some things we are considering when weighing building vs buying a fixer.
« Last Edit: February 18, 2017, 11:20:10 AM by Roland of Gilead »

paddedhat

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Roland has some sound advice. I built new homes for decades. The DW and I spent three years, post FIRE, searching for a place to relocate, which covered about every desirable spot from the Colorado front range, east to the Atlantic ocean. We choose a highly desirable area on the east coast, and for the first time since I was a late teenager, I bought a home, instead of building my own, or buying a near tear down, to flip. The math is simple. A lot in this area is about as rare as lips on a Chicken. If you find one, they start at $100-125K. That's not acreage, BTW,but typically a 9-12000 sq. ft. in town lot. As Roland notes, it doesn't take long to add $40 to $60K in permits, fees, and general horseshit, to earn the right to put a foundation in. So, in these parts, it's at least $150K for a less than stellar lot, once you are fully permitted. Instead, I paid $238K for a funky, mid-century, solid brick ranch, on a lot that's to die for. It's 4/10th of an acre, with a southern view that runs for miles, and looks like a postcard. So, one way to do math, is that we bought a stunning lot, and for another 90K ended up with a really cool house. It just simply didn't make any sense to build here. I would of had $300K invested in a modest home, on an inferior lot, and it would be worth about $70K less than it cost to build. Unfortunately that kind of math pretty much guarantees that any new home built here is a $500K, 4000 sq. ft. monster.

Roland of Gilead

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I want to mention that having said all of that, we are still toying with the same idea of buying raw land and building fresh.

One reason is we do not want a 5000 sq ft McMansion for $500,000 and all of the smaller sub 2000 sq-ft homes are either 1975 double wides zoned Meth-1 or little cottages built in 1905 that have cloth insulated aluminum wiring with no grounds and asbestos and lead paint galore. 

Very very few nice 1970s to 1990s stick built homes on nice lots available.