Build a New House?

[Fishindude]

Who has built a new house from ground up?

Wife and I have been kicking around the crazy idea of building a new home which would involve tearing down our existing 100 year old home (we love the location) and rebuilding in the same spot.   We're both retired, I'm 61 and she's 58 and have ample cash reserves to do it.  My current thoughts are that it would cost $3-400,000 turnkey, but obviously need to do design work and get some pricing.

I always thought the idea was pretty crazy, but a friend recently built a new place which we walked through the other day and it's got us thinking.  It would be very nice to spend our final years in a brand new house all set up the way we want, super efficient, no maintenance issues to worry about, no bugs and mice like the old place, all the latest modern gadgetry, etc.

Who's gong through this ...... thoughts ?

[uniwelder]

I've built a garage myself and gutted/renovated my house, but have not built a house from scratch.  Just some initial questions----
1) do you plan to reuse any of the existing foundation?  Is your existing house on a slab, crawlspace, basement, piers?
2) do you plan to incorporate any unique elements to your new house?  passive solar, heated floors, architectural design, etc
3) I assume you're planning on single level living.  Will everything be wheelchair accessible? Wide hallways, doors, etc.
4) Plan to incorporate a separate living suite?  Not sure if you intend to have anyone else living with you--- caregiver, children, etc.

[Fishindude]

I've built a garage myself and gutted/renovated my house, but have not built a house from scratch.  Just some initial questions----
1) do you plan to reuse any of the existing foundation?  Is your existing house on a slab, crawlspace, basement, piers?
2) do you plan to incorporate any unique elements to your new house?  passive solar, heated floors, architectural design, etc
3) I assume you're planning on single level living.  Will everything be wheelchair accessible? Wide hallways, doors, etc.
4) Plan to incorporate a separate living suite?  Not sure if you intend to have anyone else living with you--- caregiver, children, etc.

Although my career was in building, I would hire the whole project out.  No interest in doing all of that work in this stage of my life.
1. Existing foundation would all be completely removed, excavated, then re-backfilled with compacted material.   It's an old rock basement as well as some poured concrete slab attached porches with foundations.
2. No solar, no heated floor, just highly efficient, modern, low maintenance.   
3. Yeah, single level for sure.   Could easily do a small basement for mechanical equipment.
4. No separate living suite, just a three bedroom home.   We have a detached garage, so attached garage would be up in the air.

[DrinkCoffeeStackMoney]

After living in apartments for the last 13 years my wife and I are having a new house built now. The house was started in August 2020 and is scheduled to be finished in April 2021 (although by the time line given to us they seem ahead of schedule). If you have ample cash reserves you should have no issue, but I was a little surprised by how much the builder requested for things up front. Our build will be just over $460k, and we've already paid about 7.5% upfront, which will go towards our down payment.

As a history buff and a lover of old buildings and architecture I don't think I could ever bring myself to tear down a 100 year old structure to build new; but I realize it happens all the time.

Good luck to you with whatever you decide.

[sonofsven]

Well, I agree totally. I love old houses but you just cannot compare the two in terms of efficiency.
I'm a builder and I did remodels on old houses for years, decades, actually, and a lot of really high end ones,  but now I mainly build new spec houses on the mid to high price range for my area. We do smallish foot print square footage (approx 2000), one level for age in place (lots of retirees flock here), heat pump furnace and water heaters, or ductless mini splits, materials that are long lasting and require little maintenance (cedar siding, quartz counters, LVP flooring), super insulation above the code minimum, air exchange systems, the last one even had a 6.5 kw solar array!
Sorry this sounds like a pitch!

[Roadrunner53]

My Hub and I built our stick built home when we were 21 and 23 years old. My Dad was in the building business off and on over the years. This was in 1975. We bought our property and made a deal with the owner. We paid him about 2/3rds and later on when we got money from the contruction mortgage, we paid him off. The construction mortgage required that 1/3rd completion had to be done before we got 1/3rd of the money. At the time we were only married two years. We had some friends that helped for no money and some that only charged us a small amount. We started building in June and moved in September 1st the same year. It was quite an experience!

If we were to do it today, I would look into factory built homes. They do all the work inside a building. Once the house is built, they transport it in pieces and put it together on your foundation. All the plumbing, electrical are all set up and you need to get tradesmen to hook up all the stuff. Maybe they provide the tradesmen, I am not sure about that. These home are not the mobile homes of yesteryear, they are all different homes and some very upscale. Most of those factories have tours so you can see what goes into the homes. I have seen two homes that were brought to the lots and put together. It is an amazing process.

Building a home is very stressful. You are always waiting for someone to show up to do work. Some things have to be done before the next thing can start. So, if one of your guys doesn't show up for days on end, the job is stalled out till that work is done. You want to tear your hair out at times!

I would still highly recommend building a house!

[TheInsuranceMan]

Commenting to follow.  The wife and I are planning on building as well, the steep increase in lumber prices has probably pushed us off for the next year unless things settle back into a reasonable place.  We already own 7 acres, has a house on it, but construction first started on this house in the 1870s, so we aren't going to THINK about remodeling.  Just trying to find the right time to start the build, which is probably never.......

[WSUCoug1994]

Our family lost 10 homes in the fires of 2017.  Now, 6500 homes were lost and needed to be rebuilt (so material and labor costs were very high) but what I have learned from this scenario is that what really matters is the quality of the GC and their subs.  Subs will always flake but the GC's who pay well and treat them well will always have access to the best labor.

The majority of these homes cost 150%+ of what the homeowners were told to expect - now demand and cost of materials has gone up a lot but some of these were in excess of 200% - which is just crazy.

I would reference the holy hell out of the GC - and although many people think they can do the GC role themselves - I would argue against it.

[bacchi]

I would reference the holy hell out of the GC - and although many people think they can do the GC role themselves - I would argue against it.

And plan to be on site every day with your own set of plans.

[StashingAway]

If you want highly efficient housing and are looking at building new, I highly recommend designing to the Passive House standard. (PHIUS+ in the US) Super insulation and air tight, low maintenance. It's the only standard that requires that the building pass significant tests after construction (compared to just designing to a set of principles in most other standards).

Find an architect that knows that standard specifically and go to town.

I'm hoping to build in a year or two. Your numbers might be a little low (depending on sq. footage). for 1800sq ft I am looking at about 500K in build costs for turnkey.

[John Galt incarnate!]

Although my career was in building, I would hire the whole project out. 

+1

My father had a TERRIBLE time with tardy contractors when his and my mother's home was built on the Crystal Coast in NC.

Father designed all the controls for the heat pump, hot water temperature, heating/AC, and so forth.

He wanted to install them himself  during certain sequences of construction so he implored the contractors to be there on certain days.

They promised him they would show up.

They didn't because they literally went fishing instead (it was fishing season).

The day may come when I hire an architect to design a home  for me.

Based on father's experience, and my best friend's frustrating experiences with contractors, I'll let the architect  oversee the construction.