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I did another walk through tonight and brought my headlamp and found more knob and tube in the crawl space. After rereading their quote several times, I think the electrician is proposing to replace the visible knob and tube with romex and splice the last few inches of any inaccessible knob and tube to romex in junction boxes, which might get me insured because thread title? Offers are due tomorrow. I think I’m going to move on to the next one.
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Feb 7, 2024 09:39
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Mush Mushi posted:I did another walk through tonight and brought my headlamp and found more knob and tube in the crawl space. IMO in the face of that requirement from the insurer you're doing the right thing. There is always more knob and tube. Source: lived in a 200 year old house growing up.
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Feb 7, 2024 14:01
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Mush Mushi posted:That’s where all of this starts to smell funny to me because you can’t be forced to tear your walls apart to prove that there is no knob and tube in there. Insurance company should just say the house is old gently caress off if that’s what they mean. The insurance company can't just say "it's old, gently caress off" without getting hauled in front of the state insurance commission. Regulations prevent them from doing the cherry picking of profitable low-risk properties that they want to engage in. Shifty Pony fucked around with this message at 14:38 on Feb 7, 2024 |
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Feb 7, 2024 14:35
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Mush Mushi posted:I did another walk through tonight and brought my headlamp and found more knob and tube in the crawl space. I think you're doing the right thing, but was the K&T in the crawlspace active? Once upon a time when people were replacing it it wasn't uncommon to deactivate it, cut it, and just leave it. But yeah unless this place is giving you tens of thousands in breathing room or your willing to put in a "replace all knob and tube" in an offer, but both of those will be quite a headache.
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Feb 7, 2024 15:06
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pointlesspart posted:Final update on property buying attempt. Can you say more about this? I would have thought that all the plumbing being on one side of the house would make it ideal for an upper and lower duplex.
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Feb 7, 2024 15:51
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SouthShoreSamurai posted:Can you say more about this? I would have thought that all the plumbing being on one side of the house would make it ideal for an upper and lower duplex. I think they mean "The council will only allow it to be a side by side, which is painful since all the plumbing is on one side of the house". If the council was ok with a up and down then the renovation would be a lot easier, since they won't, pointlesspart doesn't want to do the much harder renovation.
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Feb 7, 2024 16:00
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I think I've complained about this before, but I'm walking away from another slow-market lowball because a seller has some grand delusions that they'll sell their house to a developer and they'll turn the lot into some subdivision for a profit. This is in Portland where they had recently changed zoning for support this kind of thing. I expect similar shenanigans in Austin soon.
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Feb 8, 2024 06:52
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Appreciate the feedback, incoming long post since I'm squeezing all into one last post for Feb: Issue: zaurg posted:Need: 48k expense coming up for a required home project/required assessment. Leperflesh posted:oh lol it's a special assessment on a condo because you know, drastically underfunded HOA needs millions to deal with the accelerating entropy that is homes in south florida Thanks. Pretty sure you're right but I'm also sure the new requirements in place (from city and state) quickened due to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surfside_condominium_collapse Baddog posted:Well, a special assessment kinda falls under the emergency heading of why you need that much cash. Sundae posted:Yeah not gonna poo poo on this one. Special assessments can really suck. My mother's place got hit with an assessment about a decade ago to redo the underground parking garage, above which all the condos were built, after inspectors called out structural issues from deferred maintenance. It ended up phenomenally expensive to rebuild and worked out to like $30K per unit, which is a tough pill to swallow even if you have the money. Lockback posted:To re-iterate, would you take out a Heloc to buy the stock? If not, then you probably should cash it out to reduce the amount of the Heloc. Cyrano4747 posted:This depends a lot on the rate of the heloc vs what your expected returns on the stock are. If you're getting the HELOC at 5% even some relatively boring stuff like market index funds can be outperforming it. Lockback posted:If you're getting a Heloc at 5% right now then, yes, things would look different. 7% evens seems low, I would expect the rate is going to be closer to 9%. Hadlock posted:My mother in law is getting a heloc right now and she's going to pay about 9% right now, but it will adjust down with rates (supposedly) Lockback posted:They also can adjust up. I wouldn't take a big gamble that rates are definitely going to come down in the near future. Inflation spikes again (not out of the question) they could raise them again. The 26k cash saved is actually a combination of an emergency fund and new car fund. My car is 22 years old so replacement car expenses is upcoming as well. But I hear the message - an emergency fund is for this type of situation. And using the stocks as part of an emergency fund makes sense right now. Yes, the HOA is still evaluating the payment plan for this large assessment. We are looking at options such as; - HOA get a large 8% loan and have owners pay it back in monthly installments over the next 10 years. So far we haven't even qualified for a loan this size, so this may not end up being an option. - Allow owners to pay in full one payment - Allow owners to pay in full one payment and owner gets their own loan - Allow owners to pay in full in 3 equal payments, for example 16k in May24, Jan25, and Jun25. - Increase monthly dues to cover the expense, about doubling them, to repay loan over the next 10-12 years. Note: When selling condo, current owner is responsible for paying any assessment in full prior to sale. If I understand HELOC correctly, I'd request to be approved for the $48k amount, then I'd withdraw $16k in May24, Jan25, and Jun25 to make each of those 16k payments (If that's a payment plan option)? Stuff I'll need to ask lender for sure. I would not take out a HELOC to buy VTSAX/VTIAX (the previously reference 20k "stocks" I'd sell, which is actually up to 22k right now). But dang imagine if I had in 2020 - hah - disregard that thought. So yeah HELOC currently in the 7-9% range. In conclusion it sounds like use some amount of cash to help pay this thing off, get a loan/HELOC to pay the rest, and pay the loan/HELOC off as fast as possible because of the current high interest rate. But don't refinance the 2.75% mortgage. Cyrano4747 posted:Which to go back to Zaurg's original question: Agreed. I've removed the refinance option. CloFan posted:So how is that not grounds to eliminate the HOA. Like they didn't plan properly or save for unexpected but predictable expenses like deferred maintenance. So gently caress em, dissolve the current board and remake it if it's still necessary QuarkJets posted:It's a condo complex, so it's still necessary to have a COA to cover ongoing shared maintenance, but yeah whoever's in charge should probably be booted out spwrozek posted:It is hard to say that they should go as they may be new and the ones making the unfortunately hard decision to make sure the building doesn't collapse. An assessment of that size is very hard to plan for in reverses over 20+ years and numerous boards. All it takes is a board who wants to do projects without raising dues and looking at the long picture. Unfortunately when you are buying it is hard to know what needs to be completed for maintenance and how that correlates with the dues and reserves. Wild timing, but we had a vote this past week and the current board of directors was changed so we have a new president and some new folks on the board. From what I understand, this is the first new president in 10+ years, so apparently a lot of people were thinking along the same lines. Since I've been here, we've had an annual owners vote whether to "fund reserves 100%" or "partially fund". "Partially fund" has always won, because people didn't want the monthly HOA dues doubling. This past vote was the first time I voted to fund 100% because drat, if they would have started doing that 10-20 years ago and we wouldn't be in this predicament.
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Feb 10, 2024 09:00
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zaurg posted:
Yep, it's like a credit card. You get the credit line and then you have monthly payments based on the amount you've used. Except if you don't pay you lose your house. Like a credit card you generally want to be aggressive to pay this down, though in this case the rates are "bad" not "catastrophic" so plan accordingly. And yes your plan sounds good. I'd maybe adjust the car plan to something cheaper but keep it built into the general plan. $10k can get you a reasonable vehicle that will run for a while.
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Feb 10, 2024 10:42
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Holy poo poo I am so glad I don’t have a condo
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Feb 10, 2024 10:50
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Anza Borrego posted:Holy poo poo I am so glad I don’t have a condo
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Feb 10, 2024 14:02
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I would do cash+stocks and wait on the HELOC until you absolutely need it. I am guessing the condo board is going to do at least 3 payments, so you won't be absolutely tapped immediately.
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Feb 10, 2024 16:54
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Do you guys know of any good resources for learning about buying land and then building a house on it? A family member of mine is looking to do it and I suspect there's lots of stuff they aren't taking into account, but I don't know enough about the process to say so.
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Feb 12, 2024 19:59
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It's going to depend heavily on local laws where they're looking at doing this.
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Feb 12, 2024 20:37
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my friend is selling his house and I am considering buying it. any advice or tips for private sales?
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Feb 12, 2024 20:42
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Umbreon posted:Do you guys know of any good resources for learning about buying land and then building a house on it? A family member of mine is looking to do it and I suspect there's lots of stuff they aren't taking into account, but I don't know enough about the process to say so. There is basically no land left that meets all of the following criteria: - has access from a public road wuthout easemnent - has utilities available at the site/street frontage - is buildable in a real sense (grade, slope) - is buildable in a legal sense (zoning, permitting, etc) So that means it's not affordable for most people. New pieces of buildable land are assembledf by developers and the big one-time sinitial cxost of utilties, streets, zoning, etc are socialized by the dozens to hundreds of individualk residences being created. We have not gotten into how expensive it is to build a house and how much "float" cash you need to keep the build running so you aren't waiting for the bank to release construction loan funds. With the above understood, can you explain both why they want to build a new house on raw land as well as a bitr about their budget and location? Because resources, like real estate, are exceptionally local. PokeJoe posted:my friend is selling his house and I am considering buying it. any advice or tips for private sales? Get a real estate attorney. Do not talk to a realtor. Do not even mention this to a realtor.
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Feb 12, 2024 21:02
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Re: building from scratch, my understanding is that this is also substantially more expensive than buying an existing house. I asked a similar question awhile back in one of these threads (probably Fix It Fast), and IIRC the rule of thumb thrown at me was $500-1000/sqft for a finished residence. And that was just for the labor and materials, not the land, not convincing the utilities to run service out to your address, not any major landscaping needed to make the site buildable, all that stuff.
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Feb 12, 2024 21:15
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Motronic posted:There is basically no land left that meets all of the following criteria: They found roughly an acre of land for really cheap in an area where it's normally incredibly expensive(they're at least claiming to be aware that's a red flag), and they want to build a tiny home on it as they're tired of maintaining a larger home, while using the land to grow crops for self-use(something they already do at the current home but with nowhere near enough land to devote to it). Additionally, they want to make upgrades that their current HOA won't allow, like solar panels and geothermal energy. Stuff like that bullet point list you made is exactly what I'm trying to lookup and find out so I can at least come into the conversation informed and not just raining on their parade.
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Feb 12, 2024 21:17
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Umbreon posted:Do you guys know of any good resources for learning about buying land and then building a house on it? A family member of mine is looking to do it and I suspect there's lots of stuff they aren't taking into account, but I don't know enough about the process to say so. The best option is to buy property with a house you're prepared to knock down already on it Motronic already said it but it bears repeating, maybe 70 years ago there were good undeveloped pieces of land left, but anything buildable was already built on I found a unicorn property during the pandemic, 11 acres in a "ranchette" community of 10-20 acre parcels, the guy had gotten back from... Vietnam, maybe? And bought the land with money he'd saved up, but never built on it. Finally he died, probably from covid, without ever building on it, and his son was trying to unload it. The lots on either side were built out years and years ago. This lot had a ~1 acre hill on one side ideal for building a house on, and sloped down into a dry creek for a pretty great view. So they exist, but pretty rare. I came really close to pulling my trigger on that one. Anything else is generally a gully/wash area, or it's got weird problems like the zoning, or the variance that allows you to build on it expires in 30 days, or yeah mainly access problems Bolinas is a gorgeous beach town north of San Francisco and they have lots of vacant lots and could easily be the next Santa Cruz but the locals have decided to not fund additional water reservoirs with the specific intent of not allowing additional water meter hook ups, specifically to disallow additional new houses Cities near Monterey are similar not to disallow development, but just because water is really scarce there and they're already at carrying capacity for the region without $ desalination plants So yeah if there's buildable land and nobody has bought it yet, ask yourself "how is it that I'm the first person to think of this? And why has nobody else done it yet?"
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Feb 12, 2024 21:22
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I thought geothermal was ridiculously expensive for what you get?
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Feb 12, 2024 21:24
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:I thought geothermal was ridiculously expensive for what you get? "Geothermal" is a pretty broad category. It dfepends on where/what source/how. That being said: Umbreon posted:They found roughly an acre of land That's not even half enough to do what they claim they want to do in regards to crops unless it's just a larger hobby garden they are after. "Tired of maintaining a larger home" is a huge red flag. The real maintenance exaists no matter the size of the home because you still have basically the same utilities and appliances and major features regardless of size. Also, if they don't want to maintain a house how much work do they think a large but not large enough for row cropping garden is gonna take? It's a LOT. Plus food preservation. Add to this the solar and geo and sounds like they are deep down a social media/youtube rabit hole about prepping/tiny houses/off grid living. You didn't mention budget but tiny house plus an acre sounds like it's not much. This is not an inexpensive endeavor. "Tiny house" doesn't make it so, either. There's a saying that it's the "4 corners" that cost all the money. And it's very true. This is why most new homes are stupid huge: better ROI for the buliders because more square footage is cheap when you're already buliding. Motronic fucked around with this message at 21:42 on Feb 12, 2024 |
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Feb 12, 2024 21:34
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Motronic posted:"Geothermal" is a pretty broad category. It dfepends on where/what source/how. That being said: For the size/acreage, I at least believe them because they've done some amazing stuff with the tiny strips of usable land on the current .16 acre property and every little scrap of extra space would give them a ton of freedom to work with. Gardening is their passion, but yeah it's basically just a larger hobby garden they're after. The killer about their current home is that it's two floors and has a bunch of space an rooms that aren't in use but still need to be maintained. They want a smaller house that's easier to clean and traverse(don't ask me how a larger garden wouldn't ruin whatever gains come from that, believe me, I've asked and the answer never really makes sense) You are 100% correct about the YouTube hole, that's basically all they watch 24/7 and is exactly what I'm trying to pull them out of. Budget is roughly 500k, depending on how much they can get for their current assets.
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Feb 12, 2024 21:44
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Umbreon posted:You are 100% correct about the YouTube hole, that's basically all they watch 24/7 and is exactly what I'm trying to pull them out of. Budget is roughly 500k, depending on how much they can get for their current assets. Best of luck, but they're gonna have to crash and burn and figure out an acre, new home buiild, with geo (going to have to be a well because they don't have enough land for any of the inexpensive options) and solar plus creating a new large garden from raw land (this is expensive and time consuming unless they are literally buying an acre of recently-used cropland) is basically impossible. So they'll end up up to they eyeballs in debt with a half finished property that probably doesn't have much value to anyone else. None of this is going to be social media camera-ready, but there really isn't a way to deprogram people from that fantasy. And their youtube content in this genre is largely lies: either lies of omission, lies about costs/feasibility, literal heavy construction equipment and tractors just out of frame........ It's entertainment, not instruction.
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Feb 12, 2024 21:58
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The answer to how to pull them out of it is to show them concrete numbers on what all that poo poo costs. $500k is nowhere near enough. Back in the 90s my family moved to bum-gently caress rural New England. Not the charming kind of rural where you're an hour away from an airport and famous authors rent old farm houses to get away from it all, the lovely kind of rural where you're a two hour drive to a lovely puddle hopper airport and then a two hour flight to Boston, and the local economy is in freefall because of military base closures and everyone under the age of 40 with so much as an associate's degree moving someplace with jobs. The kind of place, in other words, with a poo poo ton of dirt cheap land and a fair bit of local expertise with things like septic systems etc. They got a few dozen acres of land for not too much and then built a two story 3 bath / 4 BR home about half a mile down a driveway that they cut into the forest. Getting the power hookup was a fucker but if they wanted to avoid that they could have just built right on the property line by the road like everyone else nearby did. Still, given how cheap the land was it wasn't a crazy expense. Just the home - not the property, not the utilities, not the septic, not cutting in the road and creating a driveway/parking area, - cost them $400k to build. In early 90s dollars. In a place where you weren't spoiled for choice as far as your trades went, but they were also fairly inexpensive compared to a HCOL place. Once you start doing real math on this it's going to become pretty apparent what the problems are. Cyrano4747 fucked around with this message at 22:03 on Feb 12, 2024 |
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Feb 12, 2024 21:59
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Oh one more thing on the "tiny home" angle. A lot of the people building tiny homes are basically selling trailer homes. Once you start digging into those it's a whole lot of things that once upon a time had axles and a lot of bathrooms that are using RV fixtures. What they're describing is buying cheap land and getting a doublewide. That's another angle you might be able to approach this from, depending on what their attitudes are towards prefabricated homes. That said, if they really want to do it *shrug* I had some friends with hippie parents growing up that basically did that. It was a kinda poo poo situation as far as living conditions go, but if you're cool with that lifestyle people do it.
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Feb 12, 2024 22:03
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Cyrano4747 posted:The answer to how to pull them out of it is to show them concrete numbers on what all that poo poo costs. That's what I'm trying to do here, find resources that actually show all the true costs associated with building a house. I don't know them myself, but even a basic list would be mega helpful.
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Feb 12, 2024 22:16
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Umbreon posted:That's what I'm trying to do here, find resources that actually show all the true costs associated with building a house. I don't know them myself, but even a basic list would be mega helpful. All thge costs are going to be pretty local. But you can start with $50k for septic, $20k for a water well, $20k for a geothermal well, $30k for solar panels (tiny house roof is too small, too little land for a meaningful static ground array, so they have to go with a steerable ground array) and then about $500-$750 sq/ft for the actrual house. And of course they're gonna want $20k worth of batteries and an inverter to live out their off grid fantasies to the fullest. Not counting the cost of the land they are already well over $500k for anything resembling a real house rather than a travel trailer. Motronic fucked around with this message at 22:23 on Feb 12, 2024 |
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Feb 12, 2024 22:21
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I've seen "get a mortgage broker" suggested a few times in the thread and I'm starting to look and my first impressions on the first five or so hits I've found from Googling are just lenders, not a company that shops around for the best rate for you. I have a Navy Federal account through family association so I've mostly been thinking I'd get pre-approval through them (non-VA "rates as low as 5.625% / APR 5.820%") but then I was thinking about all the times I saw mortgage broker suggested here so I wanted to look into it. It just seems like the Navy Federal rates are lower than anywhere I'm finding online, and they have the added benefit of no PMI for 5% down.
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Feb 12, 2024 23:25
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For pre approval it doesn't matter. Just get one.
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Feb 12, 2024 23:28
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I wanted to reinforce this:Hadlock posted:The best option is to buy property with a house you're prepared to knock down already on it In this situation, there are already utility hookups that you don't have to apply, wait, and possibly pay a bunch of have started. Depending on the location, there may also be some shenanigans where keeping some bit of the foundation or whatever means it's still the same house and you are "just renovating." I always thought that was real slimy though and they'll need to do hands of fists of homework on that one.
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Feb 12, 2024 23:42
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Motronic posted:There is basically no land left that meets all of the following criteria: "Land isn't available that meets these requirements" is definitely not true especially in the midwest but also in lots of places if you aren't super hung up on your zip code, but the cost effectiveness of building a custom one-off house is going to be extremely local and almost certainly poor. Anyway, there aren't books or anything that can handle that situation, the best you can do is maybe try to get them to talk to people who've built before. The good news is only 1 out of 10 people who have a scheme like this go through with it, but most of them crash and burn. Prefab homes are actually a lot better than I think people realize and might be a more interesting mdidle ground. They usually aren't super eco friendly though, but that depends too. PokeJoe posted:my friend is selling his house and I am considering buying it. any advice or tips for private sales? I just completed a private sale this past fall. My wife is an attorney (though not real estate) so that helped, if you don't have help like that there are online listing services where for a few hundred bucks they'll do the paperwork, walk the seller through the disclosure, help put a offer together etc. You probably will want to do that at a minimum. You probably don't strictly need a real estate attorney, but depending on their cost and the situation it may make sense. I would suggest a good inspection though. That would help tremendously to get everything on even ground especially if you want to keep this person as a friend. I would say there is some risk the friendship will crumble though, there will be things wrong with the house that the person may or may not have known about and may or may not have thought to disclose. That's kinda unavoidable. I'd also agree upfront who is handling costs of closing, inspection, etc and its probably easier and better if it's the buyer.
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Feb 12, 2024 23:49
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Motronic posted:All thge costs are going to be pretty local. But you can start with $50k for septic, $20k for a water well, $20k for a geothermal well, $30k for solar panels (tiny house roof is too small, too little land for a meaningful static ground array, so they have to go with a steerable ground array) and then about $500-$750 sq/ft for the actrual house. And of course they're gonna want $20k worth of batteries and an inverter to live out their off grid fantasies to the fullest. Not counting the cost of the land they are already well over $500k for anything resembling a real house rather than a travel trailer. A lot of it is also going to depend on what their definition of "tiny home" is. A lot of the ones you'll see googling around are around $50k for ~250-500 square feet. 250-500 sqft is loving tiny. That's ballpark around what a medium to large RV has. 500sqft is right around what an absolute tiny student apartment is. Think combined living/sleeping/cooking space. A 20x20 foot room gets you up to 400 feet, and that is not a lot of room at all when you factor in space for things like furniture and appliances. Just a fridge, for example, you need to budget about 3 feet by 3 feet for the footprint and an additional 3 feet to open the door, so that alone is 18 square feet or about 3% of your entire home. If they're thinking more along the lines of a small home - like the kind of 2br 1ba single story ranch that was common in post-war construction - you're looking at more like 1500 feet, which is fine for a small home for a couple or a small family. But at that point you're also talking real deal construction costs, not a glorified RV or backyard shed.
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Feb 12, 2024 23:50
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Hadlock posted:Bolinas is a gorgeous beach town north of San Francisco and they have lots of vacant lots and could easily be the next Santa Cruz but the locals have decided to not fund additional water reservoirs with the specific intent of not allowing additional water meter hook ups, specifically to disallow additional new houses Everytime I hear about Bolinas it is like the poster child for NIMBY brought to its absolutely worst extreme https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/bay-area-town-bolinas-loses-post-office-18267103.php quote:In another town, this might have been a short-term inconvenience. In Bolinas, it’s a drawn-out disaster with no end in sight. Typically when a post office loses its lease, it just leases out a new building, but Bolinas is a famously reclusive town, which for years has staunchly resisted development. (According to a 1989 LA Times article, Bolinas residents used to steal Caltrans road signs directing motorists to the town in an effort to keep out tourists.)
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Feb 12, 2024 23:55
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A $50k home is certainly not going to have a adequate foundation or waterproofing even if it's tiny. Yeah sure its an RV, but do you know what RVs do a lot of? Leak. The cost of making a tiny home that is actually as good as a real home is ridiculously close to just building a real home. Or a pre-fab, which again, actually accomplishes that even if it's not exciting on tiktok.
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Feb 12, 2024 23:56
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Cyrano4747 posted:A lot of it is also going to depend on what their definition of "tiny home" is. Yes, absolutely. I was using the definition of "small house". You can have a perfefctly workable 2 bnedroom with less than 1000 sq ft. I used to live in one. But they might be talking about the internet brain position "Tiny Home" where it's on a trailer so you can legally call it an RV. Or something in between. Lockback posted:"Land isn't available that meets these requirements" is definitely not true especially in the midwest but also in lots of places if you aren't super hung up on your zip code Sorry, I forgot to add "where people actually want to live and/or the local economy supports making a living" Although I'd like you to show me some lots that actually meet all of the criteria regardless of that last one. Because unless it's a failed developer/bnankruptcy auction selling off the last few lots in a subdevelopment........I bet they're gonna be missing one or more of those things I mentioned.
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Feb 12, 2024 23:56
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adnam posted:Everytime I hear about Bolinas it is like the poster child for NIMBY brought to its absolutely worst extreme Yeah the road sign thing is still in effect, they went to the county to get them to stop replacing it They actually have an urban street "grid" and could support a ton of additional development but yeah the water meter loophole is an impressive NIMBY tool
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Feb 13, 2024 00:02
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Motronic posted:
This is going to depend a lot on if you demand water/sewer hookups. Power in a lot of rural areas is much easier to hook into than the limited municipal water. And yeah, wells and septic are their own thing and a whole new vector for expensive poo poo, but it's something that a ton of rural America just kinda deals with.
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Feb 13, 2024 00:02
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Cyrano4747 posted:If they're thinking more along the lines of a small home - like the kind of 2br 1ba single story ranch that was common in post-war construction - you're looking at more like 1500 feet, which is fine for a small home for a couple or a small family. But at that point you're also talking real deal construction costs, not a glorified RV or backyard shed. Not to dispute the rest of what you said, but 1500 is a lot of house. I own a 1100-sqft, 4-bed, 2-bath house. Sure, the rooms are smallish, but they're plenty big enough to serve their purpose. You could easily have a 4-person family in a house like this, it'd just be a little more cramped than the average American might be used to. And I'd wager that most non-Americans would look at this house and wonder what all that space is for.
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Feb 13, 2024 00:02
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Cyrano4747 posted:This is going to depend a lot on if you demand water/sewer hookups. Power in a lot of rural areas is much easier to hook into than the limited municipal water. We're back to Hadlock's "if there wasn't already a house there" thing. Utility service extensions are actually MORE quantifiable of a cost than well and septic. Well and septic are fine. I have them. But raw land without them is a huge unknown because don't know until you perc test if you can even put septic on a lot or if it's going to be a much more expernsive mound or plant style system - if anything at all. And you don't know how deep the well is going to be and you largely pay by the foot. This is just another version of paying to have utilities extended buit with way less certainty and with research that you likely can't do undtil you already own the lot. I wouldn't consider that "buildable land" withoutfurther quantification.
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Feb 13, 2024 00:07
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Lockback posted:"Land isn't available that meets these requirements" is definitely not true especially in the midwest but also in lots of places if you aren't super hung up on your zip code, but the cost effectiveness of building a custom one-off house is going to be extremely local and almost certainly poor. Where I'm at in AZ, there's a decent supply of unbuilt acre+ lots in an area where electricity is solved and wastewater can be septic or sewage. They're in the range of $250k per acre. Notice that I didn't say water is solved, because all of these are wildcat developments where they're purposely being subdivided few enough times that they don't run afoul of AZ state laws dictating an assured water supply. I suppose you could drill your own 500-1000 foot well if you can get approval from the county or the state to do so.
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Feb 13, 2024 00:11
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