Building New Home With Cash, NO DEBT - Advice Appreciated

[oosik]

You talk of year round in a tipi - well, a close neighbor(5 miles down the road) lived on his property for eleven years in a yurt. He eventually built a large storage building with living quarters in a back corner. He's been single all his life and this propensity for strange living quarters is only one of many reasons. The locals laughed when I got a county building permit but the last thing I wanted was problems with the county gov. My biggest problem with the construction and the house was when my contractor who constructed my driveway "forgot" to get a required access permit for my driveway to access the county road. The county highway engineer was highly upset but the driveway was finished and in the end it was obvious all he wanted was the fees for the access permit. I got the permit to build the house and when I got home and looked - they made a mistake and gave me an occupancy certificate for my house that I hadn't even started. There was NEVER an inspection of any stage of the construction by any county inspector either. At that time - 1982 - the permitting & inspection system was just a little screwed up. It probably had a lot to do with my location - I'm located in the extreme SW corner of the county and a 70 mi round trip for any inspector.

 

[oosik]

When in Alaska we owned property that was 55 miles off a dirt road. Access year round was by ATV with no road, trail or path to the property. The wife & I built a small log cabin there and lived on the property continuously for a little less than three years. Biggest problem was loneliness. There were stretches where we didn't see another person for a five month stretch. You know - we never got any kind of permit to build the cabin and never had any type of gov official ever come to the property. In Alaska - gov officials tend to leave "loaners" to themselves - better for everyones health all the way around.

 

[300UGUY]

I assume, looking at the plan, that you do not live where it snows ? Those intersecting roof lines would be a killer for holding snow and ice dams...

Many have commented and I have spent a long time investigating locations with little in the way of restrictions on building timeline and permitting process. There are still places where you have relative freedom, but fewer and fewer all the time and definite actions being taken at local government level to introduce code and the "cash cow" inspections and permitting that goes along with it. Last but not least, local government are simply addicted to having their nose in your business and you having to ask permission for everything - which means the opportunity to say NO every time ! If you read the minutes from council meetings, many of the conversations are highly stress inducing (stress being when you have to exercise the full force of your willpower to NOT strangle some stupid bureaucrat who is having a great time denying something that is of no consequence whatsoever to anyone - like a property line setback of 50 feet that is on a precipice which the owner is asking for a 10 foot variance on for building a garage)

There are a very few places where you can live year round in a tipi if you desire, but we are talking about places that require a tracked atv or similar to get into and out of for more than 6 months of the year and everything has to be hauled in down steep trails...

It does go both ways. We had a guy that bought a old house, that the septic failed, it collapsed, since it was only a old metal drum. Instead of fixing it, he trenched in some plastic pipe, and drained it off his property, into a neighbor's pond. The neighbor noticed toilet paper floating in the pond, tracked down the source, and reported him. He had to put in a septic, at over $20K. He hasn't had a good word for the building department since. Btw, he's a licensed builder...or was. I think after that episode, the looked at his jobs very carefully. We had another guy who moved his wife and kids into a old semi trailer on a 2 acre property, with no septic at all. He was going to build a house, but never did, his wife left, and he lived there for years, until he died. The locals left him alone, felt sorry for him, I guess.

 

[rtimgray]

To the OP: There sure seems to be a lot more negative replies on here than I would have expected, and not all of the advice is unfounded, and a lot of it does depend on how the housing/inspection regulations are in your area. I'm going to assume that those can be dealt in regard to my answer:

I'd say go for it. What you are describing is how we started our home. We had a little bit different idea, but overall similar. We built a 32' x 36' garage with a 2nd floor under roof. We also ended up building a partial basement for additional storage and storm shelter. We lived in a 1970s 12x56 mobile home while we were building this (and for several years prior while we saved up money). Here's the things that I learned, and am still learning:

1. Most things will take longer than I thought they would
2. Free or cheap help is worth what you pay for it
3. Take the easy way out and do it her way, because that's how it's going to end up anyway

I wouldn't trade the experience of building my own home for anything. My wife and I worked together on it for about 4 years before it was ready to move into, and we had two small children the whole time, we each have full time jobs, and part-time farming with cattle and hay, so we always had plenty to do.

One great thing about doing it this way is that most people have a deadline imposed upon them by a lender. As an out-of-pocket builder, the online timelines were mine. If you build it yourself, you will save a tremendous amount of money. By the time we finished our 2,100 sq. ft. (under roof and basement) structure, we were only out about $45,000.

Now, I will admit that our plans have changed and we decided that the "garage" we built was too nice to convert into a garage and adjusted our houseplan to a different type of addition, which we are currently in the middle of building. We've added about 1,500 sq. ft. to the house and we're to the point of finishing the drywall, preparing to paint and install flooring. Once again, doing it all out of pocket has saved lot's of money (we're only into it about $20,000 so far) and we have yet to have had any big arguments at this point, even though I'm taking out a shower stall that was built and re-doing it to her liking (because it's not worth fighting over, and it's not costing anything but a few treated 2x4s and my time). And this addition has been easier because like you said, all I have to do is open the door and I'm on the job site.

I did have to deal with septic and electrical inspections, but that was all. I applaud your intentions and effort and wish you well.

Good luck and take care.

 

[TCJatko]

Were I doing it, I'd buy the place on a mortgage and concentrate on retiring the note ASAP. Interest rates are still cheap, and after the house is built you could concentrate your resources on getting rid of the mortgage. As others have stated, sometimes there can be problems with occupancy. Debt can be a useful tool if used properly.

 

[radioman]

Sounds like you have a dream and you are ready to make it happen. I can see you have a big heart and you want to save money. don't we all? :thumbsup:
Have you priced out how much this all will cost for materials alone and for a contractor to build from A to Z just for comparison? One factor you should consider that I always fear are the nature storms. When you price stuff out and then you want to buy materials but suppose the hurricanes hit the south and east coast and the prices doubles for materials you plan to buy locally can hurt.
Have you thought about hiring a contractor to put up the shell framing/sheathing/doors and windows and call it good? There still would be plenty of work left for you to do and save alot of money. water source, septic needs,roofing,siding,plumbing,wiring,insulation,drywalling,etc. I think what a professional crew can do by putting up a shell in a week or two can save you 3 months of hard work and money that can be better used to finish the house. Also getting the shell up means the materials bought protects you from price jump from storms.

 

[rtimgray]

The fluctuation in materials pricing is very relevant, and we ran into it when we started building our house. This was right during the great OSB shortage. However, the advantage of cash building, as mentioned earlier, is that there is not necessarily a deadline to beat. This is what lead us to add a basement to the house - since wood was high at the time, I bought enough material to form the basement and spent the summer working on that, which has been a great asset. By fall, the prices had returned to "normal", I bought the lumber and a big tarp, and the problem resolved itself.

Another thing that the longer timeline lends itself to is the opportunity to pick up windows/doors/cabinets/shelves/tools etc off of craigslist or other locally available sources at low prices - sometimes it works, sometimes not.

I don't put much stock in the amount that a contractor can save buying materials vs. what anybody else can. If you are buying enough material to build a garage or a house, you're most likely going to get treated pretty well by a seller. I mentioned this in another thread just the other day about buying from local lumber yards vs. Home Depot/Lowes, and I ended up with HD because of both price and service.

Honestly, I think a lot of people are unjustly intimidated by the thought of building a house. But you put it together just like a professional would - one piece at a time.

Good luck and take care.

 

[EddieWalker]

Do you have any experience building a house? Everything you can do yourself will save you a lot of money, but only if you do it right and it doesn't have to be redone. I have a client who is very tight with her money. Single mom and a hard worker, but she tends to cut corners and goes with the cheapest of everything. Right now she has a slab poured for her retirement, dream house, but the plumber she hired didn't run any vent lines through the slab before it was poured and when I looked at the blueprint she bought online for cheap, it didn't have enough room in the master bedroom for a bed in it and still be able to get into the master bathroom. Everything needs to be changed, and it's going to cost her a couple of grand just to get to where she can start building on it.

I've built my last two homes for cash. I got the shell done as quickly as I could, and then took my time finishing out each room. Bathroom first, then a bedroom and the kitchen. The rest got done rather slowly and painfully. I've read in the trade magazines for home builders that on average, 1/3 of the cost to build the house is materials, the rest is labor and fees. Depending on how fancy you go on your finish details, I think that's pretty accurate.

The first house I moved into before having a toilet. I had power and cold water, but went outdoors to go to the bathroom for about a week. It was like camping without having any fun.

I'd do it again, but wouldn't start construction until I had enough money to get it sealed in. Utilities, foundation, framing, exterior walls and roof weather tight. You can use Zip Sytem for your exterior walls until you can do the brick and be fine for quite awhile. Then you can finish off a bathroom, a bedroom and sort of set up a worksite kitchen to get you by as you work on it. Microwave, free standing stove and a refrigerator all work find without cabinets or anything else. A folding table and a plastic tub for a sink also work fine until you are ready for a real kitchen. The question is how long will you have to live like that and how long will it take you to finish the house?

I've met people who have lived in unfinished houses for decades. They just get used to it and lose interest in doing the work. Burned out of the never ending project. I've been hired to finish off parts of those hoses, and I've been hired to redo some of their mistakes. They never hire me to do all the house, just get it going again because somebody is tired of nothing happening. Usually the wife. LOL

There is a guy on Pondboss who is doing something very similar to what you want to do. He and his wife have been working on building a barn, workshop with a small apartment over the top of it for probably five years now. It's weekend work and I'm pretty sure it's all out of pocket. They go there most weekends to work on it, they get a little done, then go home and do it all over again the next weekend. It's a great read, and it's an interesting place that they are building, but it doesn't sound like much of a life and I doubt they have saved any money by doing it all themselves when factoring all the time it's taking them to get anything done.

What is your budget like? I wouldn't start anything until I had at least $20 a square foot for the entire building in cash. You should be able to seal it in for that. Starting out smaller and doing it for less is going to cost you more in the long run. Undoing things that you have already spent money on, and leaving parts of it exposed to the elements over time will cost you money.

You will need a place to store materials and tools. You will need space to be able to work. Building a barn or shed first makes a lot of sense. It will let you know where you are at in your building skills, and maybe if this is even something you want to tackle. Framing walls is easy, can you build a roof? I'm not being rude, it's something I see on here all the time. A member posts pictures of his barn or shed and sometimes he gets the framing of the walls right, sometimes he makes a few rookie mistakes that are alright because it's just a shed. But almost always the roof is a fail. Since it's a shed, and they usually post pics after it's done, there isn't much to be done about it, but if it was a house, it would be tragic to have done it that way. Building without code is nice, but code does guarantee that the house is built to a minimum standard. Anything less is just creating problems down the road, sometimes tragic, always costly.

Eddie

 

[HillStreet]

Hi Walker:

Your plan is going to be a real challenge, and I think the logistics are going to be hard to overcome. I have built 4 houses from scratch and lived in them all while I completed them; just finished my current (and last) house after 4 years.

Here is what I see as more costly in the long run: (1) temporary walls with partitions screwed into the floor and ceiling trusses and sheetrock screwed to studs and not finished. (Throwing money and time away because little can be salvaged after the "temporary" part is over). (2) two years to get into the "dry". (You have a complex roof structure and the whole building should be built and enclosed at one time. You cannot leave plywood or OSB exposed for very long before it delaminates or starts to rot with mold or water damage. Get the structure built/roofed/sided and enclosed with windows and doors. Then it can rain and snow without damage). (3) cheap shingles on the garage, replace with good ones later. (Doing it twice, costs for material and labor are high).

Here is something to consider:

Price out the job through site work, utilities, concrete, and a complete framed weather-tight shell. Once that is built, you have a building to temporarily fit up for a rough living space. You might use garage as living quarters with a bathroom finished for basic service.

Just remember that it can be hard to rough out useable electric and plumbing and heating in small stages. Same goes for insulation and sheetrock, piece by piece is dirty and cumbersome-- those things are better done in one shot. Later you can paint, hang doors, and trim as you feel like it.

Have a serious detailed talk with some builders and contractors starting with excavators and concrete guys. Go to a lumberyard with your plans and price out materials for the shell only, probably less than you think. Then get a framing crew for a square foot price on framing, you might do roofing and siding yourself with buddies. Saves a lot, doesn't take long, and now you have a "home" to work on.

You can go to Depot or Lowes and get electrical supplies for the whole house in 3 shopping carts and you're done. Check out the details.

I do wish you the best and hope you succeed.

 

[dmccarty]

For my first rural property, I designed a home to be built in two stages to minimize debt.

The first stage was a "town house" that was two stories with an entrance/utility room on the side. The main building had a 2+ car garage on the first floor with a large room at the back of the garage. I think the building was something like 24x36 so the large room was about 24x12. The large room one day would be a shop when the main house was built in stage two. In the mean time, the large room was going to be the living room. Upstairs was a eat in kitchen, two bedrooms and a bath. Maybe a bit more, I have not looked at the plans in over 20 years. :laughing: The utility room was an appendage stuck on the side of the "town house". The entrance/utility room hid a washer and dryer behind doors and it was also the main entrance to the house from the outside. The doors on the garage, big room down stairs and the utility/entrance room could be setup with locks so that in future we could rent out the upstairs but keep the renters out of the shop, main house and garage.

The idea was to build the "town house", pay it off, and save money for the big house. After the big house was built, we would rent the "town house" to Grad/PHd students who were over their party stage and need to quiet to complete their study. We could set the rent somewhat low since the "town house" would be paid off which would attract the students yet it would still generate decent income.

Great plan, but the useless Credit Union did not like the plan and we decided to sell the land because we wanted more than a few acres.

When we lived in the city, our neighbor hood was built in the mid 70 and the houses were 1200-1500 sf. Most were 1200ish sf. On guy wanted to more space so he built a large two story garage attached to his small ranch. The garage had living space on the second floor and when he finished the build he moved his family into the "garage". He then tore the roof off his ranch house and added a second floor. This took almost a decade from what I could tell but maybe longer since I don't know what was finished in the old ranch house. He worked quite a bit on the complex and when he was done he had a house that did not really look that good, not bad, but not good either. He also had a house that was MUCH larger than other houses in then neighborhood, and by the time he was finished, his kids were going to be moving out in a few years, leaving him with a rather large house for two people. Hopefully, he planned for this and was going to rent out the garage space.

Building your own house like this takes a very long time if you have to work a full time job. The house build will consume your life for years and require you to work almost every free hour you have available.

As a strange example, we want a boat. :laughing::laughing::laughing: Not just any boat but a full displacement, steel hulled boat that can cross oceans. These boat are rather expensive but not as expensive as you would expect. Some people build these boats in their back yard. Many people try and I think most fail. Quite a few people were doing this in the 60's and 70's and my dad wanted to build a boat in that time frame but in the end just bought a boat. The boat we want has plans and some people have built the boats out of wood and steel. There is a guy in Boston who had the steel hull build in a boat yard in NC, then had the hull moved to his backyard in Boston. He is doing the interior work on the boat and it is a work of art. I don't have furniture that matches the quality of the interior he is building. Really nice work. On the other hand, it is taking him years to do the work and the work gets done a little here and a little there. I found a website about another guy who started building a steel hulled sail boat in the early 70s. The boat is a work of art. It took him about 30 years to get the boat in the water. Course, he does not owe anything or much on the boat but he spent a lifetime building the boat. Nothing wrong with that if one wants to spend years/decades building.

The quick guesstimates to build the boat we want would be 10,000 hours. It could take more, it could take less depending on what is wanted in the interior. Lets say I could find 10 hours a week to work on the boat or 40 hours a month. It would take 20.8 years to build the boat... I literally ain't got that amount of time. The boat we want to buy is being built in China, most/many large boats are built in China or in some cases, Turkey of all places. I found some blogs last night from people buying the boats built in China and it takes two years for the boat to be completed at a boat yard where they have built dozens of the same type of boat. Even if I managed to work 20 hours a week or 80 hours a month on the boat it would still take me 10 years to complete the build. Money wise, I would have saved a bunch but I would have worked myself to death.

We have a temporary well house that I built when the house was being built. The well house is a box with a couple of tarps over it. Looks like scat. This was temporary for *** 10 *** years! :shocked: To be fair, I was going to build the proper well house years ago but we got into a car accident that prevented me doing manual work for over six months and then I was behind in more important chores like firewood for winter. Taking on a long term project means that project will be interrupted by kids, family, accidents, and illness which further increases the time of the project. I would love to build the boat we want but if I can't build a stupid, little, well house due to time constraints.....

I designed the house we live in today. No way would I try to build the house. I wanted too but I don't have the time. I am sure you can find estimates on how many hours it takes to build a house. There should be rules of thumb based on square footage.

Later,
Dan