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I'm looking for a house now and the market is crazy, every house is subject to a bidding war and selling for at least 25% over asking, which sucks for folks who

I'm looking for a house now and the market is crazy, every house is subject to a bidding war and selling for at least 25% over asking, which sucks for folks who don't have the cash on hand to pay the difference (since the bank only covers so much). There is no way this is sustainable. I looked into building a house and while its certainly possible its so expensive that everyone is trying to talk me out of it. Why is it so expensive to build? is it mostly building materials or labor? Is usable land shrinking? Solve that problem and the houses will build themselves. At the same time the new houses I'm seeing getting built in my area are a demonstration of the phrase "money can't buy taste". We have all this land to build and we choose to continue building badly-designed single family homes, mainly catering to the ultra rich in order to best recoup the building costs. I'm not against single family inherently but we should try more diverse housing options. It would be nice if we could switch it up and change zoning laws to allow mixed housing in new developments: imagine a set of small apartment blocks with retail on the ground floor, surrounded by well-planned single family units that emphasize walkable spaces and community. That would practically be as close to utopia as we could get in this country but nobody seems to have the vision to push that forward.

jinji 2y ago
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silisili 2y ago
I can help a little as I went through the same decision a while ago. In the end, I decided to buy a house someone else had built as I don't like tract housing, as it gave me a bit of the best of both worlds - I got a well built custom house, but didn't pay out the nose for it. There are a lot of factors that play in, certainly labor, but the biggest unique costs I think were the permitting and utility tie ins. When you can bulldoze 10 acres and build 80 houses at once, the cost amortizes way down on everything, including those. When you buy land and want someone to build on it, they have to do all of that work just for your one house. I personally don't think it's worth it to build a house, unless you already own the land, want something really custom, plan to live there forever, or just have the extra money to spend. The day after it's built, it's not worth the money you spent on it, typically. Of course, over time, that changes. All of that said, I stepped inside about a dozen 2023 new builds across three builders, and was absolutely mortified by their build quality. Dozens of nail pops, soft spots in floors, misaligned doors, broken rafters, and even a roof truss that wasn't connected to anything on one end.
- headcanon 2y ago
  Thanks, that was very helpful. I agree, a lot of new construction is really shoddy and put together in a hurry. Naturally I would want to avoid that but you're right, building yourself isn't worth it unless you're ok with waiting for the market to catch up with you, or you're able to build a bunch of houses at once (which a lot of developments do)

jinji 2y ago

[dead]

silisili 2y ago

I can help a little as I went through the same decision a while ago. In the end, I decided to buy a house someone else had built as I don't like tract housing, as it gave me a bit of the best of both worlds - I got a well built custom house, but didn't pay out the nose for it. There are a lot of factors that play in, certainly labor, but the biggest unique costs I think were the permitting and utility tie ins. When you can bulldoze 10 acres and build 80 houses at once, the cost amortizes way down on everything, including those. When you buy land and want someone to build on it, they have to do all of that work just for your one house. I personally don't think it's worth it to build a house, unless you already own the land, want something really custom, plan to live there forever, or just have the extra money to spend. The day after it's built, it's not worth the money you spent on it, typically. Of course, over time, that changes. All of that said, I stepped inside about a dozen 2023 new builds across three builders, and was absolutely mortified by their build quality. Dozens of nail pops, soft spots in floors, misaligned doors, broken rafters, and even a roof truss that wasn't connected to anything on one end.

headcanon 2y ago
Thanks, that was very helpful. I agree, a lot of new construction is really shoddy and put together in a hurry. Naturally I would want to avoid that but you're right, building yourself isn't worth it unless you're ok with waiting for the market to catch up with you, or you're able to build a bunch of houses at once (which a lot of developments do)