4 ms·

Is it still allowed to build your own house in the US? Here in Japan, it would seem almost impossible. Just recently build a house. It took almost as long to j

by canpan 2y ago

Is it still allowed to build your own house in the US? Here in Japan, it would seem almost impossible. Just recently build a house. It took almost as long to just get the approval from the city vs the time to build. Additionally, AFAIK you are technically not allowed to touch anything with electricity or water without license. Forget about connecting to the city grid.

ssl-3 2y ago
Sure. It's completely possible to build a house in the US. But it's a big place. The rules vary by state (50), by county (Ohio alone has 87 counties), and municipality (if in a city) or township (if rural), and/or other AHJ. There are thousands of combinations of rules so it's hard to generalize beyond "Yes, it's possible." Some areas have very strict zoning, building codes, and inspections. These can be challenging to build in, with oversight over many details, but it can be done and people do accomplish building homes all the time in these conditions. Meanwhile, some other areas have no zoning at all and only the most rudimentary of building codes (rudimentary like "There must be a working sewer connection or septic system" and approximately no other requirements). As a practical matter, in these places a person who owns some land can build what they want and nobody is empowered to tell them not to. And, of course: There's a myriad of in-between variations.
phyzix5761 2y ago
Depends on the laws in your local area. But many places where I live allow you to build your own home as long as you follow the building codes. But nothing's stopping you from buying one of these and hiring a professional to do the build. Would still be much cheaper than buying a property with a home on it already.
- datavirtue 2y ago
  Crazy expensive to build vs. buy. A modest 1600sq ft home is $400k+ to erect on your lot. You will have thousands out of pocket before you get there and if you carry a construction loan you are paying raw interest the whole time.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- bityard 2y ago
  I don't know where you live but in the Midwest US around medium-sized cities, it costs _significantly_ more to build vs buy unless you inherit or otherwise somehow luck into some cheap land. Building involves a surprising number of large one-off costs: clearing the land, excavation, running utilities, digging a well, installing a septic field, getting permits and inspections, legal fees for contract review, etc. None of these are reflected in the market price of a middle class SFH. This is the main reason housing developments are so popular, the developer is able to amortize these startup costs over 30-50 houses all at once which is the only way they can build new houses that are price competitive with the rest of the market.
  - maxerickson 2y ago
    Aren't they all reflected in the market price of housing? It's just that a lot of existing housing is out of date (so prices below new construction) and people work to profit by reducing them below what an individual can achieve working on their own. In my small town, houses that are "move in ready" command a premium, because higher end buyers are less willing to put up with the typical condition of the aging housing stock.
  - datavirtue 2y ago
    The newly built community homes are much cheaper. They are just commodities though. From what I have seen the construction is very poor and most people are going to want upgrades across the board ($50k+ more).
  - kleiba 2y ago
    My father-in-law is in his 70s. He built a new house in 2016. He's a builder so he could do almost all of the work himself (apart from electrical and heating) with two hired helpers. The concrete was poured by a company. The roof trusses were designed and premanufactured, then delivered to site and installed by him and his guys. I think he had someone come in for some tiling jobs. Other than that, it was all off-the-shelf material. All in, he spent around $300k including the plot. Then COVID happened. Now, similar houses on his street sell north of 800k.
    - 2y ago
kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 2y ago
Depends on the local building codes. Some rural places have little or no codes, so build whatever you want however you want it.
bcrosby95 2y ago
When it comes to what's on your property, every place I've lived in the US lets you do your own work as long as you follow code, you just can't do professional work for other people. Connecting to the grid might be different though - I've never had to mess with that.
- Syonyk 2y ago
  I only know my particular area, but as a homeowner, I can do any electrical work I want on my dwellings. If I owned a rental, I couldn't do electrical work on that. I still have to pull permits and pass inspections, but it's really not as bad as most people assume. Just do competent work and check your wire gauge derating math a few times before you start pulling things. My main panel, outside, is effectively "half mine, half the power company's." The side with the meter in it is tagged off and I can't get into it without going through power company indicators. But everything on the other side, with the breakers, is my problem. Then everything from the box out to the pole transformer is the power company's problem. Again, this isn't going to be broadly true everywhere, but that's the usual breakdown of things, and outside a few areas in the US, you are legally permitted to do electrical work on your residence. I mean, I did my own massive ground mount solar install, grid tied, without having to bother an electrician. It just required the normal permitting process and such.
userbinator 2y ago
To add to the sibling comments which have already covered the general idea; in many places in the US you can also do your own work and then have an inspector sign off on it.
analog31 2y ago
In my locale, the only thing that matters is passing the code inspection. I have friends who have done major remodels, including additions. The piece of advice I got was to talk with your inspector before starting. In my city, they have office hours and will help people avoid surprises such as finishing the interior walls before having the electricals inspected -- stuff like that.
- tocs3 2y ago
  In my locale, the only people that want to inspect the building is the bank (if you are borrowing to build). They just want to know it is there.
AlotOfReading 2y ago
I don't know how difficult the permits would be, but you can order similar kits from Muji: https://www.muji.net/ie/tatenoie/ https://www.muji.net/ie/tatenoie/
potato3732842 2y ago
>Is it still allowed to build your own house in the US? Yes, but you're at the mercy of the discretion of and have to pay rent (metaphorically) to potentially a ton more parties than you would have 100yr ago. You're gonna need several (local, but perhaps 1-2 state depending on situation) government inspections all of which may involve having to track down some licensed professional and then pay them a fee for inspecting your work. I think in a "normal" case you can expect to shell out for electrical, plumbing, sewer/septic, HVAC, plans/engineering, environmental BS depending on distance to regulated stuff (wetlands usually) inspections and sign offs. There's probably one or two things I'm forgetting and perhaps one or two can be omitted on a case by case basis. A bunch of municipalities are gonna add their own BS on top of "the usual" stuff, like permits for tree cutting, permits for a construction dumpster and whatnot. And keep in mind, some of these parties are likely to go out of their way to try and f you one way or another and/or give you the runaround until you go away because they don't want to deal with homeowners, they want to deal with businesses. Also worth nothing that some municipalities expect strict goose stepping compliance. Some really DGAF what individuals engaged in noncommercial development (i.e. building your own house with the intent to live in it) and so long as you're not building rickety garbage they would rather you just not call them until it's done (though obviously they can't say that).
- vel0city 2y ago
  In regard to having to have some licensed professionals inspect the work, you'll still often have to do that even if you hire someone to do the job. It is just often baked into the cost to do the job, and the people doing the job will do all the legwork for you.
maxsilver 2y ago
(we did a DIY addition build during COVID in the US in 2021) In Michigan, you are absolutely allowed to do your own build on your own land. It just has to pass code inspection, and it has to pass at every stage. (i.e., they want to inspect structural/electrical/plumbing/hvac/etc, before you put drywall up, to ensure things are actually OK underneath, and then inspect it again after drywall is applied). Getting utilities can be hard and expensive if you are building off-grid. But there are so many vacant lots that already have power+water+gas at the street, that you don't really have to do that unless you really want to live in a specific off-grid location. (Suburbs and some townships make a lot of their money from this, so they usually want you building near their pre-existing utilities and hooking up to it) Sewage tends to be the hardest part -- some places have "most" utilities, but not waste & water. And people assume they can just put in a leech field "septic tank", but since most of the state is already swampland, you have to be careful of how and where you put that, so you don't poison the water. (They will make you get a land survey to prove your location is safe to leech from, and they will inspect your install, and yes people complain all the time about it, but when they didn't do this, people did poison the water all the time, and then accidentally drank their own waste water and make themselves sick, or accidentally poisoned their neighbors water and made those folks sick, etc). People complain about the licensing and permitting and inspections, but honestly, it's all been extremely fair and pretty quick and cheap. If you aren't passing your inspections here, you're likely doing something grossly negligent (or are about to do something grossly negligent).
- mistrial9 2y ago
  > licensing and permitting and inspections .. are truly crooked in many wealthy areas of California (and elsewhere) today. Everyone directly involved benefits from it, the only direct loser is the newcomer.. source: San Francisco residential remodels
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- 91bananas 2y ago
  I can give you an anecdote about my parents trying to permit a new garage building on their property in southern California, the process was anything but fair, cheap or quick. The inspector actually raised an unrelated issue on their property about a patio cover that was installed by a previous owner and has been standing for 30+ years, they wanted him to pull a building permit and pay all the inspection fees for it before they would even begin to process his garage permit. Including digging around one of the footings for the existing patio cover to see how deep the footings were. Ultimately they paid some adjusted fee, didn't even have anything inspected. Just basically were extorted by the city in my view of things.

by canpan 2y ago

ssl-3 2y ago

Sure. It's completely possible to build a house in the US. But it's a big place. The rules vary by state (50), by county (Ohio alone has 87 counties), and municipality (if in a city) or township (if rural), and/or other AHJ. There are thousands of combinations of rules so it's hard to generalize beyond "Yes, it's possible." Some areas have very strict zoning, building codes, and inspections. These can be challenging to build in, with oversight over many details, but it can be done and people do accomplish building homes all the time in these conditions. Meanwhile, some other areas have no zoning at all and only the most rudimentary of building codes (rudimentary like "There must be a working sewer connection or septic system" and approximately no other requirements). As a practical matter, in these places a person who owns some land can build what they want and nobody is empowered to tell them not to. And, of course: There's a myriad of in-between variations.

phyzix5761 2y ago

Depends on the laws in your local area. But many places where I live allow you to build your own home as long as you follow the building codes. But nothing's stopping you from buying one of these and hiring a professional to do the build. Would still be much cheaper than buying a property with a home on it already.

datavirtue 2y ago
Crazy expensive to build vs. buy. A modest 1600sq ft home is $400k+ to erect on your lot. You will have thousands out of pocket before you get there and if you carry a construction loan you are paying raw interest the whole time.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
bityard 2y ago
I don't know where you live but in the Midwest US around medium-sized cities, it costs _significantly_ more to build vs buy unless you inherit or otherwise somehow luck into some cheap land. Building involves a surprising number of large one-off costs: clearing the land, excavation, running utilities, digging a well, installing a septic field, getting permits and inspections, legal fees for contract review, etc. None of these are reflected in the market price of a middle class SFH. This is the main reason housing developments are so popular, the developer is able to amortize these startup costs over 30-50 houses all at once which is the only way they can build new houses that are price competitive with the rest of the market.
- maxerickson 2y ago
  Aren't they all reflected in the market price of housing? It's just that a lot of existing housing is out of date (so prices below new construction) and people work to profit by reducing them below what an individual can achieve working on their own. In my small town, houses that are "move in ready" command a premium, because higher end buyers are less willing to put up with the typical condition of the aging housing stock.
- datavirtue 2y ago
  The newly built community homes are much cheaper. They are just commodities though. From what I have seen the construction is very poor and most people are going to want upgrades across the board ($50k+ more).
- kleiba 2y ago
  My father-in-law is in his 70s. He built a new house in 2016. He's a builder so he could do almost all of the work himself (apart from electrical and heating) with two hired helpers. The concrete was poured by a company. The roof trusses were designed and premanufactured, then delivered to site and installed by him and his guys. I think he had someone come in for some tiling jobs. Other than that, it was all off-the-shelf material. All in, he spent around $300k including the plot. Then COVID happened. Now, similar houses on his street sell north of 800k.
  - 2y ago

kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 2y ago

Depends on the local building codes. Some rural places have little or no codes, so build whatever you want however you want it.

bcrosby95 2y ago

When it comes to what's on your property, every place I've lived in the US lets you do your own work as long as you follow code, you just can't do professional work for other people. Connecting to the grid might be different though - I've never had to mess with that.

Syonyk 2y ago
I only know my particular area, but as a homeowner, I can do any electrical work I want on my dwellings. If I owned a rental, I couldn't do electrical work on that. I still have to pull permits and pass inspections, but it's really not as bad as most people assume. Just do competent work and check your wire gauge derating math a few times before you start pulling things. My main panel, outside, is effectively "half mine, half the power company's." The side with the meter in it is tagged off and I can't get into it without going through power company indicators. But everything on the other side, with the breakers, is my problem. Then everything from the box out to the pole transformer is the power company's problem. Again, this isn't going to be broadly true everywhere, but that's the usual breakdown of things, and outside a few areas in the US, you are legally permitted to do electrical work on your residence. I mean, I did my own massive ground mount solar install, grid tied, without having to bother an electrician. It just required the normal permitting process and such.

userbinator 2y ago

To add to the sibling comments which have already covered the general idea; in many places in the US you can also do your own work and then have an inspector sign off on it.

analog31 2y ago

In my locale, the only thing that matters is passing the code inspection. I have friends who have done major remodels, including additions. The piece of advice I got was to talk with your inspector before starting. In my city, they have office hours and will help people avoid surprises such as finishing the interior walls before having the electricals inspected -- stuff like that.

tocs3 2y ago
In my locale, the only people that want to inspect the building is the bank (if you are borrowing to build). They just want to know it is there.

AlotOfReading 2y ago

I don't know how difficult the permits would be, but you can order similar kits from Muji: https://www.muji.net/ie/tatenoie/ https://www.muji.net/ie/tatenoie/

potato3732842 2y ago

>Is it still allowed to build your own house in the US? Yes, but you're at the mercy of the discretion of and have to pay rent (metaphorically) to potentially a ton more parties than you would have 100yr ago. You're gonna need several (local, but perhaps 1-2 state depending on situation) government inspections all of which may involve having to track down some licensed professional and then pay them a fee for inspecting your work. I think in a "normal" case you can expect to shell out for electrical, plumbing, sewer/septic, HVAC, plans/engineering, environmental BS depending on distance to regulated stuff (wetlands usually) inspections and sign offs. There's probably one or two things I'm forgetting and perhaps one or two can be omitted on a case by case basis. A bunch of municipalities are gonna add their own BS on top of "the usual" stuff, like permits for tree cutting, permits for a construction dumpster and whatnot. And keep in mind, some of these parties are likely to go out of their way to try and f you one way or another and/or give you the runaround until you go away because they don't want to deal with homeowners, they want to deal with businesses. Also worth nothing that some municipalities expect strict goose stepping compliance. Some really DGAF what individuals engaged in noncommercial development (i.e. building your own house with the intent to live in it) and so long as you're not building rickety garbage they would rather you just not call them until it's done (though obviously they can't say that).

vel0city 2y ago
In regard to having to have some licensed professionals inspect the work, you'll still often have to do that even if you hire someone to do the job. It is just often baked into the cost to do the job, and the people doing the job will do all the legwork for you.

maxsilver 2y ago

(we did a DIY addition build during COVID in the US in 2021) In Michigan, you are absolutely allowed to do your own build on your own land. It just has to pass code inspection, and it has to pass at every stage. (i.e., they want to inspect structural/electrical/plumbing/hvac/etc, before you put drywall up, to ensure things are actually OK underneath, and then inspect it again after drywall is applied). Getting utilities can be hard and expensive if you are building off-grid. But there are so many vacant lots that already have power+water+gas at the street, that you don't really have to do that unless you really want to live in a specific off-grid location. (Suburbs and some townships make a lot of their money from this, so they usually want you building near their pre-existing utilities and hooking up to it) Sewage tends to be the hardest part -- some places have "most" utilities, but not waste & water. And people assume they can just put in a leech field "septic tank", but since most of the state is already swampland, you have to be careful of how and where you put that, so you don't poison the water. (They will make you get a land survey to prove your location is safe to leech from, and they will inspect your install, and yes people complain all the time about it, but when they didn't do this, people did poison the water all the time, and then accidentally drank their own waste water and make themselves sick, or accidentally poisoned their neighbors water and made those folks sick, etc). People complain about the licensing and permitting and inspections, but honestly, it's all been extremely fair and pretty quick and cheap. If you aren't passing your inspections here, you're likely doing something grossly negligent (or are about to do something grossly negligent).

mistrial9 2y ago
> licensing and permitting and inspections .. are truly crooked in many wealthy areas of California (and elsewhere) today. Everyone directly involved benefits from it, the only direct loser is the newcomer.. source: San Francisco residential remodels
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
91bananas 2y ago
I can give you an anecdote about my parents trying to permit a new garage building on their property in southern California, the process was anything but fair, cheap or quick. The inspector actually raised an unrelated issue on their property about a patio cover that was installed by a previous owner and has been standing for 30+ years, they wanted him to pull a building permit and pay all the inspection fees for it before they would even begin to process his garage permit. Including digging around one of the footings for the existing patio cover to see how deep the footings were. Ultimately they paid some adjusted fee, didn't even have anything inspected. Just basically were extorted by the city in my view of things.