We’re thinking of relocating to Southwestern (sort of) Virginia. And one of our options is to build a place on a few acres rather than buy an existing place.
Land I can get. Looks like something akin to 4-5 acres for 30K or so.
But what’s the actual building of a house cost? Anyone have a clue for me?
From what I can recall, it all depends on how much you are willing to do yourself.
Friends of my family decided to do as much as possible by themselves, except for plumbing and electricity. They spent $140,000 on a house that might of costed upwords of $225-275000.
Southeast Guilford, FTR.
I’ve been thinking about this too, because new construction looks like it’s made from compressed oatmeal slabs and cardboard. And old construction in my neighborhood is going for upwards of $2 million.
The best part of the idea is (I think) that you can s-t-r-e-t-c-h out the construction time over 2 or 3 years so you don’t have to pony up all the dough at once. That allows you to build affordably.
My dad always says that building costs between 65 and 100 per square foot.
I was looking for similiar property in the Dallas area (a place on 4-5 acres). I ended up finding an existing place on 4 acres that met my needs, but I did some research into building.
Basically, it varies an awful lot. The biggest factor in determining cost per square foot seemed to be the quality of the interior finish–hardwood floors, ceramic tile, fancy windows, appliances, countertops, cabinets, molding, etc. all have a huge impact on the cost. There are also big regional variations.
On the larger lots, there’s more then just the house to worry about. Landscaping can cost more, and long driveways are expensive too (especially if gravel isn’t good enough for 'ya). Also, utility hook ups can be expensive. Especially if you need to have a well put in.
Your best bet is to call up a couple custom home builders. When I was talking to them, they always returned my calls quick and, after a round of questions, where able to give me a ballpark figure of what I’d be looking at, price wise. At least around here, they were eager for business and were quite aproachable.
You’re in for some fun on the larger lot, especially if you like getting dirty. You can work on it to your hearts desire, and you’ll be able to justify the purchase of a tractor, which is a whole new dimension of fun. 
When we were shopping for a house five years ago, we went to look at some of the upper-end showhomes we couldn’t afford, just for fun. We were loiking for a ~2000 sq foot bungalow, and in the neighborhoods were were interest in, those houses go for about $250K. But we looked at one bungalow that was only 1700 sq ft, but it was half a million dollars. Why? Custom builder, curved walls and arches everywhere, granite countertops, bult-in appliances, in-floor heat in the basement and garage, built-in audio equipment, and $65,000 worth of landscaping in the back yard.
So the price varies wildly. However, one thing is usually true - it costs more to build than to buy an older home, and if you must build, the cheapest way is go contract for a standard design with a volume builder. The minute you do anything custom, the price goes through the roof. After we couldn’t find the bungalow we wanted, I designed one and took the floor plans in to a builder for an estimate. I wanted it finished similar to their standard houses in that size, which cost about $250,000. The floor plan I wanted was no bigger.I thought I might pay a few thousand more for them having to do custom building. Maybe $20,000 or so. But the estimate came back at $340,000, and I had to give up the plan.
Are you looking at ordinary stick built? Have you considered SIPs? Are you looking at a monolithic pour for the basement or insulated forms? If you’re going to build from ground up, many options exist, including ground source geothermal heating/air conditioning.
Check out this site for cool homes at an affordable price!
And, no - I do not have anything to do with the company, but found the site and have it on my “favorites” list. If I ever decide to build a new house, I might consider them.
I’m right in the middle of building a house for my family right now.
All told, we’re spending just over $300,000 for a 1500 sf house on a third of an acre.
This is in North Los Angeles County, though. The land alone was $90,000 and the permits and fees, etc. are outrageously expensive here. It cost me $13,000 just to get a water meter, for example.
We’re building a custom-designed modular. Compared to the stupid double-wide looking template plans that were available, the cost of totally customizing the shape and layout of our house was not much more at all.
It’ll be four modules, shipped out and assembled on a permanent crawlspace foundation.
Lots of “green” amenities like in-floor hydronic heating powered by propane, mostly electrical everything else so we can go solar-powered later. Modern looking stuff too like all cork flooring and lots of Ikea everywhere.
Believe me, I’m coming to realize what an amazing bargain we’ve got here. We’re keeping things real inexpensive without being cheap. It’ll be worth nearly $400,000 when we’re done.
We moved into the home we had built in September. We paid 225k for a 4 bedroom, 3 1/2 bath single family home with 2 car garage and full finished basement on almost 1/2 acre. We are in York county PA. We couldn’t have afforded to buy a similiar pre-existing home in MD, or much of Northern VA.
You might want to try this site to help you out.