It also depends on how big a house, and what type of foundation you would install. You will want to get a structural engineering report on the foundation system before you proceed. They should be able to give detail on any major issues (such as excessive settlement and drainage problems). Depending on what you're building and how finnicky you are, even "typical" settlement for an older home may exceed the tolerances you and your builder are comfortable working with for new construction and there may need to be some repair. My wife and I own a large side-split ranch house that we plan to mostly tear down later this summer. The construction vintage is late '60s and the existing foundation is pier and beam. It has held up pretty well but will need jacking in a couple of spots where it has settled more than our design will tolerate. We will also be doing push/pull in a few places. I asked the contractors how much extra to wipe the slate and start clean, they estimated at least $100k for the foundation so that was out of the question for us. (Construction is very expensive in our area.)

Hi OP, we just tore our house down March 10th. It took them 1.5 days, including cleanup & dump fees, and that cost us $8500Cdn. I don't have pics on photobucket, but if you want to see what's involved just let me know and I'll post a couple. We only tore down to the basement foundation as we had lifted the house in 2003 and tore out the old one, piled, and put in a new one. (Should have just tore out the whole dang thing then...but I digress lol). If you DO decide to tear down, I STRONGLY recommend that you take out the windows yourself. We didn't (couldn't actually cause we were living there right until a couple days before demo) and our yard is COVERED with small pieces of glass that we will now have to pay more for to get cleaned up before re-landscaping. Also, your yard will be filled with small pieces of wood splinters. To clean this up easily, I just used a rake and it worked splendidly. As for your driveway? Alot will depend on how strong it was made to begin with. Our front sidewalk surprisingly survived with very little damage considering all the heavy equipment that was on it, but DH had built that thing like Fort Knox lol. It's too bad we had to tear it out anyways, our new entrance has moved so the sidewalk had to go. Good luck with your decision.

weed30, this is exactly what we did! We still had an existing mortgage on the old property, but even torn down, the land our old house was on was worth more than our outstanding mortgage. Our bank was AWESOME working with us on our construction mortgage and we are only a couple weeks out from being done. Basically, what was involved was opening a line of credit and getting an initial appraisal (the bank does this). Then we got pre-approved for the new mortgage, and the old mortgage is rolled over into the new one. We used our line of credit to pay sub-trades (my DH was GC) and the appraiser comes out at 4 separate stages during your build. He assesses your completion rate and the bank forwards however much money that represents from your total approved mortgage to your Trustee. You then pay off the line of credit, usually with some left over, and you start over again until the next appraisal period. It's been a very easy process, so I hope you go for it! Lora

I've not heard of this either! Can you give any more info? What comes to my mind is from waaaaay back during the REIT bust during the 70s. I had a subdivision in my portfolio in Rancho Mirage...can't remember how many homes...maybe, 200, or there abouts. Anyway, by the time we got the foreclosure over with the shells had about 3' of sand built up inside each start. I would have LOVED to bulldoze that subdivision. Instead, I GC'd completion & we sold every last one. So, I understand how such a decision 'might' be made...but I've not heard a word that it was happening. /tricia