I haven't heard of anything like you're suggesting, and it seems like it would put the builder at a lot of risk to build you a house to your specifications just on faith that your house will sell in time to buy that one.

Is there a specific reason you don't want to buy existing?

You would need to share in the risk rather than put it all off onto the builder. Such as a LARGE non refundable deposit. Or financing through him at a high interest rate and an agreement to buy the home at 25% below bank appraisal if you could not sell it in time.

There isn't any real way to make any of this happen before the baby is here, even if you all just got the news. Take your time to do a LOT more research and also look at what is for sale that is already built. Your money will go further there.

@sweetsarahbeth - I was hoping some form of contract could be prepared with certain stipulations. Since, I am new to the whole building game, I am still trying to understand it.

We are not opposed to buying an existing house (and it is not out of the equation); we just would like to build ours and have it they way we want it. Ultimately, if we cannot build, then we will have to buy an existing house.

@live_wire_oak - That's what I was afraid of. We don't have the cash supply to put a large non refundable deposit.

Oh, sorry if my original post was misleading, but we are not looking to have a build before the baby is born! We were more or less thinking to start the build at the end of 2016 beginning of 2017. We are starting to look at all our options now in order to not be rushed and have a full understanding of what we are getting ourselves into.

I would agree with you about money going further with an existing house over a new build. The only downside is the most neighborhood lots are small! I don't like be "arms" length to my neighbor! I want some land (1-2 acres) for the space and room for the children to play. However, the school districts we are interested in living, land with an existing home is going to cost in the high 3's to low 4's at a minimum.

@benjesbride - Hmmm, what you all did made me think of something. Maybe we can find a fixer upper and have the house/elevation completely renovated to where it would be like building a new home! I never thought of that - thank you for sharing what you did as it sparked my interest!

Like you, we also want a bigger yard as well! I could settle with half of an acre, but I would prefer one to two acres.

I can image the stress two mortgages would bring! That is what my wife and I want to avoid. Personally, I don't care if we move into a rental, but she on the other hand despises moving!

You know, I am glad you asked. Yes, we really did think about renovating our house. The cost to do it would almost amount to building/buying another existing house. One, we have a three-bedroom ranch (1,500 sq ft.) on a slab with no basement. Our storage is VERY limited! This is one reason why we want to move. My parents come up several times a year to visit, and our son's room goes to them while they are here. However, after the baby is born, I will lose my office as it will become a baby room. We are tapped out on our rooms and storage.

Secondly, we called a few companies about adding a basement to our current house. The cost just for the excavating and building the basement was near $100,000. Then you would top on around another $75,000 to expand the kitchen and add more space onto the house. Right there, that is $175,000, plus what the original house cost, we could buy one that is more up-to-date with all the rooms we need and a basement.

My husband chatted with our GC last weekend (he finished our project in February.) The GC said the Portland market is on fire and he's already booked out until September 2016. Your Ohio market might be different, but the availability of a good GC is something to consider as you plan your timeline. It's time consuming to interview GCs and secure a spot in a queue let alone wait 8-9 months to start work. It's good that you're asking these questions now.

Where I live - In Alaska, most builders have their own construction loan financing that they do, and then when the house is complete you just buy it as you would any other house. This goes for houses on spec as well as some custom builds. It does depend on the builder. Some custom home builders around here do have you obtain financing. Some have you put a sizable down and they have their own financing. Ours just had us put a small amount down, and they have their own financing going because they build more than 1 house at a time. (We are building in a new subdivision). I was told that they do it that way up here because it's just easier for them and they can get the financing easier than an individual homeowner can. We aren't required to use specific lenders for a builder up here. Sometimes they have "preferred lenders" where you can get some closing costs covered if you use them, or something like that, but that's it.

Is there any reason why the two kids can't share a room before jumping into all this? I have four and they'll be sharing two (comparatively small) bedrooms in the new house. Kids don't need nearly as much personal space or stuff to store as we sometimes think they do. The same can often be said for adults as well :)

I understand what you mean when you say you want a bit more land - that's exactly why we built - but I highly, highly recommend saving up a large reserve fund while you research your options for building. It will make financing easier (our lender required that we have at least 20% of the loan amount in reserve accounts) and actually building less stressful (we thought our cash contingency fund - seperate from our reserve accounts - was plenty and now it's gone!)

We looked for over a year at houses to buy, building was our last resort!

For context, we downsized from 2200 square feet to 1200 (3 bedroom, 2 bath.) We have two girls who share a room and my husband works from home in the extra room. Our floor plan is very efficient and our house serves us well.

In my opinion 1500 square feet is a great size. There might be some renovations you haven't considered that don't involve increasing the square footage and would make it live larger. If you're interested in exploring ideas to improve your existing kitchen or bathrooms, you should post your floor plan over on the kitchen and bathroom forums. Many people (myself included) love working on floor plans.

All this to say... I appreciate if homes of this size are not to others' tastes and you just want a bigger house. I've read people on this forum downsizing to 3500 square feet and that's cool too. Small homes are just my thing.

@Laurel Warner - That is exactly what I am trying to find here in Ohio! Buy the house once it is complete. Is your builder nationwide or just specific to Alaska?

@sweetsarahbeth - If my kids were older, I would completely agree with you. However, putting a newborn in the room with a 18 month old who is going to need constant feeding and diaper changes every couple of hours is not a smart choice. The newborn would keep our son up all through the night. On the other hand, if they were both 3 and 4, that would be a completely different story.

I do agree with you on the space; however, our sons room is small enough already that with his crib, changing table/dresser, and bookshelf (for all his books) there hardly leaves any room to put a second crib.

Trust me, if we had a basement, my wife and I would not be having the conversation of moving (even though we want more land for our children). The 1,500 sq ft would be completely livable and I could move my office to the basement (working from home is hard if you don't have a designated work space). The basement would open up many opportunities to put another room and have storage. As our children get older, the toys get bigger! When I tell you where have no storage currently, it's true!

We don't have 20% down to put on a house. However, we are fortunate to not have to as I have access to my VA loan (0% down and no PMI). With that said, that is another reason why we need to wait until our current house is sold as it will free up my VA certificate of eligibility to draw from again.

@benjesbride - You are correct; we haven't explored all our renovation options. With that said, I didn't mention in my original post that before we moved in, we put over $20,000 in the house to update it. Removed all the old hollow 80's brown doors, trims, baseboards, etc. Updated the bathrooms and put hardwood floor throughout the house. We also had a custom bench made in our kitchen along the wall that serves as storage and seating for the table. To be honest, my wife and I really don't want to spend anymore money on renovations. We will not be able to make the money back. There are two parts to our neighborhood, older and newer. We live in the older part so the money we dump into the house will not be able to be recouped.

As stated earlier, 1,500 sq ft would be okay with a basement. I can tell you that we do not want a 3,500 sq ft house! Ideally, 2,500-2,700 sq ft with 4 bedrooms and a basement would be perfect. My family is always up here visiting from Florida so they need a room to sleep in.

Like benjesbride said, I won't try to talk you into something you just plain don't want, but as someone who lived in a 1000 square foot 2 bedroom house with three children under 5 and now lives in a 400 sf school bus with 4 children, including an infant, it really is doable. It's like people who go out and buy a brand new minivan as soon as they have their third kid because they don't think three carseats will fit in the back of their car. You might need to buy skinnier carseats, but $500 in carseats is much less than a $30k vehicle.

Not trying to argue with you, just trying to help you consider different possibilities to avoid spending unnecessary expense and effort that might be completely avoidable with some thinking outside the box.

In my experience, kids don't get woken up by babies nearly as easily as adults do. But if that is a concern, could you have the extra crib in your room for the first few months?

Of course, you know your kids and situation best. I'm just trying to suggest ways you could make do while you save up and research, both of which are necessary before jumping into anything.

Even with kids personalities are not a one size fit all. I had to share a room with my younger sis (1 1/2 years younger) when we were kids, and we have very different personalities. I swear that is the reason why I could not live with my college roommates and ended up paying for a single room. I've been happily married for 11 years so yes I do actually get along with people.

We have one kid and will build on the family farm in the Spring. The plan our architect is working on is 1300 sqft 2 bed/2 bath with a finished basement which will have an office for DH since he works from home. I get the acreage thing. I grew up in an urban ghetto and then DH moved me out to a big house on ten acres. He then decided he wanted to move back to the family farm in Iowa so here we are.

I also suggest you take your time and keep trying to explore your options. You really have to decide what is best for you and your family. Good luck.

@sweetsarahbeth - I know you are not trying to argue with me. I appreciate your thoughts and suggestions.

I do agree with you that it is doable. However, not knowing the sex of the child yet (so let's assume it is a girl), personally, I don't like the idea of putting both a boy and girl in the same room. I believe they should have their separate rooms as their toys, colors, etc will be different. My wife and I both grew up in a house hold we each of our siblings (2 on my side and 3 on her side) each had their own rooms. We are very fortunate that our parents could afford it.

Not say you or anyone else doesn't, but my wife and I are very fortunate to have really good jobs and can afford to provide our family with a certain lifestyle.

I agree with you on the car seat analogy. One, my wife and I both DESPISE minivans! haha. Two, we have plenty of room to have 3 car seats in one vehicle and 4 in another!

Please don't take this the wrong way (and I'm not saying your experience is wrong), however, each person/child/adult is completely different from one another. As you stated, in your experience, kids don't get woken up by babies easily as adults. Granted, we don't have a our newborn to find out, but what we do know is our son is a light sleeper at the moment and the littlest thing can wake him up. If we don't have too, I prefer to not put him in that situation.

Trust me, I get the whole maximizing space and being efficient (my wife would get it more than I do as she is very frugal compared to me!). All things aside, even if we made some small renovations to make our current house work, it still lacks the land and that is something that cannot be added. Granted it will work for the time being, but our ultimate goal is to have more land for the children.

Again, I appreciate your thoughts and suggestions as it gives me more ideas to think about.

@lowacommute - I agree with you. Everyone has their own personalities and one size doesn't fit all. All factors have to be considered, financial situation, living arrangements, lifestyle etc. What one family has to do versus another family based on those factors and lifestyle is completely different.

I agree with that everyone is suggesting about taking time. That is one reason why we are starting to look at our options now (as we don't plan to build until end of 2016) and why I've reached out to the forums for advice.

I really appreciate everyone's wisdom, thoughts, and suggestions. Thank you all very much and have a Merry Christmas!

Welp, if you're fortunate enough to have a good income and a frugal wife it shouldn't take very long to save up what you need to do what you want! :D

Edit: just want to make sure that I didn't come off sarcastic or snarky because that wasn't my intent!

My parents built a house on 1.4 acres when I was an infant. They wanted room for the kids to play. Unfortunately, where they built there were few other kids for me to play with. I would have preferred closer neighbors and some friends!

If you save up enough to buy the land you can use that as collateral for the house construction loan. Any improvements you do I.e. well, septic, driveway will also count.

"room for the kids to play."

We've now got two teen boys and they set foot exactly once in five years on our 3/4 acre treed city lot. Saw some bugs and that was the end of that! Since then, it's been inside on screens or at the climate-controlled health club.

I told them I might as well buy a high-rise condo with access to underground shopping and the subway and they wouldn't ever have to go outside. They were thrilled with the idea!

I was thinking was socal said. You mention wanting "land for the kids", but often what kids want is access to other kids. I'm in an older suburb with smaller lots (e.g., 65-80' wide on average) and bands of little kids are always out and about in each other's yards, and mine. I love that! The trade off with having smaller yards is that my kids grew up in a great school district where they walked or biked to school, town, pool, parks, etc. - part of their lifestyle rather than being driven everywhere. It's nice for the parents, too, to have that neighborly support system when something comes up and the kids need watching. You may feel differently, but I'd caution that you make sure the land you want is for you and your spouse. Hopefully your kids will feel the same way, but if they don't at least you and your wife will enjoy the land.

I agree with the others. My parents brought us up in a neighborhood where the lots weren't too large and every night in summer we'd be outside playing with all the neighborhood kids.

When I raised my kids, I found a neighborhood just like that. Our front lawn which was larger (40 x 100) was the neighborhood baseball and dodgeball lot. Our driveway was for skateboards. And there were kids running in and out all day long. I wouldn't have had it any other way. Kids need to be with kids, not alone on huge plots of land.

Only you know if and how much house you can afford to build. We don't know your circumstances. And yes, an existing home is certainly a safer bet....if you can find something.

but...I have to say there is no way we would build a house without selling first, especially when we were young. Even mortgage free and older, it puts you in a position of taking less for your house than you might otherwise take...imho.

We built our first home when I was pg with our second child. Lived in a really crappy rental. But, it sure took the pressure off and just made moving into the new home more fun. Tell your wife it's not wise, because it's not.

PS Thank you for your service :-)

Be aware that buying a fixer-upper can be as expensive as building new in a lot of places, and you likely won't be able to live there while substantial work is going on (especially with a pregnant wife and a child.) I don't know if you'd be saving much money going that route.

If you want a new house, you need to either be able to handle two mortgages at once or sell your existing home first. Anything else is too risky.

I wouldn't recommend going the major fixer upper route unless it's a killer deal with special attributes like great location, nice lot size, coveted view, etc Even though our experience was stressful, it was still fun because we could go to the fixer upper and get to know the neighbors on walks, enjoy the trees and the view, and see the finish line with a vision for a forever home. A major fixer upper with nothing special about it would not have been worth it for us.