Well. Probably someone will be along shortly to describe their 4000 square custom home they built in Texas for $46 a square foot.

Land. What kind of land? City lot? "Acreage?" Utilities? City water and sewer? Where I live a water share and septic set you back almost 40k.

Assume small city lot with city utilities. Very little lot prep. Short driveway. 40k for that? That leaves 140k for the house. Say, 1400 sq ft for $100 a foot? Perhaps doable with some heroic effort.

Good luck!

Hi,

We would like to have 1/2 acre lot or bigger if possible, but I think with our budget we may have to settle for a smaller lot size depending on what we can find. Also, we would like to be out of the city so I'm not sure how much that would cost depending on the location to get utilities to the land. I think we are open to many options if they can include the requirements I had written in my initial post. We just wanted to get the information on the whole process and if it would even be a possibility with our budget or if we should continue to wait for a home on the market.

Thanks!

If you can find rural land that will work for you (has electric power close by and has an acceptable way to get water and implement a sewage system), it may be relatively cheap to get a 1/2 acre lot. However, you might also have to dig your own well and install a septic system, which will raise your cost. You may also have difficulty getting natural gas service, so you will be on propane or oil.

Your next choice might be a development that allows you to build your own home. Just make sure the developer has all the approvals for electric, water and sewer for the development. These arrangements are between the city and the developer, and some developers don't like up to their end of the agreement. You also want to look at the covenants and restrictions to make sure you are happy with them, and to get an idea of what might be built around you. Restrictions can be good if they keep values up, but they might also keep you from building what you want or using the home in the way you want.

You can usually get a lot loan relatively easily, since raw land is not much of a risk if its priced fairly. However, when you get your construction loan you will need to qualify for the entire value of the finished house and land. Every lender has a slightly different process, since they have to account for quite a few variables. They may require periodic inspections of builder progress, payment to the builder only in increments as major steps are completed, or other restrictions that make it harder to work with the builder.

Bruce

It's really very location-specific. In our area of SC, there are tract homes all over the place for that much or less. Of course, I have no idea what prices are like in your area. A tract home in a subdivision is going to be the cheapest. All of the utilities are already in for hook-up. Once you get away from that, prices can escalate quickly. Permits, septic systems, and wells can all run into serious money before any dirt is even moved. I have a friend who paid $66K in fees and permits!

Take the house off of the market and stay put. If you can't afford an existing home, you certainly cannot afford to build custom.

Did anyone mention modular? I remember a basic house (really basic) was about $80k when I looked about 5 years ago. We were looking for a basic build. In the end, we did custom since basic didn't make sense for our needs. But I did meet with them, started on a $200k plan that got to $280k with changes/upgrades. Built custom for $250k. That did include permits, land prep, septic etc.

David I doubt the OP can build modular for under $180k considering that figure needs to include the cost of the land AND the OP wants "1/2 acre or bigger".

It might have been a possibility back in 2010 but not nowadays unless they do like mushcreek and build it themselves.

To the OP building is almost always more expensive than buying used. Find a fixer upper that is live able for now and slowly fix it up.

Hi cpartist,

Thank you. We will buy used and save to build the home after this one. We just wanted to see if this was a doable thing and know how much we need to save now for the future.

I am in S.Central Wi. We bought some land 8 years ago and now have it paid off (yea we use every extra penny for paying it off) and are going to break ground in the next few months for our house. We have about 60 acres and will be set back from the road about 800ft. With septic, driveway, electricity our 2700 sq ft home is coming in at a whopping 500K. Yes we have hardwood floor in the quote right now for the kitchen & entry, and a pretty large kitchen, a high effeciency wood burning fireplace, and large deck, but laminate counters, vinyl in bathrooms & laundry, carpet in rest. It is 3 br 2.5 bath with an unfinished walk out basement.

You need to find out what land prices are and figure that in the cost. Maybe you do what we did, buy the land and pay it off before you build. Land is the huge factor, down where I am (about 45 mins NW from Madison) land is crazy expensive. Had I gone over the border into Dane county it would have been twice as much.

Building cost in the North Woods is probably similar to where I am. I am paying about $185 sq ft. If you can do the contracting work yourself it will be cheaper, we can't do that. Our builder is getting about $35-40K when it's all said and done, and that is a discount because he would normally charge more, but we worked out a deal with him.

It is always more expensive to build a new home than buy one. We had been looking for years to buy a decent quality home on a few acres. But if we found something with land, the house was crap/teardown. If we found a livable house there was no land. So this is the way we chose to go.

I don't see how you can get a house built for $185K including land, unless you can be a minimalist and live in a pretty small space. Some people can, I do now and have for 22 years. But can't wait to have more than 1100 sq ft, more than one bathroom, a dishwasher, actual space in my kitchen and no close neighbors :)

Talk to a real estate agent, tell them what you are looking for, house, land only, house with land? And put them to work getting you some quotes and information. If you can find the perfect piece of land, get it and start paying it down. We found ours by driving around looking for a snipe hunt our agent sent us on, got lost and stumbled upon it. You never know what will happen..

Will do Jeyne, thanks!