No. Sorry to say, but custom design and building almost always costs more than buying an existing house.

No. No online Internet site can have costs which are accurate for a specific geographical location, due to individual labor and materials costs, plus scheduling and availability of builders. Plus specific site conditions and local jurisdiction requirements and permits are never included in such sites.

No. The house, as attractive as it may be, is neither very functional (look at circulation; look at closets; etc), nor necessarily economical to build since local conditions are ignored.

You need to do a lot of local due diligence, starting with the costs of existing housing which meets your family needs. Do these houses also meet your available budget?

If you can afford existing houses with a contingency of, say 20%, you may realistically think about custom home design and construction.

Good luck on your journey--exciting times ahead!

Thanks for the reply. Guess I just need to come to terms with the fact that one income families can't afford housing in our area. :(

That's true for a lot of areas these days. Of at least, not the kind of houses to which we are accustomed. Remember, when your grandparents were bringing up children, wants/needs were far less. One car - either wife drove husband to work or he took the bus. Never eating out unless it was a VERY special occasion. Vacations were car trips to visit relatives. There often was only 1 bathroom in a house. People brushed woolens and aired them and pressed them multiple times before sending them to the dry cleaners. Children (and often husbands!) took their lunch to school or came home. The list goes on and on... Today, we expect a certain standard of living and it's very hard to maintain on a single salary, especially in high housing cost areas. One either moves to a lower cost area (that's what we did) or the wife gets a full-time job.

To answer one of your questions--the house plan you shared isn't as simple as it appears. It has a lot of corners, and the porch won't be inexpensive. The least expensive type of plan to build is a simple rectangle. The metal roof will likely cost more than asphalt shingles.

AD will generate a report for you - for a fee of course- the cost to build one of their designs in your area. I can't say how accurate it is.

Do you have land/lots in mind? I would first check with the county/state regarding requirements for building in the area, as well as the zoning board; you don't want to become invested in a gorgeous lot that turns out to be a slim treeline away from a commercially zoned area, has the ground ever perced in the past, etc. Can you get a break on agricultural taxes, what do you have to do to maintain that? How much are impact fees? That may be why costs are so high, and there's not a lot of properties for sale.

A lot of people will tell you to find an architect, but if you're still in the "I wonder..?" stage, dreaming of house plans online is a fine first step. I credit trawling AD with helping me refine my likes and dislikes in houses, I love all the pictures they have (better than line drawings for me). I already had an idea of what I wanted- number of beds/baths, open concept kitchen/dining/living, etc. and what I didn't want, so looking at thousands (yes, thousands!) of house plans, I could see the variety of ways in which those things were achieved.

GL!!

Building new will almost always cost more than buying used.

Your best bet is to find the worst house (with good bones) in the best neighborhood you can afford and then slowly renovate the house so it becomes the best house in the neighborhood. If you're young, sweat equity is a wonderful thing.

Thanks, all! Yes, we would love to buy a fixer upper...we've been looking for 3 years, during which of course prices have gone up. We aren't that young, so I was hoping we were going to be upsizing, not rebuying what we sold (1100 sf on a tiny lot). We are looking at rural lots...have shied away from building mostly because of all the unknown land costs, since it can vary SO much depending on how much wet lands, etc.

What is "AD"?

Guess I just need to come to terms with the fact
that one income families can't afford housing in our area. :(

I hear ya... My husband supports all 7 of us (5 kids, so far). And when we need to start caring for aging parents in a decade or so, he'll be supporting 2-4 more. Our kids have special needs, and may never leave the nest (which we are totally cool with, thankfully), so I will likely not be able to directly contribute to the household income.

There's a lot we sacrifice, which I'm sure is the case with y'all, too. We also had to move to another state and switch career paths, basically starting over. Many people told us it couldn't be done, but we are closer... Just takes time. And a slight adjustment of dreams.

Something to consider. <3

Edited at add: "AD" is Architectural Designs, the site you linked to. :-)

Ha. :) I pinned that so long ago, I didn't even notice.

Yes, so worth it. We only have 4 and my husband has a good job, just an expensive area with so many family and friends, it would be hard to leave. Both our parents built with much lower paying jobs in the same area, so it feels like we should be able to do the same! But the housing market is not what it was then.

Does anyone have links to houses that are relatively inexpensive to build? When I search on most sites, 3000 sq ft houses with 3 master suits come up! Don't tell me that 3 full bathrooms are inexpensive! ;)

Look for a rectangle without bump outs etc. 2 story is usually cheaper but not always.

I agree with cpatrist in regards to building a rectangle without any bump-outs or anything else extra that would increase your cost, unless you're willing to spend the extra money for those things.

That's what we started out with, and it did make a difference in the base cost of our house. We originally planned for the house dimensions to fit truss sizes that are readily available locally, but ended up going with a framer who did a great job and don't regret that decision at all because, although it may have cost a little more, we feel like we have a stronger/better house. (After doing more research into the trusses, they just weren't up to the quality we were expecting.)

I could not find a plan online that was like what we wanted. All of the simpler built, rectangular exterior homes were very different on the interior than what we had in mind. So, I drew it out on the computer and found an architect who was also a builder to draw up our plans based on my rough draft that I'd put together on the computer. The software I used is called Home Designer Suite by Home Architect, in case you're interested. It's pretty user friendly, and we got it on Amazon for less than $100 at the time. It was definitely worth the money because it allowed us to really play with the floor plan and get a better idea of what we really wanted and how it would function. Of course, no computer program will compare to seeing it framed out, and that doesn't compare to what it will look like when you see the drywall up. But, it's a great place to start.

Agree with the above. Keep it simple, minimal corners, don't go overboard on the windows etc. We built a modest 2000 sq ft, four bedrooms on the main eight years ago. We did a basic rectangular house, vinyl sheet flooring (which I love having with two boys in the house), fiberglass shower, laminate countertops, really not much of upgrades other than where it counted (windows, spray foam insulation etc). Originally our mudroom was much smaller and created another corner up front, at the last minute a frind of a family member questioned why the bump in front and we ended up running the wall straight across, giving us another 50+ sq ft plus it saved us money.

You certainly can build on a budget, however you have to be willing to look for deals, quote several contractors and laborers, talk to the lumber yard about what you can do to save money and give up a lot of the "nice to haves". Agree on the width of trusses, we were told anything over 33 was not basic and would cost substantially more as they aren't "in stock" ones, needless to say our current house is 33' wide (not sure if this is still accurate now days). For the house we're currently building, we priced out four different lumber yards, by going with one 45 minutes away, we ended up saving roughly $6800. That said building materials alone have nearly doubled since last time we built (talk about sticker shock!).

Also I'm not sure were you are located, but talk to people and find out what price per square foot they are paying. Obviously try to find people that generaled themselves to give you a better idea but that's what we based our budget off of and in the end we came in less than one and a half percent over budget on our current house. They should be able to give you some pointers, and some insight to see if building is feasible for you.