Buying land and Building a house

Anyone have experience in purchasing land and building a home? Tips or tricks? Things to watch out for?
I have a budget of 200k to work with and I want to keep costs down.
Right now I'm weighing the options of allowing my cousins excavation company to dig our basement or borrowing my uncles backhoe to do it myself. Problem is the rainy season is coming up soon. Plus its Missouri so the weather fluctuates like a woman's mood.

I found 8.37 acres I'm going to make an offer on, Mostly wooded, on a hill.

A gravel driveway is what I'm thinking will be the cheapest and easiest for me to do, my dad is loaning me his small tractor with a blade so I can blade out the driveway and spread gravel.

Beyond that I'm stuck trying to decide if I should buy a steel building and build a shouse, hold off on the basement; or dig a basement and put a modular home on top.

My Aunt is my realtor and she's checking on if there are any restrictive covenants on the land that would prevent us building a modular.

Stick built is simply too expensive unless I had a job where I could take off a lot of time and dig out, frame up, run all the plumbing/electric/air/etc by myself or with a few friends.

I'm preapproved for the land loan, and ready to make my offer, its listed overpriced per acre for the area and since its all on a large hill, we are going to leverage a lower price plus closing costs.

Any one have any tips for me? Am I getting too far in over my head? If all goes wrong I can always buy a house instead of the land, but the American Dream and all.

 

are you running power or off grid?

 

Oh man where do I start.
Building a house is not for the faint hearted. There many hoops to jump through and you need a professional architect, not an engineer, not a realtor, an architect who check the codes to see if the land is even developable. These days with environmental restriction you need to check into state law too to make sure you don’t go in there trampling on some endangered snakes or whatever. You will need professional surveyor to stake out your land and take that to the architect so he knows what he’s dealing with. Whatever structure you put down it has to meet codes (electrical, energy, fire escape, impervious area etc...) since you’re not live there forever and someone someday buy your place it has to be safe for them to live too. It can’t be a death trap. You also want to make it to code and legal so the insurance company will insure it or you will be on your own. Or worse you can’t even sell it later.
Electrical, sewage, gas is a whole other story. If you ended up with a variant, meaning you persist to build on this land even with restrictions you will be dealing with the planning board and the neighbors
There a whole lot more to get into but that’s just the 10% sum up.

 

Power and water are already on site.

We are looking into the covenants now, we were going to have a builder put a modular home in, take care of all codes, and connect up power and water. We'd have to get a perc test and put in a septic tank too.

 

there alternate types of septic if it doesnt perc well.

 

Yeah my dad's house has a lagoon, not sure what all is involved there other than digging out a big hole in the ground that's lower than the house. The property slopes off enough that wouldn't be a problem.
I'm also weighing my options to another cheaper plot that's in a different neighborhood, its smaller, but more treed. What I want is to be surrounded by trees and not see my neighbors lol

 

http://www.co.thurston.wa.us/health/ehoss/septic_types.html

 

If it doesn't pass perk make sure county will accept other forms of septic. Like composting or the burn type like boats use.

 

The best bet is to stop by your town hall and talk to the engineer there first. They can be your best friend or your complete nightmare. You can have the floor plan of your modular house signed of with the supplier’s engineers so you can by pass the architect. At the end of the day the building inspector will sign of the Certificate of Occupancy and as long as he’s comfortable whatever approach you’re going with. You might just pull this off.

I’m an architect in NJ which is the most populous state in the country so codes and codes is all we live and breath by.

 

I've got 5 acres and it won't pass a perk. But, the county is testing other forms of septic.

 

They're even talking about approving tiny houses..which would be cool.

 

Do you have experience in residential building? If not, higher a GC. There are many parts of house construction you will be caught unawares unless you have experience. My wife and I built our house. We purchased the land which was already developed then built the house. I had been in house construction for 8-10 years as an employee (carpenter) of a construction company. I thought I was ready and knew all I needed to know...NOT THE CASE. There are specific projects in house erection that no certain contractor does; i.e. the flue in a framed chimney (not responsibility of heating contractor with oil/forced air); the vent hose connected bathroom exhaust fan (not installed by electrician)... these hidden costs add up. We did 50% of the work ourselves, the other 50% NEEDS to be contracted out or it takes forever to complete the project. That said, I saved a lot of money being my own GC.
Do as much research as you can before deciding on the route you wish to take.

 

If by "modular" you mean "mobile home," let me offer some advice. My wife and I went through this a few years ago. We built our previous house (hired the basement digging, concrete work, block work and did most of the rest ourselves). SWMBO decided she wanted something complete to move into.

Don't accept 7 1/2' walls if you intend to put up porch roofs or awnings. Look carefully at the wiring plans to ensure adequate circuits, especially in the kitchen. Expect the windows, appliances, fixtures and whatever to be the cheapest available. We had to paint the interior completely before moving in--the original paint washed off when a neighbor kid scuffed a place. We should have painted the exterior sooner than we did, tho the original held up fairly well. I found a couple of places where the insulation was totally missing. There were more problems--I made a 2 or 3 page list after moving in. In our case, correcting the problems and upgrading where it needed it probably would have cost about the same as building from scratch as we did the first time.

 

Buy the land and a used RV if you can put it there during construction. Another option is a barndominium with a small residence or office you can occupy while building something else. The latter is the route I plan to take. It will convert to a wood shop eventually.

 

Wut?

 

Ha ha smart guy. I meant by area. We have like 6 people per sq yard over here

 

Also in NJ yeah we are a little compact over here

 

My uncle bought a beautiful piece of property right on the Arkansas River for a screaming good deal. He then proceeded to build his dream house over the next five years. First he built a stick framed RV garage that he lived in while he worked on the main house. Took his sweet time and got the exterior completely finished, then finished one room at a time on the inside until he was fully moved in.

 

We decided to abandon our dreams for now, buy a house and build equity in it then when we can financially tackle it, buy land and build. Thanks for the help all.

Modular as in a prefab home not a mobile home. Its built on a foundation the same as any other home, just all the walls are prebuilt in a factory.

Yeah, that was the other idea I had, build a steel building on the cheap and then renovate the inside for a small livable space for the meantime. I don't think FHA will cover that though as a residence. Lot of red tape and regulations. I was going to see if my uncle would let me borrow his fifth wheel camper in the meantime while it went up and we built the interior.

 

I have a pretty steep drive way and I hate it. Working on A vehicle is not a option on this drive way. But I have 2 new vehicles that are under warranty. If your going to have a drive way on a grade I suggest a heated drive way when it snows so you don't have to shovel it.