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I find the majority of new houses to be very ugly and I have been wondering lately how much it is to build a custom house vs purchasing a generic track house.
It is here in the Bay Area!! It's about $350 per square foot here in Alameda County.
I've seen some 'custom' homes around Taos, New Mexico that literally cost their owners only a few thousand dollars. They kind of look like it too. No granite countertops there.
On the other hand, many custom homes that cost their owners a small fortune, allowing them to explore the outer reaches of their imaginations. Although in fact most of these places are more ostentatious than imaginative.
You could choose to land somewhere in the middle.
The advantage any tract house has is in labor and material costs, neither of which you can match since they deal in volume.
But you enjoy advantages as well. For one, you are excising the developer's profit margin. More importantly you have the option of being creative. Not only in a style that best suites you but also in utility and function. A modern tract house might claim good insulation, energy star appliances, etc., but rarely if ever match what you can come up with yourself. In some cases, such as insulation, your initial cost might be more, but in comfort and long term savings the advantage all yours.
Plus, as you intimate, nothing mass produced could ever hope to suite you as well as that specifically tailored.
In no more than shifting a window here or there you will probably pay more per square foot for a custom over a tract house. But with a little creativity you can do far better, even possibly at less cost.
Well, if you really want a custom house built inexpensively, you could always find someone who wants to live on the land in question, design a home with you, and set about it using mostly salvage and naturally-present materials. A good craftsworker can do it all if they've got two or three years to do it in. (And I'm not talking about earth-ship homes in Taos!)
Of course this depends on finding a good match between you and your live-in builder, and on the scope of the job -- but a modest two-story home with a small guesthouse, built near a salvage-materials-rich metro area or on resource-rich land (ie: stone, wood, water, good soil for growing food) would be a very realistic project for someone with the skills and motivation (like me -- ha!). I'd put a pricetag of $40,000 in wages and $20,000 in materials on that general notion.
Working in the Bay Area I've sold doors for $1000+ installed which cost me less than $50 in (all-new) materials/energy to manufacture. The way to short-circuit this insane markup on craftmanship is to remove the huge cost of living for the craftsperson by having them live and work on-site.
I should have mentioned in my initial post that if I did this I would try to do a lot of the work myself (For example, cabinets, flooring, cosmetic work etc).
I'm perfectly happy making my own Mahogany doors =)
I would mainly need someone to build the structure, put in the plumbing, electrical and do some other things I'm not comfortable doing myself.
So a better question would have been how expensive is it to have someone build the "core" of a modest 4-5 bedroom house.
we are building a home in denver co. and our blueprints are estimated to cost us 1800.00 for a 1300 sq. ft. log home...no changes and pretty much your basic log home...is this high? or am I cheap? wait don't answer the last part....hee hee!
I find the majority of new houses to be very ugly and I have been wondering lately how much it is to build a custom house vs purchasing a generic track house.
Same here! I have been thinking about this for a long time too. I took a class on 'blue-printing your dream house' once and I'm curious as to what it would cost to take home designs to a builder and say, "Please build it like this."
Same here! I have been thinking about this for a long time too. I took a class on 'blue-printing your dream house' once and I'm curious as to what it would cost to take home designs to a builder and say, "Please build it like this."
your plans will still have to be looked over by a designer or Architect. There are certain requirements per the plans that each city / county need for approval and permits. such as in Boulder you need to do a solar shadow analasys, along with tons and tons of additional items. The thing that drives most of us Architects NUTS is getting plans done by a client. We usualy have to redraw them anyway to make things work structuraly. The best thing you can do is to bring your drawings to an Architect / Designer, and use them as a base as to what you would like, listen to their advice and work directly with them to get what will work in terms of fitting your needs, and fitting the needs of future owners (if you dont plan on living there for the rest of your lives.) The city / county requirements are starting to get really strict about things when having a house design submited for permit, and it really does take a professional that deals with this daily to get it to run smooth and on budget
Something to think about... I got an email from one of the builders here in NJ... Tim Schaeffer.. They are now building on lots supplied by the buyer. Since we just bought in a community I didn't look into this more so I don't know if this particular builder offers their plans on your own lot or what.
With builders hurting, you might be able to get a decent deal.
Ok . I thought why to create a new topic and create a junk out there.. So i would rather ask here.
I am curious to build a custom house of my own.
Are there any good builders in Saskatoon who will build a custom built house?
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All how you plan it
