Looking at house and land listings and the houses are becoming less and less appealing. Too big, too old, too small, wrong location, or just a really odd shape. I filter for age, size and price as well as bed and bath and get roughly the same listings.
Then I started just doing the math on how much would be needed to build a new house on a piece of land. Okay start looking for land under $100k because anything else is, to put it bluntly, either 'huge tracts of land' that is mostly forest or same cost for a small lot near a town that is a minimum of half hour drive to anywhere civilized. Or it's not level at all, mostly canyon or sloped, or a hill that needs to be be graded and shored and bleh. Okay so decided to go back and look at land available on Anderson Island where my friend lives.
Bingo. Yes there were lots over 100k but then I found this gem of 8400 sqft in the 'Riviera' which is about the only land that's left there and oh my goodness. It's only $8000!. Say what? there was another lot just behind it for a little more footage and $1000 more. Wait, what? I look at the pictures, I've been on the island and have seen most of the plots that are for sale there, it's a fairly level island so no worries about canyons or hills.
Nifty thing you can do with google maps is measure distance and it give you the area if you close it off. The actual listed area is 8398.368 rounding up just a smidge is easier. There are very few plots that are completely cleared. Most of them are close to the lake that's nearby and have huge houses on them. That little plot of land is just big enough to put a 40x58 house on plus have room for a yard and driveway. Most homes in the forest area have enough land cleared for the home and yard and that's about it. There might be something in the CCR's that says a certain area of trees need to be kept but just guessing on that.
This one here. This is a company that does 'build on your own lot' homes. The price for this one starts at $250k. Just for putting it on the lot, brick and mortar/stick built home not a mobile home. They don't do the grading or site work just the building and foundation. That is not a bad deal really, so let's say I want a back patio screened in that isn't on there, tack on an extra $10k for that. the optional things on the plan include an extra people door for the garage and a door outside in the master bedroom. HVAC is optional too but I've been researching that too.
$8k for a house lot! Still boggled about that and if this had come up 5 years ago when I had my 401k money come in, I would be calling the realtor right then and slapping down some money. Damn.
Okay so pricing things out and haven't even gotten to the landscaping yet I'm up to $300k and that includes electrical, septic, appliances, all the prep work needed. I suspect I'm lowballing that a bit but it's a start. Ductless heat pump/AC system, battery back up because I do know they get windy there and the power goes out regularly. The water is from a community well so no water cost, but extra filtering would be needed for the house. HOA that takes care of things and is really low involvment as far as HOA's are concerned is only $78/month. From what I've seen the people there are very friendly, mostly retired like us and permanent residents is a little over 1000 people. In the summer that doubles or triples due to vacationers that own homes there. Holidays are also especially busy and this plot is somewhat close to a popular 'swimmin hole' on the lake. That may be why it's so cheap.
I've seen houses on the market for that much that were pieces of crap and twenty years old. Brand new house in a near ideal location...yes please!
So yes, I do torture myself with this. Unless we start playing the lottery and win at least $5mil ain't happening but it's a dream right? Gotta dream, gotta dream big.
I looked at HVAC systems and knew that in a lot of the homes I saw there was 'upgraded to ductless heat pump/mini-split system and turns out, that's more efficient and best way to go for the type of climate they have up there. Solar systems are fiendishly expensive and given the amount of cloud cover it's not the most efficient in that area. A back up generator on the other hand is a must.
So running the numbers again adding in probably permit fees and possible transportation fees from builder...yeah.. about $300k. I'm lucky the square footage is under 1500, that's the lowest they consider for a single residence. There is another house plan I saw that was about 1200 but it didn't have as good a layout.
Oh, this plot of land was only listed today.
There are hundreds of sites on the island, some further away have a lower HOA cost but even at that, it's noise value compared to lot leases I've seen on mobile homes. I have to keep thinking positive about this and moving forward with trying to sell stuff, yes even to playing the lottery once in a while. I want to do this for our future, even as short as that may be. From start to finish it may even take a year for it to be finished but honestly, if we're talking reality, this is a dream and time means nothing.
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