LogFAQs > #976870752

Yes. Exactly what I did.

Shishiwakamaru posted...

With the ultimate goal of saving a lot of money compared to buying a house normally

Ha ha ha! No!

What is stopping someone from doing this? Zoning laws, difficulty of connecting to the grid, etc.

Any piece of land will say what it is zoned for if you look it up.
If your land is near existing houses, connecting utilities to it shouldn't be hard, just yet another expense. You can see if your state/county has online maps available showing the sewer and water "grid", and plan your lot purchase accordingly.
Or if there are no existing lines... you can get a septic tank and/or well, respectively. Requires that the lot be "perc tested."
HOA covenants even on vacant land can exist, because we live in the worst timeline, and limit what you can build. Mine had a fucking minimum square footage requirement that forced me to build a larger (thus, more expensive) house than I wanted, for example.
Builders charge more for "build on your own lot" than they do on their own lots/developments, many straight up don't offer it, and might charge extra fees if it's not near an existing job site.
Right now might be a better time to do it, I think they're drying up for business and more desperate. When I built, they were flush w/ work and almost no one agreed to build on my lot, plus the supply shortages meant getting appliances was hard so they prioritized finishing houses on their own lots so they could be sold off.

theAteam posted...

The amount of money saved is directly related to how much of the work you can do yourself. Do you know which permits to apply for and how to do them? Do you know a guy that's an architect? Got an inside track on a builder that'll give you discounts? etc...

I was looking at this route (being your own general contractor) when I struggled to find someone willing to build on my own lot.
Seems like a bad idea unless you're experienced building houses. The builders have all sorts of deals and relationships with sub-contractors and will usually get better prices for stuff that offsets their own overhead costs.
Plus...
1) If you still want a builder to provide any reduced services managing the project...good luck finding a legitimate one willing to do it. I explored that route, and just got a bunch of randos w/ phone numbers (no website, no business listing, etc...) who seemed like they would just vaguely tell me what I wanted to hear ("yeah, whatever you want, we can do it"). Sketchy as hell.
2) Using a normal builder, you have warranties and such in place to cover any issues the first few years (every new house will have some issues). If you're your own general contractor, then...