Current Events > Question: Can you just buy some land and build a house on it?

(+) Yeah! (+)

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

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

Shishiwakamaru posted...

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

Yes.

To clarify more. I live in Japan which has basically no zoning laws and did exactly this. But in America you can't just do that.

Shishiwakamaru posted...

What is stopping someone from doing this?

The Man

Zoning laws not so much, supposing you're doing this out in the boonies or on a preexisting lot zoned for residential in a city.

Grid connections, road access, permits, and construction code would be bigger issues.

Zoning laws, difficulty of connecting to the grid, etc.

This and also having to know how to build a house

It's expensive and a pain in the ass to deal with inspections and permits. Those also extend how long it takes to build the place. There's more expensive things that need done that people don't think about right away like having to dig a well / hook up to private water. Public sewage or septic tank.

And you better hope that electricity runs to the land you wanna build on or else you have to run that there. Same with internet unless you go with Starlink or something.

It's just a ton of little headaches that people generally don't wanna deal with.

i guess it also depends a lot on if you're building your own place in a housing area already or if you're building out in the boonies somewhere.

If you're buying land with the intent to be on the grid and having the house professionally built, it's going to cost roughly the same as buying an already built house.

If you're talking about buying land in the middle of nowhere and building a log cabin by hand, it would would be cheaper but would take several years.

Talas posted...

If you're buying land with the intent to bed on the grid and having the house professionally built, it's going to cost roughly the same as buying an already built house.

If you're talking about buying land in the middle of nowhere and building a log cabin by hand, it would would be cheaper but would take several years.

Get your Amish homies to help

It will cost you tens if thousands connecting it to the system.

I cant, no, as Im not eligible to own land in the country I live in.

I have a coworker who did this in nowheres Idaho. The land was very cheap. Building the house was relatively cheap. Internet is very expensive (I think he uses a microwave link to a tower). Connecting to the grid was very expensive, and I think he's not fully connected to all utilities. Solar panels are a necessity.

Some people also buy tear-downs: A cruddy, or even condemned, house, sold just for the land (buyer has to raze it). Those are typically not in remote areas and the new construction can be connected to utilities much easier.

Shishiwakamaru posted...

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

You won't be saving much, unless you're talking about buying land and building a house somewhere cheaper than where you already live.

I'm not entirely sure what if any permits my dad had when he built our house, but it was in the late 70's/early 80's.

Talas posted...

If you're buying land with the intent to be on the grid and having the house professionally built, it's going to cost roughly the same as buying an already built house.

If you're talking about buying land in the middle of nowhere and building a log cabin by hand, it would would be cheaper but would take several years.

Eh, depends on the size of the cabin. My Boy Scout troop built one on a guy's grandfather's farm, I wanna say it was...20 feet on a side, square with a half-loft maybe nine feet off the floor, with probably four feet of headroom up there. There were maybe ten of us, and it took us a couple weekends. Granted, we weren't chopping down trees ourselves or anything.

Im in the process of doing this now. Builders in my area are offering really good financing 4.5% interest loans.

I have a piece of land under contract. I have 30 days to investigate if its buildable or not. Already talked to the town, no easements are on the property and all utilities are at the road. Minimum 1500 sq foot house must be built, my house plans are for a 2000 sq foot so I pass that.

My builder is now checking out the lot and is supposed to be giving me an estimate soon.

If Im ok with the estimate Ill go ahead and proceed. 6 months minimum build time. Its a long process but I hope it works out.

tankboy posted...

I have a coworker who did this in nowheres Idaho. The land was very cheap. Building the house was relatively cheap. Internet is very expensive (I think he uses a microwave link to a tower). Connecting to the grid was very expensive, and I think he's not fully connected to all utilities. Solar panels are a necessity.

Some people also buy tear-downs: A cruddy, or even condemned, house, sold just for the land (buyer has to raze it). Those are typically not in remote areas and the new construction can be connected to utilities much easier.

My best friends step dad is a carpenter and did that. It was just a burnt out house on a residential street. I helped with a lot of the demo work. He built it up from the ground up, but like you said the necessities and connections for utilities and such were already in place so it ultimately saved him a quite a bit of money.

You would probably need to buy some land in the wilderness or outside of a zoned city/town/village to do this.

But if you bought a plot of land that wasn't part of some existing zoned area... I don't see why couldn't build your prepper log cabin deal on it.

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...

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...

boomgetchopped3 posted...

Im in the process of doing this now. Builders in my area are offering really good financing 4.5% interest loans.

I have a piece of land under contract. I have 30 days to investigate if its buildable or not. Already talked to the town, no easements are on the property and all utilities are at the road. Minimum 1500 sq foot house must be built, my house plans are for a 2000 sq foot so I pass that.

My builder is now checking out the lot and is supposed to be giving me an estimate soon.

If Im ok with the estimate Ill go ahead and proceed. 6 months minimum build time. Its a long process but I hope it works out.

Good luck.

It'll cost you a lot. Unless you're building a tree house to live in or something very very small.

There's prefab housing now that you can do that is assembled on another site then delivered to the housing location. This way it can be up to code while assembled elsewhere, then finally assembled on site once it's ready

hereforemnant posted...

There's prefab housing now that you can do that is assembled on another site then delivered to the housing location. This way it can be up to code while assembled elsewhere, then finally assembled on site once it's ready

That's a good suggestion.

Shishiwakamaru posted...

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

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

You need:

1. A permit from the city
2. An architect/civil engineer plan compliant with all building codes
3. An authorized construction company
4. The land

The places most people would be able to do this kind of thing won't be running into much trouble with zoning laws so I wouldn't worry too much about that.

It will cost a little bit more than just buying a house when all is said and done but IMO it's worth it to have a house that's brand new and built just the way you want it.

Lil_Bit83 posted...

That's a good suggestion.

Example: https://www.championhomes.com/home-plans-photos/bainbridge?location=Richmond,+VA&radius=50+miles&floorplans=kitchen:standard

This will probably be my plan going forward, a land grant or something then a prefab house. Most of us can't deal with this bullshit renters market