Building a house

[sftull]

My wife and I are throwing around the idea of building a house. Our current house is 4br 3ba, 2400sq ft. The neighborhood we like has a 3200sq ft min and I'm alittle concerned that extra space is just going to be too big. What are your thoughts on building more house than you think you need, just to get into a neighborhood?

[2thDoc]

i would rather be gangraped by porcupines before being told by ANYONE what the mininum or maximum sized how I can build is.

[Catdaddy]

Get ready for a lot of cleaning and a $400 electric bill every month.


Also once you decide on the floor plan and get the builder under contract, send your wife on a 1 year vacation. It will be cheaper than keeping her around.

[Highstrung]

I dip my nuts on that contract and hand it right back to them.

[Fishinmission]

If thats really the neighborhood you want to be in then I say go for it, You can make the areas you spend alot of time in bigger/better without adding rooms or anything. (master, kitchen,living room)

From a mans point of view, i would make my garage big as shit if your worried about where to eat up some space at.

[Biggie1976]

What hood yall looking at?

[FishSticker]

Gotta heat and cool that thing, pay taxes and insure it once it's built. Good side of things is that you always want to be one of the smaller houses in a development as opposed to one of the largest when it comes to valuation.

[stgswampstomper]

What 2th said, I'd find some where else. I couldn't imagine having to deal with an HOA.

[sftull]

2nd and HS, I don't know what we would do w/o your great one liners....

[dhall1693]

Was told back in April, wile I was getting ready to build a house from everyone under the sun, to make sure you have a great marriage because it is hell.........
They where 10000% correct, but it is fun watching it go up now.

But, mine is sitting on 20 acres, and no one can tell me how I can build it. Oh and parent of a Clemson player is building it, but I'm all smiles.

[sftull]

What am I look at for sq ft cost with brick, hard woods, 9' ceilings, etc? Nothing too fancy.

[FishSticker]

What 2th said, I'd find some where else. I couldn't imagine having to deal with an HOA.

Necessary evil when you get into most 500k+ houses...have to protect property values, otherwise someone will roll in tornado bait in the middle of the night. Or park 40 eleven cars in the front yard

[Highstrung]

2nd and HS, I don't know what we would do w/o your great one liners....

Living in an shallow empty internet world wondering what could have been..

[dhall1693]

What am I look at for sq ft cost with brick, hard woods, 9' ceilings, etc? Nothing too fancy.

I had bids from $93/ SQ Ft- $150 /Sq Ft, But I found out you can't go on the above information alone. Feel free to pm me your number and I'll tell you my experience

[sftull]

Best way to keep an HOA at bay is to invite the president and vp over for dinner every now and then.

[Sportin' Woodies]

White people....

[Mergie Master]

If you aren't planning to retire and live out your life there and you don't mind paying to be be told everything you have to do to stay there (HOA), and you can afford it, go for it. But know this, as you get older and kids move out y'all are going to use less and less of the house. Eventually you and the wife will only use a very small part of that big house. You'll use the kitchen and each will probably have a preferred bathroom (sort of his and hers), the entertainment/living room/great room where the TV is and the bedroom. It's a natural evolution, everyone does that eventually. All the rest of that floor space has to be heated, cooled and cleaned. It won't be worth it. If you plan on selling and downsizing when you get older that's a different song. I was warned about stairs and I didn't listen. I'm still healthy enough to run up my stairs but I can see a day coming maybe soon when I will hate them.

My sis-in-law and her husband are around 4 years older than me, they had 3 boys all close together in age. They built a 5600 sqft home, it's like 2½ stories. Now the boys are married and have their own families and sis-in-law and husband complain all the time about how much trouble it is to keep up. They never go to the upstairs or the full basement with what looks like a Golds Gym in one section. They use the TV room, kitchen, bathrooms and the master bedroom, that's it.

Personally, looking back, I wish I had bought my own land and built a much smaller house.

[MKW]

Building a house ain't that bad. We have built 4 and would do it again if I needed to move.
HOA's do suck ass, but it's hard to get in a nice area without one...well, at least around here.
If you build a big house, use spray-foam insulation. It really helps keep energy costs down.

[SaltMuck]

I don't like the gubment telling me how to live and I sure won't sign up for my neighbors telling me how much money I ought to spend on my house. Oh and I built mine 5 years ago for ~$95/sqft.

[Saltydog235]

$93-$150/sf is one helluva delta in price. Either builders weren't building the same house from the same specifications or the low man didn't know what the hell he was doing. $95.00 is low as hell unless you are building a basic spec type home or POS tract house. If you're going into the 3200/sf more upscale middle class home, you'll most likely be in the $150/sf give or take range. That is dependent on location and market of course as well as whether you are using a true custom builder or one of these lets promise them a whole bunch of shit and dick them over builders.

I wouldn't concentrate so much on the SF price as I would on the specifications and the differences in the individual numbers on things like allowances, this is where you spend money. Also, a builder that is worth a shit is going to do a full blown quantity takeoff and quoted pricing. If he's worth hiring, he'll sit down and show you exactly where your money is going.