Buying Property and Building Your Own Home - Tips, Tricks, Advice

[kscarrol]

^ Bless you! This is why we sold our land and bought home instead. Love following your progress but just didn't want this kind of project ourselves...

[DETRoadster]

Originally Posted by kscarrol

^ Bless you! This is why we sold our land and bought home instead. Love following your progress but just didn't want this kind of project ourselves...

I'm not so sure I want this kind of project anymore either.

It'll be nice to get on the other side of this phase where the "soft costs" are funded entirely by us and into the construction where we have a loan to manage the expenses. We came prepared with a pretty big chunk of cash sitting there to fund all this, and so far we are tracking right to budget. But it's still hard to see that money going out the door, $5000, $10000 at a time.

[Alfisti]

It's fucking brutal, we put in a pool and i was like a fucking drug dealer handing out paper bags of cash.

[DETRoadster]

Been a while since I updated this thread. I'm pleased to report that almost exactly 11 months to the date that we closed on the property, we just submitted our full packet to the city for permitting. It's nearly 40 pages long and covers all the architectural plans, site plans, storm water management, tree management, civil engineering, structural engineering, and more. The city is running anywhere from 2 to 4 months for plan reviews so with any luck we are building late this spring.

[dreamingat30fps]

We are looking to buy some land now, probably 10+ acres, however I have no plans to build anything on it anytime soon. Will be mainly for recreation, take our RV out there, hunt etc.

Might be a bit easier to build something around here, but still seems like a pita, I would have probably murdered someone or had a heart attack by now. The costs you have listed so far without counting the land or whatever the house actually costs is already like half the cost of our home on 3 acres!

[DETRoadster]

Originally Posted by dreamingat30fps

We are looking to buy some land now, probably 10+ acres, however I have no plans to build anything on it anytime soon. Will be mainly for recreation, take our RV out there, hunt etc.

Might be a bit easier to build something around here, but still seems like a pita, I would have probably murdered someone or had a heart attack by now. The costs you have listed so far without counting the land or whatever the house actually costs is already like half the cost of our home on 3 acres!

It's a daunting task these days and breathtakingly expensive if you live in an already expensive area as we do. High cost of living translates into high labor costs which directly impact the cost of the build. We have a perfect storm right now of materials shortages, inflation, labor shortages, market unrest, and interest rates going up. The general rule of thumb when we started this project a year ago was to have a 10% project buffer. That's out the window. I'd not recommend anyone start a project like this unless you have at minimum the ability to absorb a 25% overrun on costs. We are so close to the edge that we may just press pause after we get permits and sit on the land for a year or two, saving up money and hoping inflation and labor shortages stabilize.

[DETRoadster]

Well gang, shit got weird today.

As those of you who have been reading since the beginning may recall, we had a little blow-up with the architect in the early days of the project. He was waaaaay overreacting to some pretty small things and seemed a little unstable. All this was over e-mail so I gave him the benefit of the doubt and talked my wife down from her instinct to cut and run from the guy. She stands by her claim that the guy is an alcoholic given his erratic behavior, tendency to blow up fast, and her claim that he reeked of booze when we met to discuss the contract at 10:00 AM on a Saturday.

Well things have been fine for 6 months but then last week, the project manager for our project (who is an employee of the architect) abruptly up and quit the company leaving only the architect to manage the project. We were days from submitting the packet to the city for review so the bulk of their work was done. The architect got it over the goal line and off to the city. So that's good.

Well today, my wife gets a call on her cell from the architect. Out of the blue. He's never called her or me, outside of meetings. We e-mail, meet in person, or zoom. So a call from him out of the blue is weird. She said he was clearly drunk. Extremely drunk. He yammered on about how much he loves us as clients and how important this project is to him. Then he says "OK, I'll just level with you. I'm out on a farm that I found on Air BnB. I'm going to be out here for a week. I'm taking a mental health break. But dont worry, your project is #1 priority for me and I'll pick it back up when I'm back. And I love you guys. And I love this project. And did I mention I love you guys..." Sounded like he was there alone, without his wife and kids. My wife thinks he got kicked out of the house.

F'ing weird, right? I told my wife this is a bit like walking onto a flight and thinking the pilot is drunk. But we stuck it out and now, on final approach for landing, the pilot is clearly drunk and the co-pilot just ejected. Nothing we can do at this point but hang on for the ride and hope we dont crash!

[vreihen16]

Can you take what he has produced so far, and change project managers to another company/firm for the construction phase?

Have you tried reaching out to the former project manager, to see if he is starting his own company or would be willing to continue working on your project despite the falling out?

Hoping that these events are part of a family intervention that pushes your architect into rehab.....

[DETRoadster]

Originally Posted by vreihen16

Can you take what he has produced so far, and change project managers to another company/firm for the construction phase?

Have you tried reaching out to the former project manager, to see if he is starting his own company or would be willing to continue working on your project despite the falling out?

Hoping that these events are part of a family intervention that pushes your architect into rehab.....

Yeah, the timing of his melt-down is actually pretty good. The vast majority of his work is done. There will be questions from the city that have to be answered and likely some things tweaked on the drawing package but that's about it. The handoff to the builder (who is independent and not affiliated with the architect) begins happening now and the builder and his project manager are going to be able to address many if not all of the city's questions or change requests. I spoke with our builder last night and he assured me that many projects dont even have an architect. People buy and submit plans online and any changes the city wants can be made by the builder or a structural engineer. Both of which we have and appear sober.

Luckily the PM from from the architecture firm who quit has a very unique name so I was able to find him easily on LinkedIn. Reached out to him yesterday though he doesnt appear very active on the platform so we will see if I hear anything back.

[kscarrol]

Can't believe you were so hard on the guy that he snapped like that!

[Alfisti]

Man it is hard to find anyone competent at anything, get your shit together man.

[DETRoadster]

It's been a long time since I updated this thread. I'm close to just moving the whole thing to the FML thread...

First page with the running total of costs has been updated.

We submitted for permits back in January, or maybe February. It's been so long I cant actually remember. The city took about 4 months to get back to us and interestingly had zero issues with the house plans themselves. Not a single point of feedback on the structure! BUT, they had 3 pages of feedback on the arborist and civil engineering. They are hell bent on destroying our will to live when it comes to stormwater management. Apparently the storm water management guide for our county is 1500 pages long and its so convoluted that the county created a 100 page auxiliary manual to help you understand how to use the main manual. Government at its finest.

In order to properly design the storm water run-off systems on the property we first need to do infiltration testing. This is where we pay a company $8k to dig 3 test pits on the site and fill them with water from a tanker truck. Then we pay an engineer $5.4k to watch how fast the water is absorbed into the ground and write a report about it. Once we have that data, then we can pay our civil engineer God knows how much more money to design a bunch of gravel filled pits that manage the water that runs off the roof and the driveway. I'd understand it if we were putting a McMansion on a small 5000 sqft urban lot and using every bit of space but we are talking a 2000 sqft house on 1/2 an acre!

Anyway, at this point, given interest rates and building costs it's looking highly likely that we get our permits and just press pause for a year or two. The project has become wholly unaffordable in the time it's taken to try to get permits. FML.

[spazzyfry123]

My goodness that is discouraging. We've got our eye on some acreage, but hearing the stories consistently turns me off. Albeit, we'll be looking at a significantly less permit-happy county than yourself, but still...

How much of your roadblocks were surprises? I realize with custom builds there will always be surprises, but your permitting nightmare sure seems out of left field.

[DETRoadster]

Originally Posted by spazzyfry123

My goodness that is discouraging. We've got our eye on some acreage, but hearing the stories consistently turns me off. Albeit, we'll be looking at a significantly less permit-happy county than yourself, but still...

How much of your roadblocks were surprises? I realize with custom builds there will always be surprises, but your permitting nightmare sure seems out of left field.

Everything up to permit submission was pretty much a known quantity. No major surprises. It was the city's responses and requirements that no one saw coming that were a big shock. So far about $17k in surprises. Apparently all the other municipalities around here are pretty forgiving with storm water management. The county manual has a lot of loose language like "do X if possible but if X is not feasible then do Y and if Y is not feasible then do Z" with each layer progressively easier to achieve. Our city's civil engineering reviewer clearly has some self esteem issues and basically said "Do X. I think it's feasible so do it. No Y or Z." The problem is there's competing interests at the city level. Our access easement is 25' wide and the fire marshal says the existing shared driveway has to be widened from 12' to 20'. Fine. But the city civil engineer says we need drainage along those remaining 5 feet of easement. Ok, but we need an 8 foot tall retaining wall in there too. Oh and by the way we have to trench for utilities under all that and the driveway is lined by trees the city arborist says can't come out and whose roots can't be disturbed.

So something's gotta give. We can't fit 10 gallons of shit in a 5 gallon bucket. If the city can't work amongst themselves to decide the priority between driveway widening, trees, walls, and storm water runoff then we have to file a "Reasonable Economic Use" application and bring our case before the city, showing that their draconian rules are preventing reasonable use of our land. That involves public hearings, expert testimony, and more $$$$. None of that we saw coming.

[kscarrol]

What an F’ing hot mess, sorry to hear this.

[dreamingat30fps]

[kscarrol]

All I have to say is good for dad!!

[dreamingat30fps]

Originally Posted by floridaorange

Speaking of real estate risk. News to me today: If it makes you feel any better - my flashy in-laws (wife's sister and husband) who own a sh*tload of rental properties just got hit by a massive property tax bill. They live in a high rise in Miami in a $6/month end unit. Anyway, they aren't liquid enough to cover the bill so she actually asked my Father in law for a loan! In order to pay the taxes in the near term so they can sell off some properties to pay back the loan. Father in law of course said "no." Wife and I are sitting here stunned that it's come to that. By flashy I mean storage unfits full of designer clothes, new Tesla Y, New Range Rover Sport, trips for months at a time to Europe and Tulum.

That's the Miami way!

[spazzyfry123]

I must be a gluten for punishment. Even after reading this through, we just put some acres under contract this weekend. Significantly less restrictions than what you have experienced, but stressful all the same.

I have no idea what I’m doing. Whoops.

[kscarrol]

^ Nice! Where?

[spazzyfry123]

Originally Posted by kscarrol

^ Nice! Where?

Got us a piece of the rock! North Georgia mountains. It’s about 7.5 acres of all useable, all hardwoods land, but a fair view of some layered mountains.

We’re pretty ecstatic, but I really have NO idea what I’m doing. Only thing I’m stressed on now is that we need to get going on a perc test to lock the deal up, but I don’t know what I want to build yet. Tough to say how much poo we need to hold if we don’t know how many cans there are!

[kscarrol]

With 7.5 acres you should have no issue with a perc test unless the soil really sucks (or doesn’t suck if you know what I mean!). We have 0.76 acres and an are permitted for the five bedrooms we have. Looking forward to seeing your updates!