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The finances of building a home (pt 2)
I’m building a house for Makers in Pittsburgh, PA. In case you missed it, here’s Part 1: Why Build a House.
Next, we’ll talk about finances for the land, the house, and home ownership.
The exact numbers depend on what, where and when you’re building… but here’s a rough guide for those brave enough to try!
The Land
If you’re building new, you need an empty plot of land. These can be difficult to find in a city. But, when you do find them (outside of NYC or SF), they’re pretty reasonably priced. My 5,000 sqft plot cost about 50k, less than 10% of the total project cost. Since there were no plots actively for sale in my area, I used Google Maps’ satellite view to find empty plots, the Allegheny County Real Estate website to look up owners, and then sent them hand-written letters. This had a 40% response rate, not bad!
When buying land, make sure to inspect the plants and soil and get the seller to pay for as many costs as you can. In my case, I ran into issues with both the large tree in the back area (which was hollow and cost ~2k to remove)… and the soil itself (which was full of debris from the previous house’s demolition, increasing excavation costs by ~4k).
Once you’ve purchased it, land is a good investment. Land on its own has minimal maintenance…
