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Check the same build on your existing lot now, $400k

Between Woodinville and Redmond overlooking the valley.

Depends on the laws in your local area. But many places where I live allow you to build your own home as long as you follow the building codes.

But nothing's stopping you from buying one of these and hiring a professional to do the build. Would still be much cheaper than buying a property with a home on it already.

When it comes to what's on your property, every place I've lived in the US lets you do your own work as long as you follow code, you just can't do professional work for other people.

Connecting to the grid might be different though - I've never had to mess with that.

(we did a DIY addition build during COVID in the US in 2021)

In Michigan, you are absolutely allowed to do your own build on your own land. It just has to pass code inspection, and it has to pass at every stage. (i.e., they want to inspect structural/electrical/plumbing/hvac/etc, before you put drywall up, to ensure things are actually OK underneath, and then inspect it again after drywall is applied).

Getting utilities can be hard and expensive if you are building off-grid. But there are so many vacant lots that already have power+water+gas at the street, that you don't really have to do that unless you really want to live in a specific off-grid location. (Suburbs and some townships make a lot of their money from this, so they usually want you building near their pre-existing utilities and hooking up to it)

Sewage tends to be the hardest part -- some places have "most" utilities, but not waste & water. And people assume they can just put in a leech field "septic tank", but since most of the state is already swampland, you have to be careful of how and where you put that, so you don't poison the water. (They will make you get a land survey to prove your location is safe to leech from, and they will inspect your install, and yes people complain all the time about it, but when they didn't do this, people did poison the water all the time, and then accidentally drank their own waste water and make themselves sick, or accidentally poisoned their neighbors water and made those folks sick, etc).

People complain about the licensing and permitting and inspections, but honestly, it's all been extremely fair and pretty quick and cheap. If you aren't passing your inspections here, you're likely doing something grossly negligent (or are about to do something grossly negligent).

Sure. It's completely possible to build a house in the US. But it's a big place.

The rules vary by state (50), by county (Ohio alone has 87 counties), and municipality (if in a city) or township (if rural), and/or other AHJ. There are thousands of combinations of rules so it's hard to generalize beyond "Yes, it's possible."

Some areas have very strict zoning, building codes, and inspections. These can be challenging to build in, with oversight over many details, but it can be done and people do accomplish building homes all the time in these conditions.

Meanwhile, some other areas have no zoning at all and only the most rudimentary of building codes (rudimentary like "There must be a working sewer connection or septic system" and approximately no other requirements). As a practical matter, in these places a person who owns some land can build what they want and nobody is empowered to tell them not to.

And, of course: There's a myriad of in-between variations.

In my locale, the only thing that matters is passing the code inspection. I have friends who have done major remodels, including additions. The piece of advice I got was to talk with your inspector before starting. In my city, they have office hours and will help people avoid surprises such as finishing the interior walls before having the electricals inspected -- stuff like that.

I don't know how difficult the permits would be, but you can order similar kits from Muji:

https://www.muji.net/ie/tatenoie/

>Is it still allowed to build your own house in the US?

Yes, but you're at the mercy of the discretion of and have to pay rent (metaphorically) to potentially a ton more parties than you would have 100yr ago. You're gonna need several (local, but perhaps 1-2 state depending on situation) government inspections all of which may involve having to track down some licensed professional and then pay them a fee for inspecting your work.

I think in a "normal" case you can expect to shell out for electrical, plumbing, sewer/septic, HVAC, plans/engineering, environmental BS depending on distance to regulated stuff (wetlands usually) inspections and sign offs. There's probably one or two things I'm forgetting and perhaps one or two can be omitted on a case by case basis. A bunch of municipalities are gonna add their own BS on top of "the usual" stuff, like permits for tree cutting, permits for a construction dumpster and whatnot.

And keep in mind, some of these parties are likely to go out of their way to try and f you one way or another and/or give you the runaround until you go away because they don't want to deal with homeowners, they want to deal with businesses.

Also worth nothing that some municipalities expect strict goose stepping compliance. Some really DGAF what individuals engaged in noncommercial development (i.e. building your own house with the intent to live in it) and so long as you're not building rickety garbage they would rather you just not call them until it's done (though obviously they can't say that).

To add to the sibling comments which have already covered the general idea; in many places in the US you can also do your own work and then have an inspector sign off on it.

Depends on the local building codes. Some rural places have little or no codes, so build whatever you want however you want it.

Home kits/house kits

Depends on skill.

Where I live it looks like someone lost their home (I guess through job loss etc) before it was finished. Right when framing would've started. The lumber was already delivered including all the roof trusses. The only thing actually standing was the concrete basement walls, I-beams and flooring. Those parts were done quite fast as well.

Then, for a very long time nothing happened. The people I saw there once, looking at everything I never saw again.

But then, couple months later, always in the evenings, a single guy could be seen building walls on the floor and putting them up one by one and soon enough there was Typar looking at us. The only other people I saw there helping was one time when he was putting up the roof trusses. He did all the roofing (plywood and roof tiles) himself. The last roof tiles actually went on literally a day before the first snow.

I bet he worked construction for a living anyway but it shows that it is definitely possible solo. Sure, a framing crew puts up a wall in no time but with a few simple tricks anyone can put up a wall in sections all by themselves.

If you’re not using a loan to finance the construction or land purchase, it’ll definitely be economically advantageous because you’re not paying all the interest on the mortgage. At current interest rates you’d pay over $400k in interest on a $500k 30 year 20% down mortgage. Even at 3% you’d still pay over $200k in interest.

The cost of new construction is mostly labor. It would be cheaper to purchase a modular home and take advantage of production line efficiencies. With some forethought you can start small and plan for future expansion.

Not sure what the objection to the gov't picking designs, but this is the result of consultation with industry and are being designed by private firms. Lots of more details in this article [0]:

> The government has selected two firms to deliver on the first version of low-rise designs: MGA | Michael Green Architecture, which will work on plans for British Columbia, and LGA Architectural Partners Ltd., which will cover designs for Alberta, the Prairies, Ontario, Quebec, the Atlantic, and the North.

> Though, Fraser will also be launching an open submission process that is soliciting additional designs from industry members who may submit existing prefabricated housing builds. Companies who build modular, 3D printed, or panelized houses have until Nov. 8 to submit to be considered for inclusion in the first iteration of the catalogue.

[0] https://www.ctvnews.ca/mobile/politics/first-standardized-ho...

Yes, I found your sibling comment very interesting.

Btw, I didn't want to imply anything with my comment above, just put the price into perspective.

I have been researching that same question lately.

Most of it comes down to:

- Modern houses have much more systems installed. Think HVAC, electricity, hot/cold water, sewage, lightning, networking, etc.

- Safety and quality requirements/expectations of houses have improved. Think thermal insulation, sound insulation, fire safety, roof load, wind resistance, etc.

- Material quality and sustainability have improved. Think no more asbestos, less flammable materials, no more lead in paint and pipes, etc. These were all used because they were very cheap, safer alternatives are often more expensive.

- Wages and safety of workers have improved (for them) significantly.

- Material prices (delivered) have gone up significantly. Partially due to better wages and safety of workers in the supply chain, but also due to scarcity (for example: our population grows faster than trees).

These houses still had to be built, hooked up to plumbing, wired for electricity, have a lot cleared and excavated, concrete poored... Also you still need to decorate and provide appliances.

Add all that in and you'll see theres a few 100k worth of additional work not in the kit

So that $52k price is really just for building materials and plans, but doesn't include land, permits, building costs.

That house looks to be around 2000 sqft, i.e. about $25/sqft in current dollars. There are three effects at play, roughly:

$25 => $50 due to stricter codes and higher scarcity of some materials

$50 => $100 due to higher wages everywhere in the country

$100 => $200 to $1500 due to intentional supply restrictions in specific areas

The last effect includes a whole range of artificial shortage policies (height and volume limits, zoning, red tape, ...) It also includes the "zooming inflation" on local wages due to the housing shortage's effect on the cost of living.

Used to own a 1917-construction house, can confirm the lumber thing. It was wild. The huge framing beams visible around the foundation in the basement were damn near veneer-quality by today’s standards. The diagonally-laid underfloor boards were so flawless that most could have been hardwood floor themselves (aside from their probably being pine, I mean).

We still had good finishing wood into the 80s or so. Lots and lots of blue-collar family homes still being build with solid wood trim and doors. That dropped off over that decade and was just about gone by some time in the ‘90s, and now we put cardboard trim and fake-wood doors in $750,000 houses.

I don’t think that was true on a square footage basis: you probably paid much more of your income for less housing than we do today. Also, housing is not a permanent thing: buffalo has a lot less people than it once did but also less housing units, they just don’t stay around for a hundred years without upkeep, if the capital isn’t there to keep them up they disappear.

I'm guessing you would expect a longer life out of the offerings from 1920 than today as well. We've gotten really good at making things last just long enough to clear warranty before falling apart to save money, back in 1920 they were mostly using real lumber.