Advice for getting started when move is long distance

10 years ago

Hi everyone!

I was really active on this forum 9 years ago when we built our current home. For family reasons, we're going to re-locate to the Chicago area next year. (So I'll have to come up with a better name that 'bethohio3')

As often happens, we have champagne taste on a beer budget--that's an exaggeration but we're stuck with "what we want" and "how far out of the city we're willing to be".

When we built 9 years ago, we were living in a place I'd been for 12 years, so I knew people who had built, I knew the builder's reputation, etc., etc. They owned the land already and we reworked a floor plan they had used (we'd seen one they built). We then customized the plan to our requirements. (I'm going to ignore the question of "is that a custom build" or a "semi custom build")

Does anyone have any suggestions for how to look for an architect and/or builder for a lot? We've seen a couple of lots listed that we're interested in going to look at (next trip is in October)

There are lots of tear downs happening in the areas we're interested in as well. How much does a tear down add to the cost of building? I was told that sometimes builders have a list of properties that are available for tear down that aren't really advertised. I don't know if that's true or not.

I don't know if our budget (about $500k total) is realistic for what we want where we want it. How do we find an answer to that general question?

I'm excited about the idea of building again--we've loved this house and both were really having trouble with the idea of settling for something already existing.

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DLM2000-GW

10 years ago

bethohio - I lived in suburban Chicago all my life until recently - the greater Chicagoland area is enormous so I may not know specifics about where you're moving but I can give it a shot. Message me if you don't want to go public here with that info. As for costs added with a tear down, that can be significant and generally what you find is tear downs are only done is suburbs where a high price point on the new build is attainable because it's the only way they can cover the original purchase. A relatively modest house without a lot of high end features won't work. The profit on the high end features are a big part of how that original purchase is covered. But again, a lot depends on the specific suburb. If you are seeing many lots for sale then there is still land and it's probably an outer ring suburb or maybe even exurb. The close in burbs don't have any land left, hence the tear downs where land value is well into the 100's of thousands per acre.

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Comments (9)

cpartist
10 years ago
I might also ask your question on the buying and selling a home forum
Beth
Original Author
10 years ago
This is really a build question rather than a buying question--I've been spending enough time looking at existing houses to know the price points there. I've been following several of them and as they sell, comparing asking to closing prices.

I'm looking for input here on:
--Finding a builder(s) to interview

--What costs are added to build when it's a tear down

--How to get a good sense of general building costs in a new area
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stephja007
10 years ago
To the question of do builders have un-advertised list of properties - absolutely yes depending on the area. I'm not in CHI but in the up and coming hipster area I work, there are about 4 or 5 builders/developers/rehabbers that scoop up every property possible and often sit on them, leaving them untouched, until the right buyer comes along.

Honestly though, even though you have family that may be guiding you to the right neighborhood, I don't think I'd want to build without living there first. I'm going to make alot of assumptions here so this may be very off-based but bare with me...

Perhaps your current lifestyle is in suburban or even a more rural area, life in a bigger city and more urban neighborhood (more urban guess is based on gentrification/tear downs) would bring a different lifestyle and bring different needs. More focus on walking through the front door or parking a bicycle, less on parking a car in the garage. Less focus on bringing home a car load of groceries every week or 2, more about bringing in a single sack on your way home from work every couple days. Being closer to family, more focus on space for weekly dinner get-togethers, less care about guest bedrooms.

Like I said, I'm making assumptions and everyone knows the saying with that.
cpartist
10 years ago
last modified: 10 years ago
Steph does bring up some good points regarding how needs may or may not differ from what you are used to. Another thought is while the area may truly be where you want to be, it's hard to know without spending lots of time in the area.

I have a friend who was told that the best area to live in our SW FL area was a small city just south of us. She found a builder, put a deposit down and rented a house in her desired locale. Then she found out the average age group was at least 25 years older than she and her hubby. She hated it there!

Thankfully she got her deposit back, spent the winter looking around and found her little piece of heaven on earth north of us on a lake. It took them 10 months to build but She is thankful every day she didn't build that first house
Beth
Original Author
10 years ago
We make 5 or 6 trips to the area every year to visit family and for work reasons--and have been for the last 20 years--sometimes for a week, sometimes for a long weekend. We would prefer not to move twice (no surprise) and are not looking to make major lifestyle changes. We live in a nice suburban area now--we're going to move to another one. We'll probably downsize a bit (we won't need 5 bedrooms again) but still want a large enough house to entertain.

We've been driving through neighborhoods and researching towns when visiting over the last six months and I've stayed on top of the real estate listings. I have a pretty good idea of what it would take to buy--what we could get and how far out we'd have to be.

We'll look when we're there next (for a week in October) but don't have to make a decision that quickly--and can return in November (and will be returning in December).

I'm still coming back to my earlier question, though--figuring out which home builders to contact and interview.
cpartist
10 years ago
See if you can research new home builds and go to see those.