At the risk of being slightly off-topic, what are good sources to find out wether and in which conditions building your own house is financially advantageous vs buying an existing (new or old) house.
Get an itemised estimate of the cost of land, cost of construction (include permitting and utility connect fees), and cost of housing while under construction, convert those to net present value, and compare to the all-in purchase price of the house with taxes and fees.
If you think future taxes or maintenance will be significantly different, you can estimate those in net present value as well.
IMHO, building your own house isn't usually about financial advantage, it's about getting a house that fits more of your needs and wants with less compromise than picking from what's available. But there might be exceptions if you have access to land, labor, or materials at a significant discount to market rates. Or if you want a much smaller house than is usually marketted.
> Get an itemised estimate of the cost of land, cost of construction (include
permitting and utility connect fees), and cost of housing while under construction
That's the thing: getting these estimates is not simple, especially for a hypothetical build.
In any case, I take it as a matter of tradeoffs. And the financial side of it is one of the tradeoffs. I probably would not build my own house - despite all the benefits - if it cost me double compared to a house readily available for sale, for example.
I just moved into my semi-custom build. Nothing crazy, economical design (basically a big box), and it came out to ~$190 / sq ft which is crazy cheap, but still at least 25% too high compared to slightly older comps in my area.
This should be our home for at least 15 years though since I have a good track record of remote work, family in the area, and young kids. So hopefully the extra expense won't matter as much in the long run
I don't think building is ever cheaper unless you put years of your own labor into it and you are really good at that kind of stuff
> At the risk of being slightly off-topic, what are good sources to find out wether and in which conditions building your own house is financially advantageous vs buying an existing (new or old) house.
I'd imagine only if you do a lot of the actual building yourself.
New house will just cost same or less than you trying to get a project then hire people to do it.
Project is tiny part of the cost, but for developer it's already amortized over tens of homes they've built. Workers also "know the process" and I'd imagine build it faster than some custom.
Now old house, that's interesting question, and that will heavily depend on state the house is in.
Putting some insulation on old house and doing some renovation might come out far cheaper.
Or you might get into some kind of renovation hell where every fix uncovers another problem with the house, then it turns out you not only need to re-do electrics but also water/sewage, or remove old insulation and replace it with better, or remove some rotting boards etc.
Then there is of course question about whether you like house layout or not or how much you'd want to change it.
On flip-side, the advantage of fixing up old house is that you don't need to do it all at once and so can take smaller mortgage and so pay less in cost of that.
At least in America, with the massive increase in material and labor costs and greater building codes, a newly built home identical to an existing home will cost more than the market price of the existing home.
