Some of the gotchas I’ve encountered:

• Land is very hard to finance, I ended up saving until I could buy cash
• Building ‘on-grid’ would have saved a lot in permitting and setup (luckily I had electric service at the road). If you are going off-grid, I would check the permitting requirements for sewage/water and the average depth of wells near your spot, this can get expensive quick if you have to drill deep.
• I’m working with an architect atm but we’ve pivoted to using ICF blocks for wall construction as they are made in the USA and tariffs would have killed me otherwise.

I would expect the cost of the building, using the highest quality materials (not luxury) to still beat (by like 100k) the cost of buying an equivalant old home in the area I purchased; however, if we are talking pre-housing-price-explosion of the last few years, I would say building would be more expensive.

I’ll let you know when it’s all done lol - it’s a long and expensive process!

Yup - had the ability (and even tried last downturn) to buy but was consistantly outbid by overseas (and domestic) cash, after 10+ years of trying I finally decided to buy land and go through all the red-tape and expense of buiding something new. Turning houses into financial instruments was a real mistake.

<insert outdated xzibit meme here> Agreed, the wildest of wests.

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