Moving and Building Questions

LittleRedHen · #1 11/13/07, 08:33 AM

I have a few questions.

My husband and I would like to move but stay in the same area. We are looking a bit to the north. (about 15 minutes) Our current house is nearly paid off (18K left) and value wise its about 115K. Currently we have 8 people living in 1040 sq feet. (6 are kids) so we would like a bigger house.

My husband is also desiring to quit his job because of difficult current work situation and when he quits, He will be getting about 85-90K in a SEP IRA form.

We do have about 10-15K between other investments but we do not want to use those except in emergencies.

Our home is in a good location for resell... All homes on our road sell faster because of its very good location to get on Freeway and access to other towns. So I do not believe we would have the same difficulty as others face when it comes to selling but of course we couldn't sell it in one day either.

When it comes to a big family, I think it would be easier to purchase new land FIRST and move stuff over there so that we can show the house in cleaned up condition. When I say move stuf over I mean like moving our animals. And buildling a polebarn and storing extra stuff. Is it a bad or alright idea to buy property before selling your current property?

And secondly... we want a bigger home. My husband is concerned that if we make it "custom" that it will hinder resell value in 30 years when our kids are gone. Any advice or experiences on this? Does anyone here have a big house with just 2 people because your kids grew up? If we build a master bedroom on the main floor then we could just close off the 2nd story when our kids grow up and then use it during holidays. I'd rather worry about selling a big house in 30 years than being cramped in this house just so that in 30 years we would have a house that "fits" us. But I'd like to konw personal experiences on this one.

And does anyone have a book or a website that they know of that would have tips on frugally building your home. A "Do it yourself" type house buildilng. My husband and I would like to build this house ourself. It would save a lot of money and it would be a wonderful time for being partners. We could probably set aside a year to build our house while he worked a new part time job so that we still had an income. Due to raising animals for meat, garden for fruits and veggies (planning on being self sufficent in this area as much as we can) that he could easily support us on a part time job. We would be mortgage and debt free. We have no credit card debts, or any other outstanding loans except the 18K for our current mortgage. But throug hthe selling of the house etc, we would be debt free. We could build a bigger house without incurring debt.

I was thinking we would be in debt for a short period if we bought land first but it would be quickly paid off. Would it be a bad move to use IRA to buy the land? Then when the house is built and the first house is sold to then take all the money and put it into investments for retirement...

Anyways... I guess I have a few angles here that I'd like some perception on. IF you can give me personal experiences that is even better. While I like opinions, I sure like the tried and tested ones the best

Jennifer L. · #2 11/13/07, 03:57 PM

CL, I don't have much to offer you for advice. Hope others chime in for you. Two things did occur to me, though. One is, I don't see a problem moving to the new property before selling the old property IF YOU KNEW for sure that the old property would sell ok. And I'm not sure that you can guarantee that. It would be a leap of faith to do it, althoguh if it worked out it's fine, but you might be in a pickle if it took a long time to sell. Second thing is, I'd hate to see anyone open up an IRA for any reason before retirement. You might be debt free, but if buying a house is not one of the approved reasons for getting into the IRA early, you'd be losing a lot. It's a 10% penalty right off the bat, so there's 8.5-9 K gone right there. And then you are taxed on it as normal income. Which might be a very big bite taken out of you depending on how your tax situation is. If you went ahead and did this I'd look very carefully into the best way to get that money out of the IRA. Maybe if you took half at the end of December, half in January, for example, to spread the tax out over two years. Something like that. I'm not savvy this way, but maybe others can help.

Good luck!

Jennifer

Maura · #3 11/13/07, 04:48 PM

We built our house. Get the book, Building for a Lifetime. It discusses ways to make your house handicap accessible without being ugly, and designing a home that you can still use when you can't climb stairs, such as your idea of putting the master bedroom on the first floor (but you can also make the stairs wide enough for a lift).

As for making it custom, it depends on how custom you make it. If you sell the house in 30 years, the new owners will want a new kitchen, so do whatever you like in the kitchen. If you want an open plan, make sure that the house is structured so that you can put up a wall if you want to later on, or put up movable walls.

We were in the same dilema, needing a bigger house for 3 teenagers, but realizing that it wouldn't be long before they would all be gone. We chose a rolling site and designed a house with a walk out basement (which you can do on the flat, too). The kids bedrooms and kids' bathroom were put in the basement. We never built that house because by the time we built my husband's job had moved and we bought a different piece of property and redesigned the house sans children. But, I digress. If you have a high basement that is walk out, you can build a one story on a finished basement. It will be cheaper to build, and cheaper to heat. We have in-floor heat, which I strongly recommend. It's not hard to put it in the slab, we did it.

Yes, I think putting up the barn you want first so that you have a storage area is a good idea. Go ahead and get the land, get whatever permits you need, and a perk test. Put up the barn and fencing. If you have to, you can sleep in the barn.

FreeRanger · #4 11/13/07, 04:51 PM

Heck, I'm thinking of doing a simlar thing "move a little North" (next county). We are thinking about buying land and building a custom home to replace our existing custom home. Unlike you I owe and owe and owe but still if they will give me just a little bit more I will buy more land.....

I must be insane to even think about selling my place....

Anyway, who cares about resale value? We currently have a 4br ranch (3brs in basement). Wife wants to build a 3br "earthship" or simlar earth home.

by the way we are down sizing if anything.

Anyway, I don't think there is a bad time to buy land. People keep having children and God isn't making anymore land.

Beef11 · #5 11/13/07, 04:54 PM

Can your current income make the house payment and the land payment without slowly putting you into financial stress? I would say go for it if you can comfortably cover both.

fantasymaker · #6 11/13/07, 05:19 PM

Once again it would help if we knew the locations involved.
I think Id buy the place and put up a nice pole barn maybe even have a living quarters in it then Id sell the current place with 30 or 60 days till they could move in. When its sold Id put a trailer in or next to the pole barn and live there till I had the house built Then Id sell the trailer.
The key to your home design is space , for the kids think about bed rooms sighed to have a wall between them moved. thus 8 nice rooms become 4 luxurious rooms or 4 become 2. other rooms can be big and its just nice. Space is actually quite cheep its the accoutrement's that are expensive