Building On Vacant Land Vs. Tearing Down Existin House
hey guys, im looking to build on a piece of property and my question is......considering everything else equal, does it cost more to build on vacant land relative to one where there is already a home?
Oh, forgot to mention that I am in Philly now but this house is in my hometown a few hours away. I go home at least every other weekend to see my daughter though.
Actually by closing it in would present more of a mold problem then leaving it open. While the climate in AZ is signficantly different, here in NC we do have mold and mildew problems.
I wont even deal with other issues such as snakes, mice etc.
High humidity levels, coupled with closed in crawl spaces does nothing more then move humid air into the crawl space which more often then not becomes a problem. My vote is with you....save the money and collect your rental income without adding more hassle to your life.
regards
NC_Yank
[ Edited by NC_Yank on Date 09/20/2005 ]
any way i can get a copy of the rehab calculator? email me at **Please See My Profile**
than!
Skip the calculator...it is not worth the $$
I would think a hot market with reasonable housing prices would be perfect.
Brenda
I would suggest that you look south... In North / South Carolina there is alot of good opportunity at fairly good prices.
I believe that appreciation is good, sellers markets are good, as long as the housing costs are still reasonable. If things are appreciating at 20% the owners have no idea what their house is worth. And from the time you sign the contract to signing the selling contract you have made 10k. Anad once you have a contract within a week.
Right now FL is slowing down and I have two houses on the market that are just sitting. Give me a sellers market any day.
Brenda
I guess the way to sum it up is that competition is good. Lots of acitivity means that people are buying and people are selling. Of course lots of competition means that you will have to work hard and smart. But I think working hard and smart is always a given. Would you rather try to sell cheese in Italians or to the Chinese?
The cheapest way to get it installed I find is to buy the carpet and hire the installer separately.
The last small carpet purchase I did was $1.05 sq ft installed. Usually, I average 1.20 sq ft installed.
Seems like a high figure. Check all the superstores for remnants. We use Stone Mountain here. They have huge amounts of leftovers and remnants. They will give you a list of installers who are all independent contractors.
That will work fine. Be sure you are not cutting through a joist.
I bought a house for a rental that had the dryer vented under the house and it caused major moisture problems. I had to have the dryer re-vented out the wall, put down a moisture barrier under the house, use fans to dry out under the house and ever replace one floor joist that had rotted because of the moisture. I got the house at a bargain because of this problem, but just make sure you have really good ventilation or you may suffer from the same damages --
EB
Thanks for the advice everybody! The house has a crawspace underneath it, so I think it should be fine to go thru the floor.
Ebellis is right.
venting into the crawlspace is a bad idea.
Passing the duct through the floor is ok, but make sure the exhaust is ducted to terminate outside the crawlspace wall.
That is too much moisture to dump into a crawlspace even if it is vented.
[addsig]
mikejaquish-
Sorry, I should have explained better, the floor I cut through goes to a crawlspace, but I am going to vent it to outside. Thanks for the tips!
It all depends on the location. Look at comparibles that are in the condition that you want to get the house to be like.
Quote:
On 2005-09-28 21:01, groverm wrote:
It all depends on the location. Look at comparibles that are in the condition that you want to get the house to be like.
EXACTLY - everybody just needs to understand that your house is not an island! Your buyers will be looking at other houses too, so you should be also and figuring out how your house compares to them. Rehab according to the competition.