Adventures in building a forever home (Move in date 12/2024)

S

Sniggle

Recycles dryer sheets
Joined
Nov 24, 2012
Messages
245
Location
Kearneysville
Thought I would start a long running thread/diary as I meander my way to building a home to retire to. The DW and I started to have these discussion a couple of years ago, and we came to the conclusion that we would be happy building something in northern VA.

Being a man of action, but limited available means, I started looking at land in and around NoVa. The criteria were as follows
- 10+ acres.
- Suitable for horses
- Privacy
- No HOA
- 20min or less to the grocery store
- 30 minutes or less to a good hospital
- 30 minutes from good dining, with more within 60 minutes
- closer to where my DW likes to ride
- 60 minutes from a major airport
- $250 K max

Quick overview on finances:
- Pension of 20K (COLA) starting in 2024, pension of $40K starting in 2026
- $2.8 million in saving to date, mostly in tax deferred accounts (Hopefully $3.5 million in 2023)
- $3200/month of SSN in 2030
 
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Once we had a general area to look, I had to figure out how to fund the purchase if I found something. The best option, although one that hurt my soul, was to do a cash out refinance and grab $200K from the current house. I was on the path to have this house paid off in 7 years...no more. I started that process in early November 2020, and got a good rate with virtually no closing costs...which I thought was good for a cash out refinance (I had never done one before).

Shortly after I had gotten the loan moving, I found a piece of property that literally met all our criteria, with 13.06 acres. It was poorly listed (one small bad photo), and in a less desirable county, but right on the edge of Fauquier County (almost literally a stones throw). It was listed at $249999, but had been for sale for a while.

It was in a conservation program, which would require me to pay 6 years back taxes if I developed. But this is where I got lucky. I called the county assessor to understand the amount of back taxes I would owe, and she looked it over and informed me that it should never have been in the land conservation program, so she was pulling it out of the program, assessing standard taxes going forward, and I would not need to pay back taxes to build. That was a $12K saving right there!

So, with my real estate agent, we strategized:
- Been on the market for a long time
- owners were no longer in state
- The owner are no facing $1400 annual tax bills instead of $200 tax bills

So I offered $215K, they came back at $220 K, and I agreed. After spending another $3500 on a perk test and new survey, and maybe $1 K for closing, the land was mine at the end of January 2021.
 
The land had nice timber on the wooded 9 acres, so a few calls, and I found a good lumber and excavation contractor. He took $15400 worth of trees off the land this past summer, so I now have a $7200 credit with him to clear the site and grade the driveway. The timber removal still left lots of nice trees, and really just made the woods feel more airy. In a few years, you will not even be able to tell the difference.

Due to stupid site excavation/clearing permit rules, the contractor is going to have to clear the house and barn site in 3 phases, to stay below the 10000-sq. ft. clearing that triggers the need for permits and a soil erosion plan.
 
I have called a few builders, and will meet with one on the land next Tuesday. I really like him so far, but I do plan to have several builders bid on it when the time comes.

Time frame is:
- Finish selecting all finishes/appliance/etc. by spring 2023
- Solicit bids late summer 2023
- Pick contractor and apply for construction loan December 2023
- Be in by 12/2024

Budget is around $800K

We have already selected a house plan, purchased on line, and will sit down with an architect in the spring to make a few changes and get the plan ready for the contractors.
 
Some early thought on funding the construction loan. I do plan to continue working until the house is completed and funding is secure. However, I do not make enough income to qualify for that large a loan. The work around, I believe, is to show consistent income pulling money out of 401K when I turn 59.5, which will be August 2023. I can establish several months of withdrawals to qualify, then put back what has not timed out (60 days).

Looking further into the future, I am thinking that paying off the house in 5 years or so by pulling from my 401K to the top of the 24% bracket may be a good approach. Of course, if the market were to crash, I could always just continue to pay on the mortgage.

I know that there are some on here who would advise against spending as much as I plan to on this house, but I have been saving forever and I am looking forward to spending some of it. So, useful advice on funding, etc. are appreciated, but statements of disapproval are not required.
 
Sounds like you have a well thought out plan progressing nicely!
 
Sniggle said:
... We have already selected a house plan, purchased on line, and will sit down with an architect in the spring to make a few changes and get the plan ready for the contractors.
Click to expand...

Another option to consider once you have a plan is a modular home. Today, the high quality modular home builders can take just about any plan and chunk it up into modules, build the modules in a climate controlled factory where your house is never exposed to the elements and then truck the modules to your housesite where they are put in place by a crane.

Over the past few years there have been a few high end homes on our lake that have been modular.... one close to $1 million and another in excess of $1 million. One of them are good friends of ours... actually a retired house builder... and they are very happy with their home.

For one of our houses that we were going to build we considered a quality local modular home builder. We toured their factory and saw numerous house modules in process of construction and were quite impressed by the quality.

And the cost was also substantially lower than stick-built.
 
We are a bit ahead of you on a similar project. We have the house design and the outline is staked out on the lot. One of the things we are putting quite a bit of thought into right now is making it an "ADA Lite" design. Not the full wheelchair kitchen design, for example, but everything on one level including the attached garage. All 36" doorways, L-handle door hardware, 15" high outlet locations, walk-in/no sill shower, grab bars with blocking to add more in the future, etc. Most of these things will cost almost nothing extra, just the thought effort in the planning stage. "Aging in place features" is one phrase that the architects use for this type of thing.
 
OldShooter said:
We are a bit ahead of you on a similar project. We have the house design and the outline is staked out on the lot. One of the things we are putting quite a bit of thought into right now is making it an "ADA Lite" design. Not the full wheelchair kitchen design, for example, but everything on one level including the attached garage. All 36" doorways, L-handle door hardware, 15" high outlet locations, walk-in/no sill shower, grab bars with blocking to add more in the future, etc. Most of these things will cost almost nothing extra, just the thought effort in the planning stage. "Aging in place features" is one phrase that the architects use for this type of thing.
Click to expand...
All those sound like very sensible things to do, especially as you say at practically no cost.:)
 
OldShooter said:
We are a bit ahead of you on a similar project. We have the house design and the outline is staked out on the lot. One of the things we are putting quite a bit of thought into right now is making it an "ADA Lite" design. Not the full wheelchair kitchen design, for example, but everything on one level including the attached garage. All 36" doorways, L-handle door hardware, 15" high outlet locations, walk-in/no sill shower, grab bars with blocking to add more in the future, etc. Most of these things will cost almost nothing extra, just the thought effort in the planning stage. "Aging in place features" is one phrase that the architects use for this type of thing.
Click to expand...

We are planning the same thing. The 1st floor has 2 bedrooms, one the master and one for guests (or the DWs parents). Both will have walk in showers, extra-height toilets, wide doorways. I did not think of the 15 inch outlets, but that makes tons of sense. Same level garage is interesting...most garages have a couple of steps into the house which could be a problem. I will keep that in mind when talking to the architect.
 
pb4uski said:
Another option to consider once you have a plan is a modular home. Today, the high quality modular home builders can take just about any plan and chunk it up into modules, build the modules in a climate controlled factory where your house is never exposed to the elements and then truck the modules to your housesite where they are put in place by a crane.

Over the past few years there have been a few high end homes on our lake that have been modular.... one close to $1 million and another in excess of $1 million. One of them are good friends of ours... actually a retired house builder... and they are very happy with their home.

For one of our houses that we were going to build we considered a quality local modular home builder. We toured their factory and saw numerous house modules in process of construction and were quite impressed by the quality.

And the cost was also substantially lower than stick-built.
Click to expand...
I have seen some beautiful modulars that most people would have no clue were constructed that way. I agree with you on the quality and in fact in some ways better than site built quality all done in a climate controlled environment. They use jigs, fixtures etc to construct walls and probably have square corners more accurate than site built. There are less delays due to weather. They can control the costs better and site work is minimized and the house goes up faster. I don't see much downside.
 
That sounds great. My take on your cost of building: It will be there for you, the equity when you do sell. It really is having your cake and eating it too! :)
We are on a similar timeline, but I have yet to design the house or mark the spot on the property. We will get to that next year.
 
Here is the link to the plan we have chosen. I kinda pushed the DW into this plan, but I literally went through hundreds of plans and this one met my DWs requirements best (she would never make a decision, waiting for the perfect perfect plan): Big bedroom, great shower, big walk in closet, big pantry, nice kitchen with an island, 2nd ground floor bedroom for parents. It also fits the land, and will give us nice views from the deck. We bought the plan reversed, as we will walk through the garage to go to the barn.

https://www.architecturaldesigns.com/house-plans/one-story-country-craftsman-house-plan-with-screened-porch-24392tw

Changes we will make will be a wood burning stove in place of the fire place, no fireplace on the screened porch, the stairs down will be my office and we will drop a floating staircase between the kitchen and living room, the master bedroom shower will be walk in (no door), and the doors to the walk-in closet will be either pocket doors or one pocket door and one barn type door. We will probably only finish the main basement room and a bathroom, and maybe an exercise room. I will have a hot tub under the screened porch. There may be a few more changes before the foundation is poured:) (and we will get rid of the fake dormer..hate those fake dormers)
 
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Lovely house plans!
look forward to continued updates along the way
 
Sniggle said:
We are planning the same thing. The 1st floor has 2 bedrooms, one the master and one for guests (or the DWs parents). Both will have walk in showers, extra-height toilets, wide doorways. I did not think of the 15 inch outlets, but that makes tons of sense. Same level garage is interesting...most garages have a couple of steps into the house which could be a problem. I will keep that in mind when talking to the architect.
Click to expand...
Another design parameter that our architect contributed was ADA requirements for maneuvering space, like in the bathrooms. These minimums make it easier to turn a wheelchair or a walker. and, again, are not costly when planned ahead of time. IIRC, one of our baths is now specified with a pocket door as a conventional inswing door interfered with maneuvering.

More stuff I am remembering: Walk-in shower should not have a sill. Linear shower drain allows for a flatter floor, which in turn makes things easier for using a shower bench or chair. Both Andersen and Marvin offer various sills for their exterior doors, including low-profile. The low profile sills take some careful planning of the floor finish, subfloor, and maybe even trusses but again not expensive. We will probably go with these:
We are testing one in our city house right now and it seems to work great.
 
I have been planning to change some doors to pocket doors, but had not thought about it from the wheel chair angle. I had considered making the 2nd bathroom slightly wider, but now I will definitely look to make it wide enough for wheel chair access.

( it is weird to plan for things such as wheel chair access when at present that is not a need, but makes perfect sense to consider it)

I did walk the property with a builder last week. He builds just a couple houses a year, gets his hands dirty, and lives just a couple miles from the site. Really nice guy, and I think will be my first choice if his bid is reasonable. Told him to mark me on his calendar for a 2024 build.
 
Thought I would update this thread.

Over the last 1.5 years the wife and I have slowly ground towards the point we are today....probably a few weeks from signing a contract, signing a construction loan, and getting this project going. Quite frankly, I am tired of bleeding money with nothing to show for it, and will be glad when my money starts to actually make a house rise from the land.

What have so far:
- Had a logger come and take timber from the property, and then turn that money into cleared barn site, house site and rough driveway
- Got VDOT approval for driveway entrance
- Worked with an architect to massage the plans. Big changes included:
- Adding 2 feet to the master closet
- Adding 1 foot to the master bathroom width
- Moving the stairs to the downstairs to the middle of the house so I can have a ground floor office. This one makes me nervous.....I hope it does not look and work like **** but I wanted a ground floor office.
- Added a little bit to the mudroom for a back door to barn
-Lots of other smaller changes
- Had to hire a structural engineer for Virginia approval ($5300...ouch)
- Drilled a well - 18 GPM:)

Next 4 weeks we need to:
- Sign contract with builder (Fixed fee cost contract)
- Sign construction loan
- Finish clearing house site and finish rough driveway
-Start making decisions

The rates suck for construction loans and mortgages, but such is life. I am still planning to burn a chunk of my 401K to get this done and paid off in 5 years. Saved the money my whole life, time to spend.

I am really looking forward to the process, but I am especially looking forward moving this from the 'may happen' column to the 'is happening' column.
 
Bumps along the way

The 2022 market correction sucked, and made me question my financial intelligence, as well as my plan for this house. 2023 has been better, and I have been more conservative, and I will probably get quite conservative as I start to spend this money:cool:
 
While you overall plan looks great, there are a few that do not seem to match your "forever home" concept:

1. A forever home should be livable with a wheelchair...and you have mentioned 36" doorways, which are great. But you have steps from the garage to the mudroom, and steps to the front porch...that might be tough with a wheelchair. Either plan for a ramp, or lower the house to make the main floor accessible.

2. I see a staircase in the middle of the floorplan. You may want to look to add an elevator if having 2 levels is part of this home design. The back of the house has a stone patio, so your lot may be on a slope proving a lot of daylight in the lower level...which is a good idea, but you need to be able to roll your way to the lower level via stairlift, elevator, or maybe a ramp on the outside of the house.

The description says this is a one story home, but the back certainly looks like a two story home.
 
Thanks for the comments. I do realize there are a few steps, but if need be there should be room to add ramps. I should look at that garage to house door and be sure it is wide enough for a wheelchair, and maybe make it bigger. There are 36 inch doors to the master toilet, and the shower is a 'no lip', so one could roll or walker into it no problem.

The lower level is accessible from the stairs and from a walkout, so theoretically I could roll around to the back. My thoughts on the lower level are that if we get to the point we can not access it, so be it. I hope that time is still 25+ years out....but only God knows for sure.

So, it's not perfect for a wheelchair or walker, but it is better than our current home. Of course, most importantly, we are building the house we want.

I'll drop the current plan set and Structurals when I get them (hopefully Monday) for those interested.
 
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