Building log homes for profit

[Matt F.]

Who here builds homes to sell them rather than live in them? If you're in an area that would be great for log homes, this seems like the way to go. Am I missing something? Is it so much work that doing it more than once would be hell? Is buidling one medium sized home/year and selling for about $100,000 profit reasonable? Living in New England, would it be realistic to work 7-8 months out of the year building a house, and then take 3-4 months off for skiing? Could one or two people build a medium sized house in that time?

It's probably about as easy to answer as "How much does it cost to build a home" but any rough estimates on hours to build a home? Maybe average hours/sq foot?

For the builders, do you make plans with the customers, or just build spec. houses and sell those?

[Matt F.]

I guess it was the "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" log home article that got me thinking about this. The "build one, sell it, build two, sell them, build 4, etc" idea seems perfect for me. Is anyone here doing a similar thing?

[JeffandSara]

Hi, Matt--

As you said, this is something hard to even talk about in generalities.

We just finished our first log house, are thrilled with the results, and could sell this property now for maybe as much as three times what we paid for it originally. But our house took us three years, with my husband working full-time at his job, too. Building IS a lot of work, so I imagine some people here will never want to build again when they're done, and others will love it so much they'll want to build many times.

Anyway, I wasn't really posting to answer the bulk of your question. I noticed the last part, about whether to work on the plans with clients or build what you like. I remember at Skip Ellsworth's seminar, he said that you should always build the house you want to build and then try to sell it.

Knowing a little more now than I did then about building and about human nature, I would tend to agree with Skip's advice... provided you do take into consideration some of the "basic norms" for home design (there are tables you can find in architecture books at your local library, for example, which contain minimum sizes of certain types of rooms and things like that). You might also research the types of "high end" features that are worth investing in (what gives you the best boost in sales price for the investment), so that you include the ones that will help your selling price and allow the buyer to upgrade after the sale on the others.

Good luck to you, whether you build one house... or many. :D

Sara :D

[kodakjs]

Matt:

I am doing exactly what you have discussed. I have purchased the stock plans. I am in the process of finding land and I am going to build my first one for sale this autumn and winter if all goes well.

I plan to build and sell 10-12 in the next 6 years. (It may take a crew to complete all those houses in 6 years. But that is my goal.) I will spend extra to put in high end kitchens and bathrooms and expect to sell the stock plan house for $350-$500k in my area. That is more like $200-350k profit for each house.

I figure I can have about $4 million in the bank after taxes by the time i have built 12 houses. Perhaps even more, housing in our area is sky rocketing.

I am even taking on a partner for the first house so that I dont have to delay my time schedule until I can pay for the home completely myself. Anyone who has completed the class who would like to joint venture should let me know and we can talk.

John