Homes in St. John's County FRUSTRATING!

[Robyn55]

Originally Posted by fsquid

I'm pretty sure there are custom builders who will build on lots that the buyer owns.

We had a custom builder who built on a lot we owned. The process is more complicated than buying a somewhat standardized house from a builder who builds lots of houses. But it was worth it to us since we planned to be in our house for at least 15-20 years. Also - we were retired when we built - and had tons of time to devote to the project. Robyn

[Robyn55]

Originally Posted by Irishtom29

The characters in the house are more important than the character of the house.

. Robyn

[Robyn55]

Originally Posted by GinoJune

I never said anything about buying in the $700 range or biting off more than you can chew. I am simply talking about homes with character. PERIOD. You can build a $200K home with character. Again, strip builders are greedy and people are willing to drink the Kool-Aid and buy these things. So here's my challenge...CUSTOM BUILDERS, where are you? Build us some nice neighborhoods in Northern St. Johns County! Offer us a variety of homes (sizes, prices). Make them charming. We live in a beautiful area...let's start building communities and homes that reflect that!!

"Character" is in the eye of the beholder. This is what you said in your original post:

No framed in windows, minimal moldings, no character inside--few arches, curves, etc. And the outsides--one big rectangle with some faux stone and a huge, ugly garage staring you in the face. Take a drive in Nocatee, Durbin, World Golf Village--and really look. Once the new wears off then what do you have? A box, with some windows?

What is a framed in window?

I like minimal. I hate moldings - arches and curves. If you want moldings - it's a simple matter to install them (and I'm sure most builders would be glad to do it for you).

If I had my druthers - I would have built a plain box with windows. Our ARB made us put in some exterior stuff so our house wouldn't be a plain box. It's a nuisance - and gets moldy on the wall facing north. FWIW - we have a block house (CBS) that looks pretty much the same as the day we built it - except that the stucco color has faded slightly after years in the sun.

FWIW - if I'm going to criticize anyone - it's buyers like you who put their personal notions of design (which I don't generally agree with) above more important things that deal with the structural integrity of dwellings in Florida. People seem to want pitched roofs that are much more appropriate in Vermont than Florida. Gables too. Both make houses in Florida more vulnerable to windstorm damage.

People don't care if their houses are built slab on grade - even though that increases the chances of flood damage.

People don't care if the materials in their houses are mold/termite resistant/proof. You know what's infinitely worse than no moldings in the living room? It's having to tear down and repair sections of your house on a regular basis when they're rotted by mold or infested by termites. Aluminum windows are probably not to your taste - but our aluminum impact windows will probably still look pretty new by the time I'm dead (assuming they're cleaned on a regular basis).

I don't know about anyone else here - but I don't like spending a lot of time and especially money on repairs to a house that could have been avoided by building properly for this area in the first place. And I think we pretty much accomplished our goal by having something custom built to our specifications. Over the last 17 years - the only things we've had to do are replace some appliances that died - and we also refreshed parts of our interior this year (the latter was our choice - we could have lived with stuff that was starting to look "tired" but didn't care to). Guess we'll have to replace our roof 5 years or so down the road - but there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with it now. BTW - we built a custom house (complete with architect) and it cost us about $100/sf for excellent site preparation and building the basic shell of our house (including things like the HVAC system) in 1995-96. That price excluded ALL finish work and materials. Like bath fixtures - kitchen cabinets and all other cabinetry - all appliances - floor coverings - lighting fixtures - custom baseboards and doors - etc. - etc. That price also excluded landscaping. Our basic contract with our builder did include things like installation of lighting fixtures and painting - but the kitchen was a totally separate sub-contract. Also - our price didn't include the cost of our lot.

Overall - we spent a bit more than $400k building a 2800 sf house (exclusive of land cost). A personal splurge (I may abhor arches but I love German kitchen cabinets ). But it's probably the only house we'll ever own and we could afford it. OTOH - that $400k would probably be $600k today (toss in another $50-100k minimum for an improved lot) - for a house that's considerably smaller than most families in SJC are looking for. For families looking for more square footage at a lower cost - they have to compromise. And - if I had to choose between things that were important in terms of structural integrity and frou frou - I'd go with the structural integrity (assuming builders can do either at the price points most people are interested in today). Robyn