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My favorite is needing a “certificate of occupancy†aka government permission to live in your own home on your own land. Of course the certificate of occupancy is decided and issued by the local bureaucrats after you’ve paid their fees and jumped through their hoops and complied.
All of us who have land we are free to build and live on should consider ourselves lucky. It’s an increasingly rare thing. I believe someday this freedom will be all but non existent, ridicule me if you want .
Cochise county owner builder exemption is very fair. If you have a certain amount of acreage, I believe it’s 4 acres, and are a owner builder (no contractors selling for a profit) you can build as you see fit, minus plumbing and electrical (which is a grey area because what if you have zero grid tied plumbing or electric?)
We have financialization (credit, allowing the purchase of higher-cost homes, thus raising all prices) which leads to higher valuations, which leads to higher property taxes, higher realtor commissions, and higher insurance premiums. Union labor also leads to higher building costs and higher improvement costs. I'm not calling it a conspiracy, but I can't imagine how anything else could have achieved these results.
The deck is pretty much stacked against the owner-builder. I was determined to build my own ranch house in Maine, and did so. It is built to code, but it's small (1120 sf) and the cost was for building materials only. The labor was essentially free -- a big savings. I owned the land outright and paid cash for the materials, so there was no financing involved. That would have complicated things. We decided to self-insure the house. So in one fell swoop, I cut out the bankers, the realtors, the unions, and the insurance companies. Our property taxes are under $800 per year, so I guess we didn't give a free pass to the tax collector, either.....
The FIRE economy (finance, insurance, real estate) is designed to milk as much profit as possible from homeowners. And it does. The only way to side-step it is to 1) pay cash for the entire project, 2) self-insure, and 3) choose your county or muicipality wisely (low taxes).
I am new to this site and just joined because the information you just stated and from others on here is incredible! Thank you! I am trying to find a small plot of land and plunk down what is called a "boxabl" house (www.boxabl.com) that is up to manufactured standards but comes in a steel structure box that unfolds in hours. It is complete with plumbing and electricity, water, fire and mold proof (so they say). You can put it on a cement slab. They are 50K. I put $100 down to be on the waiting list as they are not in production yet but getting close. I'm looking for land in MASS or RI or (lower) MAINE. My daughter and grandson live in CT. I hope I can find a small plot somewhere and plunk one of these down.
I bought our land in 2005, by 2007 we were living in the house. I did 99% of the labor myself, and I paid cash for each part of it.
It was not until 2019 that we tried to get a mortgage for the property. I had to start by getting insurance.
'owner-built' was not a hang up for the insurance company.
The size and style of our woodstove was a big deal, and the breed and size of our dogs were a big deal.
They did not care about codes, or our solar power system.
Once we got the insurance then getting the mortgage was easy.
There has never been any kind of building inspector to ever enter our home.
The state sends out a tax assesor ever five years, but he usually stays on his motorcycle. Or maybe he will step off his bike just so he can more easily pull out forms that he must fill-out. Then he leaves.
We have financialization (credit, allowing the purchase of higher-cost homes, thus raising all prices) which leads to higher valuations, which leads to higher property taxes, higher realtor commissions, and higher insurance premiums. Union labor also leads to higher building costs and higher improvement costs. I'm not calling it a conspiracy, but I can't imagine how anything else could have achieved these results.
The deck is pretty much stacked against the owner-builder. I was determined to build my own ranch house in Maine, and did so. It is built to code, but it's small (1120 sf) and the cost was for building materials only. The labor was essentially free -- a big savings. I owned the land outright and paid cash for the materials, so there was no financing involved. That would have complicated things. We decided to self-insure the house. So in one fell swoop, I cut out the bankers, the realtors, the unions, and the insurance companies. Our property taxes are under $800 per year, so I guess we didn't give a free pass to the tax collector, either.....
The FIRE economy (finance, insurance, real estate) is designed to milk as much profit as possible from homeowners. And it does. The only way to side-step it is to 1) pay cash for the entire project, 2) self-insure, and 3) choose your county or muicipality wisely (low taxes).
I am new to this site and just joined because the information you just stated and from others on here is incredible! Thank you! I am trying to find a small plot of land and plunk down what is called a "boxabl" house (www.boxabl.com) that is up to manufactured standards but comes in a steel structure box that unfolds in hours. It is complete with plumbing and electricity, water, fire and mold proof (so they say). You can put it on a cement slab. They are 50K. I put $100 down to be on the waiting list as they are not in production yet but getting close. I'm looking for land in MASS or RI or (lower) MAINE. My daughter and grandson live in CT. I hope I can find a small plot somewhere and plunk one of these down.
That looks great, but I'll believe it when I see it. Several years ago a company started "selling" an innovative structure that came delivered on a pallet. It was a big canvas building and the canvas had dry concrete mix embedded in it. It came in a huge plastic bag that the buyer would fill with water. Any 4WD vehicle could unfold the building from the pallet with a tow strap, the included fan inflated it like a kid's blow-up house. The next day the quick-set concrete had turned the canvas tent into a permanent concrete structure that was immune to fire, small-arms ammunition, earthquakes, water, etc etc. And it was going to be only $5,000!
I emailed them a few years after the product launched and it was more like $40k (for a tent that can fit onto pallet) and that didn't include shipping from the UK, and it wasn't actually available "yet".
Edited to add: If you want an "instant" living arrangement and your climate supports it, you may want to consider a yurt. They can be put onto a wooden deck which is a relatively inexpensive foundation to build on. I've stayed in one before, and they aren't bad, but they are not a "permanent" structure. But you can order one today and get it before your deck is finished.
Last edited by terracore; 08-23-2020 at 07:49 PM..
If you want an "instant" living arrangement and your climate supports it, you may want to consider a yurt.
They might look interesting, but they aren't really cheap or long lived. There are scores of inexpensive modular/mobile homes built with normal materials, easily transported to any location you wish, already set up or easily setup in a day.
The alternatives are much more about style than substance. The one bluheron linked is >2x the normal price/sq ft and completely devoid of closets or storage.
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Thank you!
