Wondering what the consencus was on the three? Wife and I are trying to decide if we should buy an existing home, buy land and build, or buy land and have a Mfg home (NOT mobile home or dbl wide) put up.
I am not sure on the timetable for building traditional vs log homes VS Mfg home assembly. Guess its time to do some research.
I would personally avoid a pre-fab home. Generally, the walls are built with 2×2 lumber, not 2×4. They are generally not built to the same specifications as a “regular” house.
With that said, these houses have a shorter life span. People know this, and generally the resale is much, much lower than your standard home.
Log homes are nice, but require maintenance. Do you homework if you go this route.
If you build new, you have the option of building your dream home, with the layout, design, and interior options you wish to have and what fits your budget.
If you buy an older home (pushing 50 to 100 years) you need to budget in new windows, new heating, lack of central air, lack of cooling/heating efficiency. (New windows do not add ANY value to a home, it is considered maintenance, just like a new furnance).
If you build a brand new house, for the first couple of years you will have basic maintenance, just like you would a 50 year old house. New homes have problems, gremlins, “bugs”, & glitches.
Today’s housing market doesn’t discriminate much between a 1 year old home, to a 10 year old home, to a 100 year old home. It is all based on supply/demand. With that said, a 100 year old house may only be 80% or even 90% the cost of a brand new home. Sometimes it may even be cheaper to build……
My personal recommendation is that you shop and find the right home for you that is between 5 and 15 years. These homes generally are “now gremlin free”. The glitches and bugs are worked out of them and everything is operating like it should.
Take your time and shop for the right house for you.
I tell each and every client to relax and enjoy the shopping. Make it fun, look for your dream!!!
If you let it get to you, it will wreak havoc on your nerves. You may look at 100 homes and not find anything you like and get really frustrated, then it is the 101st home that is PERFECT!!!!!
Even though I’m in the business, it took me and my wife over 6 months to find the perfect home. We found many that were “close”, but I didn’t like “this or that” when it came to quality or function, meaning something “smelled fishy” or I seen “trouble in the future”. My wife was getting really frustrated with me and the process of house hunting. She would find a house she liked, and I would find something wrong with it……….But today, we are the happiest campers out there with what we purchased, for it is the perfect house for us.
If you want, I can assist you with this and get you the resources you need to help???
Shoot me a PM with personal questions or apply general questions here!
Thanks!
I don’t have any first hand experience with log homes, but from what I’ve heard, they are not the way to go. I’ve been told that they are very costly to heat in the winter, and require quiet a bit of annual maintanence. Namely water proofing or sealing/staining of the exterior. From what I gather from other people, if you have a log get any rot in it, you have to dis-assemble the house from the top down to that log in order to replace it, and then re-assemble the house.
If I was doing what you are, I would buy the land and build. I’d go to the bank and detail what I want to do, arrange the financing, and then operate as the general contractor. There are plenty of “trades men” up around that area that want work. You should be able to get the project finished for under estimated cost if you are carefull on how you subcontract the work out.
I’m sure Gary will have some advice for you about the financing aspects of such an endevour.
Hello,
Hey Gary, WOW what you said pretty much said it all. The only this I disagree with is that someone said that log home are harder to heat, from my experience they hold heat better. Log homes are a pain, everything that you put in has to be able to expand and contract because the logs move so much, with that being said they are really expensive to build. But, if you can afford it to get an experienced builder(homework!)Then a log home would be a beautiful home. Good luck with whatever you decide
Later
Hollywood2
To put in my $.02, I would stay away from a log home for a few basic reasons. I maintenence will have to be done to the exterior logs every few years, they are costly to build, and the interior cleaning of 20 logs (read dust collector) is a major pain. With that being said, they are beautiful and constitute my thinking of a dream home, as long as you don’t mind a little work.
I also second what was said about the prefab homes. Great for cost, but short on “quality”.
I have to disagree with the “general contractor” thing noted above. This is what I do for a living, and these guys earn their money. There are many problems that can be avoided by having the knowledge, background, and tools to do something right, and can also get it done in a reasonable amount of time. Who do you think is going to get the subcontractors when they really need them, the guy who puts up one house, or the guy who has used this sub on 15 houses in the last year. Im not saying that it can’t be done, far from it, but just want to warn you of the pitfalls of construction. If you think you can handle it, and want to spend every night and weekend on the phone, job, etc. I wish you the best of luck.
You also have to worry about the schedule you are working with. If you are talking about moving soon, take into account the weather, subcontractors scheduled, additional heating costs (temporary heat), snow removal, muddy yards, etc.
Hate to be Mr. negative, but just want to make sure you are looking at the whole picture. I wish you the best of luck, and if you do have some construction questions, PM me and I would be more then happy to discuss from my point of view. It may be slightly different from others cause I have been doing this my whole life. All I ask is a couple fishing trips on the big lake 
I agree with farmboy on the contractor thing. I would not recomend it especally if you already have a full time job. Being in the business myself I have seen the bad things that can happen. It even happens to the contractors (such as people not showing up.) It will take an aveage of 3 months to construct a new house if you hire a contractor, I can almost guarantee you it will take you 5 months min. if you attempt it your self. Then when it comes to warranty the subs work good luck getting ahold of them to come out and fix things. For those reasons I would stay awy from doing it yourself, it would be like having 2 full time jobs.
I would also stay away from prefab homes. I have seen some built and the home owners seem to like them but call me old fasion I still like good old stick framing 
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Log homes are some thing I would like to have but for some of the said reasons (dusting and ext. main.) I dont think I would enjoy it It would take to much time away fron hunting and fishing. Just another fall chore to get done befor hunting season
Just my 2 cents
Whatever you decide to do, make sure you have a good inspector go through the place and ask for a warranty from the seller if you go that route.
You won’t get a warrenty from the seller on an existing home. New homes, you generally get 12 or 24 months, or possibly “4 seasons” of warrenty.
As far as minnesota laws, and maybe Red Rock Eyes can chime in here (he is a realtor for MN and WI), is that a MN homeowner who is selling their house must disclose all problems that have occured during their ownership.
A home inspection will tell you all the problems with the home (via: elec, plumbing, heating, roofing, walls, foundation, etc). Once a home inspection is completed, the seller must disclose that (if the seller has the inspection performed) to all people who look at the house.
If a buyer has an inspection done and problems are found, the seller must disclose that inspection. However, the inspection is done at the cost of you, the potential buyer. If you choose to buy or not buy the house, you are stuck with the cost of that inspection.
If you are fairly mechanical or have some good knowledge of homes, you can skip the inpection. I DID NOT have an inspection done on the house I purchased. However, I did crawl through the house with a fine tooth comb prior to purchasing.
I would say that when it comes to an inspection, do what you feel most comfortable doing. However with homes newer than 20 years, you can probably get away without doing one and be sitting “good enough”.
With homes older than 20 years, I would recommend getting one done, primarily to find out the current status of the electrical, heating/plumbing, and the general condition of the foundation/roof.
Again, in Minnesota, the seller has to disclose any problem that has occured in the past. So, any water problems or sewage back up problems will be disclosed. Those are your major concerns.
As far as being your own General Contractor, I highly recomend too, that you don’t go that route for the following reasons:
1) It is very, very difficult to get any bank to back your play, when you, an “unexperienced, unlicensed” contractor wants $200,000 cash to build a house.
2) It is very, very difficult to get “subs” to show on on schedule, when you are the only business they are offering, and their primary General has 10 jobs lined up for them. If that primary General is falling behind and needs to push the subs, the subs are going to take care of the meat/potatoes and not worry so much about the “gravey” that you are offering.
3) Time consumption. Like others have said, it is going to take you longer, which means ALOT of time away from your present job. If you have that liberty, to be at the construction site 2 to 4 hours every day to manage and monitor, do it, but if you don’t have that type of free time, again……I would steer clear.
You are only going to save 10%, maybe, maybe 20% by being your own General.
Well, I got a warranty on mine from the seller and it is 30 yrs old. I had mine inspected and they found a number of things that were fixed prior to closing. The warranty ended up paying for a new water heater in the first year and also fixed a couple of plumbing issues. Unless you are a plumber, electrician, and a carpenter, I highly suggest hiring a qualified home inspector.
Well, sounds like Log home is out, I am still looking into some “Mfg” homes. They actually make a pretty decent one down in PDC. More research to follow though.
What I would rweally like to do is buy 100 acres about 20 miles from Duluth and put a nice new house on it with a HUGE 3 1/2 car garage, But I haven’t won the lotery yet.
Look into Wasaw pre built homes. Upfront cost is a little more than stick built but the time saved makes up for it. I have done a couple of these homes and went from foundation to shingles in 4 days. These are built just like stick built , 2×6 walls and all interior walls pre built in a factory then shipped to the jobsite and set in place with windows plywood and housewrap already installed.
Being a carpenter myself I would only go stick built or like decribed above you get a better home in the end than any of the other ways. Log homes are nice to but likes been stated theres alot of yearly maintenace involved.
Also hire someone as General they know the subs in the area better than you and have more power over getting them to the job in a timley fashion, if you be your own general you’ll here I’ll be there next week alot. They just dont tell you that they mean next month.
Good luck with whatever way you go.
Garys right fish plus others too, ive worked in the drywall field for about 20 years now and know my framing pretty well too plus concrete. You do get a few glitches in a new home if you build new, its hard to avoid them because of setteling etc. If you buy a fairly new home these have had time to settle and the problems are obvious that have to be solved or have already been solved. They are like a new car coming off the line, if thier lemons they will be loaded with problems, if they are over a few years old and nothing has gone wrong with them or very little yet they are more than likely a good build. Meaning if you buy an older one the problems have already been solved and won’t be as much of a frustrating surprise, and the problems they do have are pretty much obvious. A new owner has to deal with these and its frustrating, this is why its law that a contractor has to give a written gaurantee for atleast one year to repair defects, this is normal. Me i’d personally buy an older house of atleast 10 to 15 years and go through things and make a list of questions on items you want to know about, the house fixtures, walls, squeaks in the floor, solid handrails etc. and talk to a good reputable carpenter and ask why they are doing what they are doing. A good carpenter can tell you just about everything there is to know about a house. Stay away from any house that has cracks in the drywall around any doorways or windows that comes from the corners of them and goes from there to the ceilings or floors, drywall dosen’t crack unless theres serious footing problems. Close and open the doors to see if they hang up in the jambs, see if the doorknobs seat right in thier stikeplates of the jambs. Squeaky floors means they didn’t use construction adhesive when laying the subfloor, its not an absolute must to do this but it means no squeaky floor and thats just one thing a good builder does is use adhesive on the floor framing besides nails or screws. Anything around 10 years old or a little older will have high effeciency heating, anything older will have a furnace thats dosen’t, too an older furnace that might need to be changed plus the water heater too. Wiring is minor when it comes to the value of the house, it eigther works or it dosen’t so use all the switches and lights to see if everythings ok there. If you have a concrete drivway that was done by the concrete contractor that poured the house footings and theres no cracks in it or very few thats means more than likely the footings were poured right and the grounds stable in that neighborhood or that piece of ground. Ask the neighbors what thier basement walls look like and ask if thier happy with the local ground, you’ll be able to tell which ones know and the ones that don’t. A new home is nice but they can be a surprise too. I’d personally like to have one thats a little older with few problems than one thats new and developes quite a few. Find out if the house was stick built, a good carpenter will compensate for evrything thats needs to be done right at that time and do this through the whole time the house is being built andd you end up with a properly built house. The modular homes are ok too but the footings and the basement walls have to be done right the first time or they settle unevenly. Stay away from homes that take more seasonal or yearly maintaince. If you could find a 10 to 15 year old house with cedar, vinyl or aluminum siding that was stick built and has good looking concrete i’d take a longer look at that one.
We supply many lumber yards as well as a few select MFG home companies with building materials. There are cheap MFG homes and there are REALLY good ones. You shouldn’t go wrong with a
traditional stick-built home, but you are certainly at the mercy of the weather, builders not showing up, painters not showing up etc. A Wausau Home or a Wisconsin Home is one of the finest homes you can get…don’t discredit them. I could certainly give you a lot more info if you’re interested. We sell construction lumber, Logsiding, T&G paneling, treated foundation material, cedar siding etc. Let me know if you have questions.
By all means. I would like to find out details on the GOOD mfg homes. Send a pm if you like.
I’ll have to throw my little bit of info in here. I have to agree with the log homes….A friend of mine just built one. It is nice but I can tell he is going to be putting a lot of time in on it for maintenence.
Stick built homes are excellent if you get the right contractor and good references. Do your research on them. The only thing bad with stick built has been said before.
The manufactured homes are now the way to go if you ask me. A good Wausau home is great and Wisconsin Homes are awesome too. They use top quality materials, they are assembled in controled environments, and put up in a matter of days. They use 2×6 walls, not 2×2(infact that went out years ago), quality windows and doors(Anderson, Pella ect.). The homes I’m talking about aren’t the ones that come in 2-4 pieces and stacked up. There are a few companies that have the true pre-built that are worth looking into.
Here are a couple of local people that travel and are good.
your views are correct on the “new-improved” manufactured homes.
The new manufactured homes that you speak of, technically become a true “stick” home, once set up.
However, if it looks like a duck………..It is a duck……..
Meaning that not all manufactured homes are the same.
Many, if not most (however not all) still look like a manufactured house, which isn’t much more than a doublewide trailer house.
With that said, the perception of the home when you go sell is that it is a “pre-fab”. Pre-fab homes DO NOT resale to the same value of a stick house.
You can tell the true difference of a pre-fab and a true stick.
The pre-fab generally have very short eaves.
They also have a very low slope on the roof.
Lastly, you will find many to also have their windows right up to the roof.
You can basically plan that if you get into something cheaper, then you will be reselling cheaper. When you choose to go that route, you are eliminating a large portion of your buying community.
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