Hi

Has anyone bought a plot of land and had a custom house built in Canada?
We would like to buy a small farm ( around 30 acres or so).
Unfortuately in ther area we are interested in (moncton or saint john in NB) a lot of what I find on the mls are good locations, right amount of land, but with very old not particularly nice houses on them.

I wondered what a ball park figure for having a house built would be?

Any ideas?

Pennyhp

We've never had a custom house built. We've always bought used houses.

Some Internet searching suggests that, for a house with an economical finish, in a lower cost part of Canada, you may be looking at about CAD 100 per square foot (roughly GBP 425 per square metre). For a standard finish in a medium cost part of the country, think in terms of CAD 115 per sq ft (GBP 490 per square metre). For an upscale finish in a more expensive part of the country, the cost is about CAD 130 per sq ft (GBP 555 per square metre). A luxurious finish might set you back CAD 150 per sq ft (GBP 640 per square metre).

Those hypothetical costs assume you've already paid for the land, you have an empty space on which to construct the house, a septic tank already is in place, and services such as water, electricity and telephone already have been supplied to the property. Demolition of an existing house would cost extra.

Please don't hold me to those figures, as they are very rough numbers.

Hope that helps.

We have, on Vancouver island.
But only and acre. land cost £40,000 House cost £70,000 to build complete. For this we got a 3 bedromm 2 bath house about 25000 square feet. We have ben asked about it so much I ma currently building a website about it and it should be up and running in a few days, so rather than bore others who have already heard ,me waffle on many times, I am happy to answer any questions you may have in a private email, Please feel free to PM me.
There shold be a picture below if I have done it right taken at Chistmas when it was very wet. Husband has just been out to get garden started.

You must be very careful about building on large parcels of land. As you need to consider getting electric water etc there if not already. Some horrorstories of people, buying cheap land then unable to get utilities to land without spending thousands, then having to get planning etc.

Best to buy land with existing building that you know has all utilituies, then jsut apply to knock it down and rebuild new. They do not seem to have any problem in BC getting permission to knck down and rebuild. You can also move a house. They slice it off at the base and move it whole wherever you want!!.

Sorry picture came out too small to see unless you squint!!!!!!!!!!
I'll email web address as soon a sit is running.

Thanks Judy

very helpful I know people can't give exacts but the figures you gave at least help me to have some idea of what we might be looking at.
You mentioned web search. Which sites did you look up?
I could only get lots and lots of house plans but no figures.

Anyway thanks again.

Pennyhp

Thanks Gooding

really helpful.
Good point about checking availability and cost of fitting utilities, and moving houses.
I wonder if they can put mine on the back of lorry and ship it from here?
Just kidding. 1930's UK houses whith broken sash windows with one layer of 2mm glass and droughty cracks would't be toooo comfortable.

I look forward to visiting your website when it's up and running.

Thanks

Pennyhp

are standard in this neighbourhood. They call them "character homes".

[Whilst we were over at Chirstmas we saw this really crap house sold for $189,000 on a plot of land by a main road, looked like a big shed.
In two weeks we saw it sliced off at the base raised up on pillars new concrete foundations pumped in and they built a whole lower floor, with steps to "new front door" re clad and roofed. We came home with our parents returning several weeks later. Our agent had sold it and is now reselling it at $289000
It is unrecognisable, absoloutly fantastic although not our choice.



UOTE=pennyhp]Thanks Gooding

really helpful.
Good point about checking availability and cost of fitting utilities, and moving houses.
I wonder if they can put mine on the back of lorry and ship it from here?
Just kidding. 1930's UK houses whith broken sash windows with one layer of 2mm glass and droughty cracks would't be toooo comfortable.

I look forward to visiting your website when it's up and running.

Thanks

Pennyhp[/QUOTE]

You're very welcome.

I too found several of those web sites that provided house plans. In a couple of cases, once you had selected a specific house plan, there was a button that said something along the lines of, "Calculate cost to build this house." At first I was able to find only American web sites that provided that option. Although I searched for building costs in an American state that was quite close to New Brunswick, namely, Maine, I still wasn't confident that the numbers would reflect the NB reality. Then I found Global House Plans which enabled you to do an American or a Canadian search. What I found was that the Canadian building costs were not hugely different from the Maine costs after all. Still, it felt good to get confirmation of that from a Canadian site. Building Journal was an American site that provided a facility for estimating the cost of building one of its house plans. Naturally, in using the Building Journal web site, you would need to convert American dollars to Canadian dollars so that you're comparing apples and apples. The Building Journal web site was more finely tuned than the Global House Plans site, because it reflected how various choices, e.g., different exterior siding materials, would increase or decrease the cost.

I am pleased that gooding, who actually has gone through this process, has responded to you. I'm sure there are many issues that you don't even dream about till you've undertaken a project like this. From what I've heard from friends who have had houses built, there invariably have been costs that they have not anticipated at the outset of the undertaking.

It also would be good to speak to many people who live in the area in which you will be building. There are many climatic idiosyncracies and other logistical considerations that would not occur to you until you had lived in a place.

For example, here in Alberta, people like to have a driveway that is as short as possible. We have a relatively dry climate and we don't get that much snow. Still, we get enough snow that we want to shovel as little of it as possible. It's ideal for a house to have its large windows facing south, which obviously is the sunny side, and fewer, smaller windows on the north face, which is the side from which cold, arctic winds blow in.

When it comes to gardening, the conventional wisdom is to plant coniferous trees on the north side of the house, because they make a good wind break. It's good to have one or two strategically placed deciduous trees on the south side of the house. They shade the house in summer, but allow sunlight to reach it when their branches are bare in winter.

An attached garage is a very nice thing to have. It's also nice to have a "mud room" between the garage and the house. A mud room often houses laundry facilities and, as the name suggests, is a room in which you can take off soiled boots before entering the house. If the kitchen can be located close to the garage and mud room, so much the better. Then you have a shorter distance to walk when you're unloading groceries from your car.

The old houses in Calgary have front entrance halls that are separate rooms. They act as an air lock between the outside elements and the other rooms of the house. Just about all the houses that have been built in recent decades have done away with those separate entrance halls, which I think is a mistake. These days you just step into an open plan entrance / living / dining area. If energy costs rise, which I believe they will do, these open plan living areas will contribute to high energy bills.

I'm not from the UK, so I don't know how common coat closets (cupboards) are in the UK. Here in Alberta, a coat closet in the front entrance area and a built-in coat rack in the rear entrance area are standard issue.

Friends of ours who have built houses on rural land have had wind surveys done before they've sited their houses. The reason for that is that little bumps and depressions in the landscape cause wind tunnels to form so that snow drifts accumulate in some spots while other spots remain relatively free of snow. It comes back to siting the house in such a way as to minimise the burden of clearing snow. But I suspect New Brunswick gets so much snow that it might not make any difference. Perhaps you could just climb out of your second story window wearing cross country skis or snow shoes, and away you'd go. Just kidding (sort of).

Anyway, the point is that only people who live in the area in which you are planning to build can give you all the tips that are relevant to that area.

All the best.

[QUOTE=gooding]We have, on Vancouver island. But only and acre. land cost £40,000 House cost £70,000 to build complete. For this we got a 3 bedromm 2 bath house about 25000 square feet. [\QUOTE]

Twenty-five thousand square feet for £70,000, pleae let me know the name of your builder, £2.80 a square foot now thats what I call a deal, I only want a modest 3 thousand square feet place. How much would that cost? On these figures that would be under £10,000 even with additional land purchace that is fantastic. I knew Canada was cheap, but not realized it was that good. Sod buying I'm building

Dozzzzy

Great posts (esp. Gooding and Judy). Thanks.

After viewing loads of homes I have found a big variation in the build quality of new homes.
The builder may quote a good price per sq.ft. but I would be weary and make sure you see other places the builder has done (at the same price).
The houses that I have allways been impressed with are the ones built to R2000 spec. although I am not saying that others aren't good.
The link below will help explain what I'm on about.

http://www.oee.nrcan.gc.ca/residenti...000.cfm?attr=4

Our house lacking a mud room drives my wife nuts, they make so much sense here. Open plan is nice, but the dirt certainly tracks in throught the front door, and we basically come and go through the garage in the winter to keep the cold out.

Another great detailed reply by the way, I'd give karma, but it wont let me.

Sit down take a deep breath and realise what I may have done wrong in my post??? I am dozzzzzy ....I hit an extra "0" on the end . House is 2500 square feet !!!! land just under an acre.

We still got a very good deal as we did not pay by the foot. We bought parcel of land with approved plans for a house build. We could have had the land alone if we wanted, but chose the complete house package. What we were quoted was what we paid , no extras etc. We set out a build time table in a 9 page contract which included everything from fitted kitchen, wooden floors even colour of paint, bathroom fixtures lights everything, the house is even built to latest standards for earthquakes! Out lawyer kept track of eachstage, and only paid certain amouts of money at each stage until completed . There were four or five build stages all had to be checked by regonal inspector and our independent appraiser before builder got his money.
Only delay in build was when the local eagles were nesting, as he was not allowed to use heavy machinery during nesting season!! This was actually allowed for in contract! He was on penalties if he did not complete on time.
we got a good deal and many extras , as builder wanted more similar work from recommendations as did our real esate agent, they worked together and we let them show people photos of our house to encourage them to use the same builder.


[QUOTE=dozzzzy]

If your Dozzzzy who the hell am I, I think I need that shrink that’s running round the forum somewhere



Excuse me I must just go sign up for some therapy to work this out I am obviously deluded


Dozzzzy, I think........ therefor ......... darn i need some hellllllllppppppppp aaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh

I was wondering how the mortgage works on buying land and custom builds? Will the mortgage lenders give money for both or do you typically need cash for the land first? It's always rather unerving doing a self build in case the costs spiral way past the budget. Is there any kind of flexibility in the mortgage approval to help soak any extras or do you have to move in with half a house and get wet?? How long roughly does a custom build take from drawing up plans to moving in? Just a rough idea as I'm sure it depends on whether the builders have a better paying job down the road or not!

Thanks all, daisy