Lindal Cedar home or stay where we are?
Posted on | March 22, 2009 |
So, here we are. We’ve exhausted the custom architect-designed route. Still waiting for that second quote, but I’ll give you the range of the first one:
$500-600,000. Yeah, it blew my mind too. Especially since we had given our max budget as $300,000. The quote was under $500k with HST, plus the $50k for our lot. Then, if you added additional expenses for cabinets and blasting, not to mention cost overruns and the mechanical requirements of a solar house (which weren’t included because they weren’t quite sure what to do) and you have a very expensive, pretty small house. Not only that, but it’s so customized to our needs, if ever did need to resell it, we’d never make those kinds of costs back.
So. Where does that leave us? In my last post I talked about how we were now looking into Lindal and Interhabs kit homes. We spent the other night meeting with Richard Tolson at Interhabs, reviewing costs and looking at the Eurohab 3 and 4. Now, we really like the Interhabs houses. But, we don’t love them. They seem like they might be dark inside as there aren’t a lot of windows. We were assured they weren’t dark inside, but we can’t shake the feeling that they might be darker than our current house without expensive modifications. That, plus the cost issue. For the size of house we need with some decent storage, we’re still blowing our budget. Even if we traded some web design work, it still wouldn’t get to the point where we would feel comfortable taking on a high mortgage right now.
I’m not a fan of debt. It makes me very uneasy. And today’s economy certainly isn’t helping to make it better. Right now, we have a good mortgage rate with Scotiabank (it’s not as good as some, but it’s still acceptable). We can afford where we are quite comfortably. We have great neighbours our own age with lots of kids in the area. Next year Amelia starts school, and she’ll get to go to the school my wife teaches at. To my wife, this is a HUGE deal. I’m not sure why, but it is.
So, have we given up on our dream of building on this lot? Not yet. On Tuesday, I’m meeting with Cam from A Cut Above, a local Lindal Cedar home dealer. Last weekend we sat through a webinar with Joel Turkel, who has designed some amazing passive solar houses that are available as kit homes. We’ve given him our budget and he is trying to work out something for us to get us into a TD1 2400. I’m not confident that they can lower the cost enough to make it work.
So, where are we with this now? Well, I see a few options:
- Stay in our current house and hold onto the land for the future. I don’t love this idea as we’re not making huge payments on the lot right now as we were planning to build on it pretty quickly. Paying interest on something I don’t own is not a smart strategy in my opinion. I’d love to sell it for a small profit.
- Sell the lot and stay in our house. Utilize some of the tax credits that are available to renovate the house. Add solar hotwater. Plant some trees to get shade in the backyard. Finish the basement and modify the main floor to open it up somewhat. Obviously, these all cost money, but we can pick away at them one at a time so it doesn’t need to be huge.
- See what Lindal can do, and approach our bank just to confirm what it would cost. I think we may do this if they can manage to keep the cost under $300,000. We’ll see though.
Comments
7 Responses to “Lindal Cedar home or stay where we are?”
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March 23rd, 2009 @ 3:43 pm
Hi Jeff,
I have experience building homes. My family built three new houses while I was growing up. We cut the trees on the the lot, did all the framing, plumbing, electrical, etc. I hated it growing up but as an adult it has given me a lot of knowledge to work with.
When I looked at your first sketches for a home, I immediately thought it would be $600-$800K to build, so the adjustments you have made, and quotes you have received appear to be very accurate to me.
For $300,000 I expect you could build a modest 2000 sq. ft. home, using standard finishings available at large box suppliers. Anything beyond that will require clever thinking on your part, and/or sweat equity.
The price of building a new home has dramatically increased recently as the demand for raw materials such as steel, cooper and asphalt from China has driven the cost of those items to increase.
Good luck on your quest! Where thou art, that is home.
March 24th, 2009 @ 9:43 pm
Hey Jeff,
Have you checked out http://freegreen.com/ ?
free green house designs!
March 25th, 2009 @ 6:31 am
Cool stuff, Julian. The problem with bringing plans to a builder means that it’s darn near impossible to keep costs in check.
July 19th, 2009 @ 1:48 am
Hi Jeff,
We are in your same position and are looking
into the Turkel Designed homes. Were you able
to get the TD1 2400 design with your budget of
less than $300,000. How close were you able to
get and what did you end up doing? Your input
would help us greatly in making a similar
decision.
Thanks!
STephanie
July 19th, 2009 @ 2:59 pm
Hi Stephanie,
Our quote came in at just under $300k (Cdn). We still didn’t proceed though. Too many unknowns. It’s a beautiful house, but we decided to stay where we are for now.
January 20th, 2010 @ 12:59 pm
Hi Jeff.
Very interesting comments. My wife and are in the process of purchasing and developing land for an acreage. Lindal homes seem to be where we are leaning. I was encouraged to see the price you were able to get. Who did you negotiate with (i.e. your agent or the company directly)? We are also interested in the Dwell homes. Given the size of the model you wanted, I was surprised by the cost for which you could have it built.
If you don’t mind me asking, could you let me know how it was adjusted to get down to your budgeted amount?
Thank you in advance.
Rob
January 21st, 2010 @ 6:38 am
Hi Rob,
We had to remove most of the cedar and go with locally-sourced doors to get the price down that low. I’d give Cam a call at A Cut Above and see what he can work out for you.