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4.86 acre lot - one home per lot...
Hello,
My fiancé and I are closing on 4.86 acres. Our plan is to build something smaller on the land and parcel it up because per the zoning (residential) of the township, there must be only one home per lot. So as I understand I have to create a plat through an engineer and present what Im going to do if I want to build 4 homes on the property. The totality of my plan is to divide 3 equal lots, build economical but marketable homes on each, rent/sell them, then use the equity from them to collateral our forever home on the remainder of the property. I think I will long-term rent them most likely as we are nurses and see ourselves taking care of our parents later in life, so ideally we would like to keep the homes. We just have no idea what to build, I don't really want to spend 250k. Any ideas of something that builds fast for a 1500 square foot home? I'm going nuts. We marry next August
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#3 Multi-Family and Apartment Investing Contributor
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#3 Multi-Family and Apartment Investing Contributor
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Have you verified the zoning allows the subdivision? If not, you will need a variance. You should verify this with a civil engineer that's familiar with the local land use and development standards. The civil engineer will also be able to help verify access to utilities, set back requirements, storm water management, if applicable etc. That's where you must begin. From there you have to verify there is enough margin to cover the site work/infrastructure and vertical construction.
I would imagine 1500 SF homes given the amount of site work I suspect will be necessary will be an inefficient built. That's because many of the hard vertical costs won't var significantly if its a 1500 SF vs larger house. I would recommend speaking with a local real estate agent who understands the housing market very well to ensure you are building a marketable product rather than arbitrarily deciding on a set square foot product.
Lastly, while preparing to take care of your parents is admirable, you have to decide if this is the best way to provide for them later in their lives. You may come out ahead taking on smaller projects where it's easier to generate lower risk equity and returns and then taking those gains down the line to help your parents. This seems like a heavy lift of a project for two nurses.