Rigby, ID · Member since 2018 · 11 posts · 3 votes
When my wife and I first tried buying a home we spent about a year trying to find the perfect house hack. It was hard to do, maybe it was our market maybe it was us, not sure. Then, we had a conversation with one of our friends and they told us their plan. They would build a new home live in it for two years and sell it. I was interested. So my wife and I spent another 6 months putting together a plan on how we would do this. We started this back in 2010. We have built two homes (we did put a lot of sweat equity into the homes) and sold one (obviously we did sell every two years) and we are getting ready to sell the next one. If we sell it for what we are hoping our next house will be paid for.
I am interested if anyone else has had luck doing this method of house hacking?
Yes! It’s so hard to find others in this niche that do some variation of the “build a house, move into it for 2 of the next 5 years, while you build the next house, move in, sell the previous house for profit, and repeat strategy”. That’s a mouthful, maybe its because there doesn’t seem to be a name for it (let’s call it BLBS=Build, Live, Build, sell ;)
@Matthew Stokes, how did it go?
@Mimi Nguyen, how about you?
Would love to connect with anyone else out there in the “BLBS” Community
Not I, but I met a guy on the beach in DR @ 5am for cappuccino's, (every morning for a week), who was active in that endeavor.
As a contractor he has done this for many years & was currently down in the Naples/Marco Island area. I assume if it's not a new build it's a house hack, complete rehab & based on the i-Phone pics he flipped through he has done very well.
I am really interested in doing something like this and have also discussed with my wife. With a design business and a background in construction I feel it could be a great path.
Can you share a little about your costs to build and final margins?
@Matthew Stokes this is a very popular business model for a lot of builders. Sounds like you've had some good success. Next level for you would be to do some spec building and scale from there.
Greg, I actually have started building spec homes now. Like you said it just made sense. I didn't have a lot of my own money so I used investors as partners and built these spec homes with them. They would purchase the land and hold the construction loan and I would do the rest. We have done 6 homes this way now and we are starting two more. It's been fun, my wife and I really enjoy the work.
Any advice on scaling up as I plan for the future?
Yes! It’s so hard to find others in this niche that do some variation of the “build a house, move into it for 2 of the next 5 years, while you build the next house, move in, sell the previous house for profit, and repeat strategy”. That’s a mouthful, maybe its because there doesn’t seem to be a name for it (let’s call it BLBS=Build, Live, Build, sell ;)
@Matthew Stokes, how did it go?
@Mimi Nguyen, how about you?
Would love to connect with anyone else out there in the “BLBS” Community
@Matthew Stokes It sounds like you have great success! I am a complete beginner in REI. I am just wondering what is beneficial of building houses on your own (if that's what you meant) instead of finding a builder to do it?
- is it because it costs more with them than you doing it yourself?
- is it hard to find reliable builders in the area?