Rebuild an old house to New Home Spec

[Rommel Pascual]

I've been entertaining the idea that it might be more cost effective to build a new home out of my already existing home than trying to buy a new home. I'm curious if anyone has had this experience and what would the first steps be? How can one estimate the cost? I have floor plans from all the new home in the area and would like to duplicate one of them. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[Sam LLoyd]

It's not very clear what you are intending?  It sounds like you want to remodel your home's floor plan.  This is possible, especially if you're planning on redoing sheerock and flooring, but you have to tear everything out to do it correctly, with running wires and such.  However, your floor plan will still be limited to some degree.  In most cases, some walls will be weight bearing, moving some of them would require moving all the drain lines... that sort of thing.  If I were to guess, I'd say building a new house would be better and more cost effective, since everything would be the same age.  Example:  I saved 5k remodeling, but the roof is old and will need replacing sooner... 5k.

Now, if your house is old enough, or too small to suit the neighborhood, it might be more cost effective to tear it down and start over.