Living in the city of Buffalo is meh, nice houses but that’s all there is to offer imo. On the other hand though, living in the city of Denver for the past 7 months has been awesome mainly because of all the shit to do, and the fact our RTD actually takes you places you would want to go.
Not really a new job but between the wife and me we have gotten enough in the way of promotions in the past two years to justify moving up a little. This house looks like more than it is. There are immense cost savings based on a walk out basement (less concrete), it is a ranch so it is easier to construct with load points, we will not be finishing it to ultra top end out the gate as we will live there for at least 15 years (hopefully). There are other things that will make the cost of the house to me less, like knowing people to get materials cheap and having a lot of heavy equipment and tools all sitting at my disposal.
We are looking to purchase 10+ acres and subdivide into four lots. The sale of the 3 extra properties will fetch us enough cash to cover the road construction, the utilities on site, and pay for our portion of the land. I will then be doing large portions of the construction myself and GC’ing the job so that will knock even more $$ off the top. In the end, after profit on the current house and all of my investment in to this (time, labor, property sale etc…) we should be sitting around $250K on the mortgage. We still have a lot more work to do to even begin to hone that number from the very rough point it is at, but it will be nearly impossible to lose money on, even if I somehow can not afford it and have to sell.
We decided to build vs buy again as I have poured thousands if not tens of thousands into this house just to make it what I want it to be, and there are so many limitations due to it’s original construction that it is a losing battle
This is the house that I am working off of. I have a lot of architectural/layout changes that have to be made but I like the shape and the exterior finishing.
http://www.dongardner.com/plan_details.aspx?pid=3217
This picture is what sold me on the design (I am nervous of the glass estimate!!):
That’s an easy $50k in glass right there.
I know it is one of the more ridiculous aspects of the design, the other is all of the solid wood beams inside. I will use 3 piece wood beams to make it a little more pocket friendly. I wish that I could make windows too!! Somehow the total window count has got to decline. I do know that this exact house has been built for just under 500K outside of buffalo (Colorado) so it is completely possible to do here within my budget…
Edit: This all still hinges on the purchase of a piece of land so I may end up in a old city house in a better neighborhood anyhow!!
I could see that layout being done for $500000 but not with those interior appointments. Although they use cheap Mexican workers in CO. Just sayin.
That fireplace would cost 3x as much here.
Even if you build it for 250K it will be assessed for big money and you will be paying blue eyed devil taxes
I grew up on High Park. My rents house is 61, next door neighbors just listed theirs for sale for cheap considering the lot. House needs some updating, but it has a finished 3rd with bathroom
I dunno these old houses do nothing for me nor do I have a desire to live in Buffalo… i rather live in new/newer McMansion built by a reputable builder in a Spaulding Lake type hood and send my kids to public school in Clarence… if I was baller enough to afford it that is. I don’t want to deal with old… old = problems.
Speaking of burglaries who has an alarm? What are you paying and how do you like the service?
DFT Security. $20/month for monitoring.
Spaulding Lake is the last place I would want to live but I do think older homes are money pits. Yeah you get some nice woodwork but the rest pretty much sucks. lol
Having spent a bit of time in multiple homes in that area, that’s a pretty safe assumption.
all day ^ espeically with all the doors there are too.