> At the risk of being slightly off-topic, what are good sources to find out wether and in which conditions building your own house is financially advantageous vs buying an existing (new or old) house.
I'd imagine only if you do a lot of the actual building yourself.
New house will just cost same or less than you trying to get a project then hire people to do it.
Project is tiny part of the cost, but for developer it's already amortized over tens of homes they've built. Workers also "know the process" and I'd imagine build it faster than some custom.
Now old house, that's interesting question, and that will heavily depend on state the house is in.
Putting some insulation on old house and doing some renovation might come out far cheaper.
Or you might get into some kind of renovation hell where every fix uncovers another problem with the house, then it turns out you not only need to re-do electrics but also water/sewage, or remove old insulation and replace it with better, or remove some rotting boards etc.
Then there is of course question about whether you like house layout or not or how much you'd want to change it.
On flip-side, the advantage of fixing up old house is that you don't need to do it all at once and so can take smaller mortgage and so pay less in cost of that.
I'd imagine only if you do a lot of the actual building yourself.
New house will just cost same or less than you trying to get a project then hire people to do it.
Project is tiny part of the cost, but for developer it's already amortized over tens of homes they've built. Workers also "know the process" and I'd imagine build it faster than some custom.
Now old house, that's interesting question, and that will heavily depend on state the house is in.
Putting some insulation on old house and doing some renovation might come out far cheaper.
Or you might get into some kind of renovation hell where every fix uncovers another problem with the house, then it turns out you not only need to re-do electrics but also water/sewage, or remove old insulation and replace it with better, or remove some rotting boards etc.
Then there is of course question about whether you like house layout or not or how much you'd want to change it.
On flip-side, the advantage of fixing up old house is that you don't need to do it all at once and so can take smaller mortgage and so pay less in cost of that.