Building a house in Maine.
Saving money during construction tips to lower the cost building a new Maine home. Steps to take to stretch your dollars. To just shy of the breaking point to save the most money possible to get what you want.
This blog post highlights the best cost cutting and top money saving house building tips to follow.
Everything from finding the perfect Maine land to the step by step build from scratch dance steps. It’s all about timing and for most of us remembering that money and time are limited. Pouring your hard earned money into home construction is expensive, scary and exciting all rolled up into one.
So, let’s hop to it. Where to begin? Your location, the land in Maine where you chose to build a house.
Watch the buying land in Maine video.
The size of the Maine land property is key too.
In rural Maine it is not so hard to have privacy space and elbow room to protect from too many neighbors. Where I live there are just 11 friendly folks per acres in Northern Maine.
But how much in the house building budget for buying Maine land?
The more you buy, the cheaper per acreage cost but you can’t blow the whole wad on just land right? Unless your new home is just a tent. Or you plan to haul in an old camper trailer and call it good enough.
Is the Maine land now serviced by a municipality town water, sewer and power ?
Or do you have to drill a private water well, septic system and run juice to the building site? Run the numbers, make one of many financial decisions along the way unless money is no object.
Are you going off grid and what extra expense are solar, wind, whatever alternative energy source going to set you back developing the Maine land?
It’s constantly doing the math all along the way from ground work to nailing in the last piece of finish trim. Add and subtract and constant study asking lots of questions. Take very good notes in interviews with other folks who built a house. And what they share that was a smart move or not the steps they would have taken again if ever building another house in Maine.
Talks with contractors who are no stranger to the house building process has to happen until you assemble the team you trust to guide you. Do the math each and every step.
Like with all home building weighing the cost and considerations, be ready to pivot and modify the build the house from scratch plan.
Maybe the Maine land you bought already has utilities to tap into that are modern and up to snuff. Is there the cost of tearing down an existing old home on the building site? Hauling it away rather than burying it on your Maine land?
Calculate the expense and hopefully it was all factored in before you even buy the Maine land.
There are a lot of moving parts and costly variable to navigate when you start fresh building a house in Maine.
Instead of buying a house to undo, redo and then make do that is not quite what you had in mind. Building on Maine land can be cheaper in the long run if you plan your work and work your plan. What house design did you set on and was it cost saving because the kitchen and bathroom plumbing is back to back in close proximity?
Spreading out the blue prints to see lots of open living space not rooms combined to avoid extra walls, halls and doors?
Pick a house plan that efficiently uses dimensional lumber the way it is sold. In the lengths it comes out of the warehouse. Or better yet, there is lumber on the Maine land and a nearby sawmill to process it?
How else to reduce your house building expenses costs?
Put the floor plan home square footage on a diet. Less home inside, more outdoor living. Keep it simple and less is more thinking if you open up and combine the living areas. Smaller home, less materials, easier to heat, less to clean, kinda cozy. It all saves costs.
Also, building a second floor and go up or a daylight basement to walk out can be extra living space.
Instead of a bigger footprint and higher basement wall and floor expansion costs, a two-story house design is cheaper. An attached garage saves one wall and reduces the costs. Stay away from custom designs and lots of “jogs” in the cellar foundation.
Each two feet in and so many feet out bay window or recessed front porch basement wall twist and turn adds thousands to the cost.
A simple rectangle or square is cheaper and easier to build on. Do you even need a full basement and the older we all get, stairs become more and more less fun to navigate right? Crawl space, insulated slab with radiant heat, or a full walk out daylight basement to save on the foundation cost square footage?
It’s all about calculating time, materials, labor costs and your enjoyment with the finished product Maine house design at this stage of your life.
Maybe you are using a local Maine log home make for the building materials? If they are local, no extra cost of trucking the logs in from far away when they grow up and harvested all around you. The best price on the cost of materials, who’s available to star in your house building dream that you don’t want to turn into a nightmare.
Getting the labor team lined up and keeping them working on house construction.
So no one is standing around killing precious time. Being paid to only push a clean up broom to look busy while waiting for material deliveries or other MIA tradesmen to show up to work.
People are different, the combination of who builds your home can go smooth or have rough edges causing friction.
When they house building crew gets along and works together, harmony happens. If they don’t there can be back biting, wasted time, cost over runs, the blame game as tempers flare.
Resale of whatever you build, that 3rd bedroom you use as a den that has a closet will add appeal. To the couple with Jimmy and Julie who need the extra bedroom you don’t.
Also building a house in Maine. Consider what if you needed to add on for a loved one to be close but living independently. That door off the kitchen would work fine for future construction for you or the next real estate buyer. The septic and well were not in the way and purposely put elsewhere just in case adding on to the house had to happen.
Buying land, building slowly is the slow cooked smart way to build a house in Maine.
Lots to consider and here to help in your exciting build a house on your own Maine land.
As a local native I know the lay of the land and have personal experience with lots of construction projects over the years. Here to help your Maine land buying, to guide your house building desire to get exactly what you want for “home sweet new home”.
I know a recent Maine land buyer who purchased 15 acres to build a new home on.
Instead of going head over heels in debt with a construction loan and lots of bank interest payments and fees piled high to carry, this couple is going a different route. The Maine land purchased for cash. The buyer’s Dad has a dooryard with lots of excavation road building and wood timbering equipment. The site prep work already done and the land cleared.
The long driveway installed with drainage culverts and turn around. The start for the septic system prep work in place and the couple knows exactly where the private water well will go on the Maine land.
Living in the full concrete cellar is the plan. Month to month adding money from their income stream slow but sure put a roof over their head.
Their existing Maine home is on the market. Neat, clean, priced attractively to sell. Once it does, the profit from that Maine house sale will be funneled into the new home being built in Southern Aroostook County.
Smart, careful, frugal and doing just as much of the house construction, building a home work themselves. Rather than hiring it all out because they have the tools, equipment, skills and determination to pull off the build a house in Maine from scratch. Mainers have common sense and a wide skill set to do more than survive. Building your own home in Maine is not such a nerve wracking ordeal when you grow up helping doing all kinds of building maintenance and construction.
I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker
207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |
MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730 USA
