As popular wisdom has it, a real man should plant a tree, raise a son and build a house. However, if things are quite simple with a tree and children, then the construction of their own home for some remains a pipe dream. The main obstacle is the lack of appropriate experience, as well as a lack of free time or money.
Despite this, people still have the question, of whether it is worth building a house on their own or it is better to buy ready-made. Pros and cons are expressed by both professionals and potential customers. But to decide this question, it is necessary to consider all the pros and cons individually.
What are the main risks when building a house on your own?
The decision to save money is the main reason why people choose to build themselves. On the one hand, everything seems simple. Technology in construction has been honed for decades, and all the necessary information is on the Internet and YouTube. All that is left to do is to download the project, buy building materials and start.
However, in practice, everything isn’t so simple. The self-building of the house has many problems and risks, of which a person without experience isn’t even aware. Beginning with the nuances of site selection with the correct location, its geology, shape, slope, moisture content of the soil, then determining the type of foundation for the project, stability, reliability, and thermal conductivity of materials of walls, floors, and beams, the features of the roof and so on.
There are a lot of nuances associated with electricity, plumbing, heating, and sewage. If you organize them incorrectly, then in the future there may be problems with maintenance, increased costs, and sometimes there may even be a threat to health. You should also remember all sorts of legal issues.
After all, the greatest uncertainty and risk of building a house on your own may be getting out of your planned budget. Most buildings are almost impossible to build alone. This means that you need to hire a construction crew, or even several for different phases of building.
However, if you have experience in construction, then you can control almost the entire process of building the house of your dreams.
Are there risks when buying a house?
There are also certain risks when buying a ready-made house. As a rule, the cheapest options on the market are so priced because they hide a lot of problems behind a pretty picture.
In such a house there may be hidden defects, missing or incorrectly executed documents, the construction was carried out with gross violations of various norms, there may be disruptions or lack of communications, and many other things that will lead to additional costs after the purchase.
For this reason, before you buy a ready-made house, it is worth thoroughly checking everything and asking the owner and the realtor about all the details.
What are the pros and cons of building a house on your own?
That’s why it can be profitable to build the house yourself:
- The individuality of the home.
- Ability to design and build a house according to your taste and preferences.
- Saving money.
- On average, self-building can save up to 30% and even 40% compared to the purchase of a ready-made facility.
- Control of all construction processes.
- All materials and contractors are chosen by the owner.
- Only the homeowner controls and makes changes.
- The choice of location.
- Stage-by-stage costs.
Here are the disadvantages of building a house yourself:
- Timeline.
- The construction of a country house can stretch for several years, and during this period you need somewhere to live.
- There is a high probability of unforeseen expenses.
- Can increase the price of construction materials, can fail the contractors, changes in the project, and other force majeure. This all leads to cost overruns in the budget.
- Problems with documents.
- Significant expenditure of personal time.
- If you want your home to be built well, be prepared to be on the building site every day.
In addition, there’s not always a quality guarantee. If defects appear, you will have to fix them at your own expense. Most construction companies, when concluding a contract, determine the list of defects that they will fix under warranty, and this can save the customer’s budget considerably.
What are the pros and cons of buying a house?
Well, let’s start with the benefits of buying a ready-made house:
- You see all the flaws right away, and if you don’t like something, you just don’t buy it.
- You don’t have to spend months or sometimes years of your time just to move in and live in the house you like.
- You save your energy and nerves. You do not need to run through the instances, and collect tons of documents, because all this was done before you. In addition, you don’t need to control the builders, who can do something not as you would like.
In turn, the main disadvantage of this solution is the price. There may also be hidden defects or problems with the documents.
For this reason, if you are an inexperienced buyer, you are recommended to buy through an agency. After all, in this case, if you find any defects, you will have someone to blame.
Choosing between buying a house or building one yourself is difficult. Many factors can influence it, as well as a person’s preferences. There are positives and negatives to each option. For this reason, it is necessary to start from the available budget, the amount of time for the building, and your energy.
Drawing a conclusion we can say only one thing – if you have the opportunity to build a house on your own, then it is necessary to take advantage of it. After all, in this case, you will feel the energy that you have invested in it and it will please you doubly.
