Buying land and Building a House

amber0389

We have found some land that we love, and would like to buy it and build on it... I see everyone on here talking about how they asked the builder for all these upgrades and that everything is negotiable.  But is that only if you buy land through a developer/builder?

 Basically the land for sale is from an individual so we've been working with a couple of construction companies to get an idea of the type of house we can get for our money... 

brianabrad

Interesting question. I would assume that upgrades, etc are generally when you are buying the land and the home from the builder, however, if you use a builder and ask them to build one of their floor plans you may be able to negotiate in a few things in the purchase price. I know our builder has about 20 different floor plans that they build as spec homes. We simple selected the home we wanted and since they had already started pouring lots, we selected one of those lots. I would think that upgrades are less likely to be negotiated in when you are building a complete custom home.

TripleShot

We bought some land last fall and will be building on it in the next couple of weeks.  We purchased the land from the owner.  It's in a a subdivision, but there is not one exclusive builder.  We got a land loan through a large bank.

There are different types of builders.  Some will only build in their allotments (Ryan) and others like the one we're using will build on your lot (Wayne Homes).  Negotiating with the builder does not involve the land at all if you already own the land.  In neighborhoods where there's and exclusive builder and the lot and house come as a package deal, I'm sure there's more room for negotiation.

Our construction loan will pay off the land loan in the first draw and then subsequent draws will be as normal.  Once construction is finished it will convert to a 30 year fixed.  It's a one-time close construction to permanent loan.

lexus192

To answer your question...yes, that's most often how it works.

We built two homes. With the first, we purchased builder owned land and worked with the builder to design the home. All selections were made through the builder.

With the second home, we purchased the land from a private seller, worked with an architect to design the home, found a company to clear the land and found a builder to built it.

The best advice I can give is to research! Good luck! 

cltk12

I'm not sure how it works with a custom builder as we went with a builder in a new neighborhood (can't think of the term right now), but we were not able to neogiate anything so just want to throw that out there that not all builders will neogiate.