Real Estate News Radio with Rowena Patton
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Real Estate News Radio with Rowena Patton
Building Your Dream Home on a Budget: Insights from a Seasoned Real Estate Expert
Unlock the secrets of the current real estate market with our esteemed guest, Joseph, a seasoned builder with years of experience. Ever wondered if you could build a dreamy two-bedroom home on an eight-acre plot with a pond and breathtaking views for $400,000? Join our discussion as we dissect the feasibility of this ambitious project and explore what makes such properties irresistible to second-home buyers and short-term rental investors. Discover practical insights into enhancing property appeal with strategic amenities like storage solutions and a jacuzzi, and understand how these features cater to diverse buyer demographics.
Get ready to navigate the intricacies of home construction costs with our detailed breakdown of critical components. From the expenses involved in laying a foundation and constructing a driveway to the costs of well and septic systems, we provide a comprehensive look at how these elements affect the overall budget. Joseph shares invaluable tips on balancing fixed costs across different home sizes, ensuring the property meets market expectations, especially when targeting the $400,000 price point. Tune in for an enlightening conversation filled with expert advice, practical tips, and a touch of humor to equip you with the knowledge you need in today's real estate market.
This is the Plain English Real Estate Show with your host, rowena Patton, a show that focuses on the real estate market in terms you can easily understand. Call Rowena now. The number is 240-9962 or 1-800-570-9962. Now here's the English girl in the mountains, the agent that I would trust, rowena Patton, that I would trust Rowena Patton.
Speaker 2:I'm not touching anything on the buttons now because Joseph is on the air. Good morning Joseph. How are you this morning?
Speaker 3:Good morning, I'm doing great.
Speaker 2:Apparently, I have all kinds of technology challenges today. I think I didn't sleep very well, so it's like, oh my gosh, there's buttons to press and things to do. How are you doing this morning? What's your day going like?
Speaker 3:It's going pretty good. You're not the only one that's challenged with that type of thing.
Speaker 2:Oh dear.
Speaker 3:I wanted to ask.
Speaker 2:Good Friday night, joseph. Excuse me, did you have a good Friday night? Did you have anything fun?
Speaker 3:I did. I did, oh Spectacular, oh nice. So what's your opinion on starting a house to sell right now? Is it a bad time locally for like the $400,000, probably plus neighborhood? Oh, what do you mean?
Speaker 2:starting one. Do you mean starting to? Buy one or build one.
Speaker 3:Building one to sell.
Speaker 2:Oh, gotcha, okay. So are you a builder or a flipper, or what do you do, joseph? A builder I'm a builder, we should talk Okay, so $400,000, great price point. That's what most people can afford. I started off talking about that at the top of the hour. Actually, you know, so many of our prices have gone so crazy that the average person can't reach it. Even 400 is a push, honestly, but you're capturing about 70% of the market if you keep it below that 400. How big is it?
Speaker 3:This house is between 800 and 900 hundred low eights actually, but um, it does have a chunk of land with it. It has like almost eight acres oh wow.
Speaker 2:Can you build another house on the acreage, or it won't support another one it wouldn't support another one.
Speaker 3:It's got some right away issues on the back part of the property but um got a really nice, overlooking a pond.
Speaker 2:You know, it's kind of unique that's lovely so a lot of people want acreage. So many times people are caught. You know we have people coming here from texas, from california, from new york, from dc, all over the place and most people want at least well, definitely Florida. Most people want acreage for bragging rights. So when you can say I live on acres, nobody says how big's your house? Right? So you've got a little bitty house that I'm sure you're going to make a little jewel box out of. How many bedrooms does it have?
Speaker 3:It's hopefully going to have two.
Speaker 2:Perfect Two is fine If you can do a 2-2 or even a 2-1, but definitely a 2-2. Most people want that privacy, you know. Even especially if it's a smaller house on that acreage it might be, what are you thinking are the most likely kind of people that would move into it? Is it a second home? Is it a couple? Is it a single Like? What's your thoughts on that?
Speaker 3:Because I'm not even allowed to say that as a realtor, but you are Right, right, I'm thinking it's going to be a second home or possibly like a VRBO. A lot of people in that area. There is three houses right next door where there are two of the three are VRBOs part-time, and Three houses right next door where there are two of the three are BRBOs part time, and then the people live there who own the house, come in here and there and stay.
Speaker 2:You know that's how people are buying second homes now and it's very hard to see figures on that because when you get an STR, a short term rental investor, you know they don't say, oh, this is also going to be my second home. They do to us, but nobody tracks those figures. That I found, at least, and we've always dealt with a lot of second homes in this market, and the question almost always now is I'd like to find something that I can rent out when I'm not here, which makes perfect sense, right? So do you have some kind of storage closet in it where someone can lock up all the goodies when they go away? I guess you could put an outbuilding for that, actually, almost there's definitely enough room for an outbuilding.
Speaker 3:We were going to put a small outbuilding and have a jacuzzi under it, but I think we're going to put a little jacuzzi under the back porch, so we have room for outbuilding.
Speaker 2:That sounds wonderful. I can see the ad now.
Speaker 3:Does it have any? So you said it's got a pond there. Does it have any?
Speaker 2:views or anything like that.
Speaker 3:Nothing really long range. Okay, you got ridgeline. It's on a little hill overlooking the pond and so you can see. You know, I guess medium length views, but not super long.
Speaker 2:That doesn't matter, as long as you've got views, that's killer. And you've got a pond. I mean it's always nice to have a pond right. Is the pond big enough to put a little boat on or something a little tiny boat?
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, it's got a little john boat on it right now.
Speaker 2:Oh, what's a john boat?
Speaker 3:A small, like approximately 14 foot long boat um oh and you know there's. There's fish in there and and deer every morning around it oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:Actually I just saw a deer coming into the radio show this morning. Did you see the doe on the way in randy?
Speaker 3:it was so cool she was turkeys on my way in. I love that. I see the turkeys every time.
Speaker 2:The doe's just standing there looking at me. I'm like I've got a show to go and do. So yeah, imagine now somebody from Florida. I'm seeing the pictures now and I haven't even seen your property, but you've got views. It's on a little hill by the pond. Even that sounds like Beatrix Potter, you know. If you know who that is, it's got a little John boat down there. Can we spray the John boat red or something, or put a little red flag on it or something?
Speaker 3:You're not going to believe this, but it's already red.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, that is so funny. And we'll go and steal some bulrushes, some cattails to put at the side of it. And it's a new home. It's a 2-2. It's an 8-20. So if you're interested in buying this home, give us a call, 828-333-4483. Or you can call in on the show and we'll get Joe talking about it as well.
Speaker 2:Sorry, Joseph, I'm calling you, Joe so yeah, that sounds like a good thing to build. It's always a good time to build because people want new houses and you've got something that's unique. You've got those eight acres. Um, it will be suitable for a vrbo because, um, I'm guessing, as a builder, you know the regulations that we can't do str in in the city of ashville and that may push out a bit further as well. We have to be a little bit careful with that because my, my guess is that at some point that will push out a bit further than the city.
Speaker 2:But the other thing we can think of is MTR medium term rental. I made that term up this week. A lot of traveling nurses and a lot of people who are building a house or maybe moving into the area want something for three or four months, you know, or even six months. So, while the rents aren't going to be as high as an STR, the six month rental is obviously going to be a lot higher than a year's rental. But people will pay a little bit more not to be locked into a year's lease and not to be locked into one of these apartment buildings which there are so many now. But you know they might have dogs or something like that Do you have any animals, joseph?
Speaker 3:I do. I have a couple of dogs. Yeah, I think Woodfin has actually put a stop to the VRBO thing, short term rental as well. I built a house for a client and they actually sold it right off the bat and the guy who bought it was from California. He bought it sight unseen, wow. And turned it into a VRBO and they got grandfathered in. But after that, there's it's. It's not happening over there yeah it's.
Speaker 2:It's really sad when you think that, um, people have bought things thinking that they can do that and sometimes they're not grandfathered in, which can be very tricky. You can actually do it in asheville, but it has to be homesteaded and you have to get all kinds of permits, and you know they make it very, very. But it has to be homesteaded and you have to get all kinds of permits, and you know they make it very, very difficult. In other words, the homesteading piece just means that you've got to live in the house and you can rent out a portion of your house, but there's all kinds of rules like you can't have a full size range in there because then they think you might do a long term rental, which makes it tricky.
Speaker 3:There's a certain amount of officials that want to keep your property values down, basically.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, you know the worst people it hits I mean we could have a whole show on SDRs but it hits the hardest for people that have maybe just inherited a property and they don't want to let it go. You know it's their parents' property, they don't want to let it go and they're like, oh, we'll just short term rental it and then they find out they can't. Or what I saw the last time around, actually, when we went into this period of price reductions, which is what we're seeing now that's going to lead to lower prices. It's going to go on for quite a long time.
Speaker 2:What I saw last time, particularly in condo buildings, is that people lose their job or they have to move to a different part of their country. Maybe one of their parents gets sick or something like that and they move out, but they're not allowed to rent out their condo. That's very common in condo buildings, which means that that really depresses prices because the amount of foreclosures we saw because of that happening because they weren't allowed to rent them out, which is terrible. Right now, of course, you can rent houses out in in Asheville. It just has to be, for I don't know how they could ever stop you renting houses out, but the end of the day, I don't know. It's our property. We should be able to do what we want with it, right?
Speaker 3:absolutely not.
Speaker 2:That's kind of the way I feel about it and there's all that you know.
Speaker 2:They claim that airbnbs really hit affordable housing, but a lot of the people that I find are buying airbnbs are not wealthy people. These are mom and pops or people that you know inherit a home and don't want to let it go. They're not big wealth. Everybody thinks of strs of being these groups of big wealthy investors that are buying up all these homes and in the main, that's not what it is. That's at least not what I see of people coming in. So I think you know you've got a red John boat, which is perfect. We're going to get some. Is the pond pretty? Do you have some nice cattails in there? And that kind of thing.
Speaker 3:It's got some nice little trees coming up around um weak willows and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:Oh good, what kind of fish is in there? Um, mostly largemouth bass, you better tell very large, you better send me directions so I can come up and catch some fish and I know what I'm having for dinner tonight there, there you go. But yeah, I think if your question is, are you safe building it? I think you are. Go for you know. Do high level on a budget? You know what that means as a builder. I'm guessing you've built a few before. This is not your first foray into building.
Speaker 3:A few yes.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, if you've done a few, you know what you're doing, and you know what you're doing and, um, you know people expect higher end now. So, for example, you probably don't want to put granite in, um, you probably want to put quartz or salestone in, and at that size of square footage you're probably talking about the difference of a thousand dollars it is worth investing. That. That makes a big difference, um, especially when, as we know oh, I should ask you about that. So can you give me some reasoning why smaller houses are twice as much per square foot? This is often what it is. They're normally 40%, 50% more, and people are always confused by it. I had my theory. I don't know if you heard it earlier.
Speaker 3:Well, I don't know Some of the reasons why. You would think it would be cheaper in a lot of ways, but you still have a lot of the same components the well and the driveway and all that stuff.
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly, and that's exactly what I was saying. So, whether you build, you know. So let's talk about the fact you're pouring. Let's say you're pouring the foundation, Whether you you know if you're pouring a foundation, that's for an 800 square foot house or for a 2000 or 1600 square foot house.
Speaker 2:If it's going up, the foundation still costs the same right, so, roughly to a certain point, yes, well, I mean, if you're going up on the house, the foundation, yeah, if the footprint is 820 and then you're going up at 1640 because you're building on the second floor, your footprint's still the same. So how much does it cost to? I mean, just throw out a figure, wild figure of pouring a concrete slab to put your house on? It's probably not a concrete slab, whatever you call it.
Speaker 3:Let's just say the average price was $10,000.
Speaker 2:$10,000. Okay, so it's going to cost you $10,000. That $10,000 is now you've got 820 square feet divided by $10,000 or 1,600 and whatever. That is 40 square feet divided by $10,000. So that's a lot more per square foot right there just for the concrete. And then if you've got your, let's say you've got a long driveway, you've got eight acres. So let's say you've got 100 feet of driveway. Let's say you've got 200 feet of driveway and we want to put tarmac on it, want to put asphalt on it. How much is that going to cost?
Speaker 3:and we want to put tarmac on it. We want to put asphalt on it. How much is that going to cost? Probably 200 feet, which is in my case. So that would. In asphalt it would probably be. I don't know. Let's say 15, 20 grand at least.
Speaker 2:I love this no, I love this, you're doing really well. So thank you, because I'm really putting you on the spot. So you've got another $20 dollars. So when you're selling a house, right, if you look on any of our sites, go to mountainhomehuntcom, you'll see it's all the same. That house isn't going to say, oh well, it will tell you it's got more acreage and it will tell you that it's got a, you know, asphalt driveway and a pond and everything else, but all those costs. So that $20,000 now is spread over 820 or 1640 square feet, right? So obviously, $20,000 spread over 1640 is going to be half the price per square foot of the. I'm not explaining it very well, am I, joseph? Can you do?
Speaker 3:a better job than me. No, you're doing fine. I am Okay, you're doing fine, yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, I mean, it's just a numbers game that if you have more square feet, then I think you said it really well in the beginning. You said a lot of the components are the same, so your well could easily be $20,000, right? Sometimes they're less than that, just depending You're going to have 15 in your septic, about right.
Speaker 3:You're probably going to hit 10, 20 grand on a well, depending on how deep a course, but it's better to go ahead and figure at least 10,000.
Speaker 2:Can you name this song, Joseph? How deep is your well?
Speaker 3:No, I cannot.
Speaker 2:Oh, you can't. That's a shame. If you want to call in, you can win a trivia price 828-517-9962. It was the Bee Gees, never mind.
Speaker 3:Ah, that's why.
Speaker 2:Oh, you don't like the Bee Gees, Joseph.
Speaker 3:I'm not a Bee Gee fan. I had to hear them on the radio when I was a kid, but I definitely was not a BG album owner oh well, I'm not sure if I can help you sell your house.
Speaker 2:I'm just kidding. So we're at, we're at 35, okay, so we're at $35,000 for the well and the septic and you know, we don't know because we don't know how far we're gonna drill and everything else. We have to guess these things. We're at $20,000 for the driveway, we're at $10,000 for the concrete. I'm surprised. It's not more than that. Honestly, what else is in the fixed components that you think of? So we've got a well septic, we've got a driveway, we've got the, the concrete. What else?
Speaker 3:um, I mean, those are the main ones right off the bat, uh, but I I guess land.
Speaker 2:You didn't say anything about the land, but you're still gonna be, right the same size a lot it's got to be 50 000 in the land right for a decent piece of land. So now we're at 50, 60, 70, 80, um, 115 I think I'm at. So now you've got 115 000 spread out over the 820 square feet or the 1640 square feet, obviously over the extra square footage. It's, it's half the price you know you have the time component.
Speaker 3:So the houses are roughly going to take, you know they're going to roughly be the same amount of time to build it. Obviously, a small one will be a little less, but somebody wants to make roughly the same profit as they do on one that's a few hundred square feet bigger. Oh, that's interesting.
Speaker 2:I'd never thought of it that way. Yeah, so it's that's like oh, I'll build it in half. So obviously, an 820 square foot house Doesn't take, you know, six months, and the 1640 Takes a year. It doesn't work like that, right, right, it's that puzzle piece again. Anyway, I've taken up your whole Saturday morning, joseph. Thank you so much. I will be in touch. Well, I hope so. I hope I got your questions answered and, yes, I think you're pretty safe at that 400,000 mark. You've got the pond, you've got the views. Just make sure you get those two bedrooms in two baths, whatever it takes, because you do not want a one bedroom in this market at 400,000. That would not be good, got you All right, my dear, you have a great day.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for calling in. It's very fun talking to you.
Speaker 1:This has been the Plain English Real Estate Show with Rowena Patton. Visit Rowena and post your questions at RadioAshevillecom or call her at 828-210-1648.
