I wanted to see what you experienced builders/developers had to think about my plan during these tough times.
My plan is to build green/affordable housing that is quickly built from prefabricated pieces using energy efficient techniques. I want to build smaller, reliable, affordable homes that seniors, young couples, and people who need credit work could buy and maintain easily. Want to maybe work with local housing authorities to find sec 8 candidates that are ready to move on, and sign on with a partner bank who is willing to help these people get back on their feet. Is something like this a possibility in this market??? I am not looking to become Mr. Trump, but I think I might just be able to truly help others while make a living at it as well.
You are going gainst a huge powerful group… builder, agent, broker, to name a few… and even including the investers here… all of whom benefit from the curent practice.
In the US, everyone wants a low-cost, green/energy-saving house ideaologically, but no-one cares before the money. One good example is steel-concrete building code. Steel concrete is widely used in the world and in commercial USA, but not residential houses. In CA, I wanted to build my house using steel and concrete (termites concern) and was rejected becasue the Code only deals with timer and anything else need special committe that means a lot of extra $ and time for me. I ended up with a 2ft concrete foot…
Section 8 will not work with you. They do not place people in homes, people come to you, most cities have online listing for section 8 to advertise and find people but it amazes me how picky some of these people are…
I remember years ago someone was building homes from a material that would not burn. They were pushing it in FL. Did not last if I recall. Go green is left for Hollywood. The midwest could care less since its republicians.
Building now is not the time. Land is cheap. Buy and hold is smart… wait the market out with some cheap land deals… I love landbanking
Land banking is a good idea, it is what my father and uncle have done for years!!! Just not my cup of tea.
It looks a though everyone has pretty much considered the whole “green” building thing a complete waste and sham. Unless the cap and trade does something and we are ALL paying way more for energy.
I appreciate your thoughts and experiences. However, it is pretty much what I have been hearing arond here also. I will just have to work that much harder and smarter to keep the “group” from stopping me.
I may be crazy for thinking that people will want quality, affordable, and energy efficient homes, but then again…
PS As for Sect 8, I was using that as an example, but have already spoken with two seperate housing authorities out here and they love the idea of somebody actually helping these people. Again, maybe I’m a dellusional newbie. Only time will tell.
Good luck to everyone, don’t let “the group” get ya down!
Do you have the 20-40% that a lender is going to want for construction loan? Also money for surveys, permits, architecture fees, construction docs, ALTA, the list goes on and on! Development and construction requires A LOT of capital to get started, not like wholesaling or rehabbing!
As I understand it, building green is more expensive. Yes you might recoup the increased costs in energy savings over time, but when the average homeowner sells and moves every five to seven years, there is little incentive for them to pay the extra bucks for a green home.
Just observing. The local builders sometimes do good weatherization and add some recycled tile and advertise their buildings as “green”. (Doesn’t meet my definition). I don’t know if it helps to sell, but it must, because they keep advertising that way.
We had a builder do 4 seriously green places. They were priced quite high and never sold. They ended up in foreclosure. However, I don’t know if it was the high price, or the fact that the buildings were baboon ugly even for that ugly architectural style. The design definately wasn’t to local tastes. The location was also horrible, and the houses filled the lots virtually from lot line to lot line, which is also not to local tastes. It makes it hard to say why they failed.
If you can figure out how to do a genuinely environmentally green house for a reasonable cost, you would probably do OK.
Forget about selling to Section 8. The reason people are on welfare is because they don’t have any money, and most don’t have even a drop of financial sense. They aren’t going to be buying any houses.
Building green seems to cost more, and there are often problems with building codes.
Please excuse my ignorance, but how could that legislation help anyone? For what I’m hearing something that in a semi-free market doesn’t work, would indeed work if gov used its force? Isn’t that a little bit immoral and impractical on the long term?
I’m all for energy efficiency, and a healthy home and neighborhood and I love to hear about your innovative ideas - I’m just a little bit concerned that the freest country in the world is considering using gov force to “train” the market as if it were a dog.
I mean, Yidai couldn’t use concrete for his house for legal not engineering, safety or environmental issues.
Has it come this far???
I don’t think the environmental laws that Congress is considering will work, but that isn’t going to stop them from passing the bills, and it isn’t going to stop the bills from seriosly messing up production of everything from electricity to cauliflower.
If the price of electricity and power are driven up far enough, green weatherproof buildings will certainly become more popular. Few put in home windmills now because it takes 20 years to break even. But quadruple the cost of power and the same windmill only takes 5 years to break even, and I think that a lot more people will buy at that point.
If TWP can actually build genuine green housing that is afforable and price competitive, then he should be able to find a market for it (keeping in mind the effects of location). The problem that I see is that green costs more, and consumers price hunt. How do you think Wal-mart became the biggest retailer in the world selling poorly made crap? It’s because price is way up there in a lot of folks’ criteria.