to buy or to build?

Hi I would say if you can afford to build your home that is best. That way it is exactly what you want. If not buying a newer home can be great to. I bought an older home in the perfect location. However there have been alot of extras needed, such as a new hot water tank, new furnace and numerous little things here and there. A house purchase is a big step never rush in.

Depend on budget and your energy. Building a house could be so exhaustic. You need to know what you want, material, architecture, and supervising the process all along. And it could take years. Buying a house and renovate is easier, faster and hassle free compare to building one.

The answer to this is based upon several things. 1): How old are they? 2): Are they financially able to make a big mistake and recover from it? 3): In today's world new is not always better. For your first home it makes sense to me to use it as informational. An existing home should cost somewhat less and you will learn all about what the downside of home ownership is while building equity. Later...after they know what is really involved in owning a home....they can consider building. At that point they may have equity built up to enable them to make that bigger down payment. Some builders will want them to carry the construction loan. If so that can cost you a lot. I have done both. I can't even imagine tackling having a home built with no previous experience. So much you need to know before you tackle that.

My husband and I bought our first home and then started saving money so we could build our 'dream home'. We did this very slowly, first purchased the land and paid for it, then put the well and septic in and paid for it, then had the house built. We had nothing but problems with the builders. We actually didn't pay him the final draw because the house was not built very well. We lived there for 13 yrs and then decided to build another home. This time we knew alot more! We researched and watched to make sure the builders were doing what they were suppose to. We actually ended up not paying them the last amount either as there is a leak in our garage and they never fixed it~ now 2 yrs later. We took that money and bought a swimming pool:) It is very stressful to build a new home. I would recommend doing what they can afford to start off with. I would also let her know that there will be many arguements regarding building a new home. We survived 2 and swore after the first one that we would never do it again.

That depends, on money, location etc... but simply, if you build your own house it takes time, but you get exactly what you want. Buying a house, one you are getting other peoples problems, there is a reason they sold... but you can usually move in quickly. My first house I bought from someone else, and since then I have been pouring money in fixing it up... Hopefully in a few year I hope to be moving countries, so I will need to sell and buy sometime else. If that happens, then I would like to build from scratch...

People I know who have built houses say it is a pain in the butt. It is much easier to buy one. If there is something you don't like about it, you can always change it.

Hi there. We are in the middle of building us a holiday home on my husbands land over looking an awsome harbour, we could have bought a house and had it transported out there, but chose to design and build, that way in future our house can be easily modified if needed, and we will always know that we designed our own place, and that nobody has lived in it previously, really unique and designed by us, for us...

My father built. I recall how much work and trouble it was. He did a good job, he had any right to be proud. So I bought. I am very happy that I bought. Buying is a lot easier. Sure it is not custom made but many things one can change later on. I liked that I could look and touch before I bought. So I did know what I ran into.