Buying A Homesite

Buying A Homesite can be more difficult than buying a normal house especially if you dont have any knowledge regarding it. But it is not difficult if you have already worked out what your needs are and determined which type of Homesite is more suitable for you home plan.

Before you buy a homesite, first you need to talk to some who knows about the topic better than you do. Talk with a real estate builder, mortgage broker or a bank loan officer regarding this.

If you want to build a house right away then the loan officer should explain to you about construction loans, including the closing procedures you will encounter while the house is being built.

You should also talk with building constructors to have a concrete idea about the average price you can expect to pay per square foot for the type of house you wish to build on your Homesite.

You should work out estimates for building a driveway or road to the homesite and also for wells and the septic systems, if your home will not be connected to community water and sewer.

One way to find the maximum money that you can expect to spend for a land is to deduct the estimated building cost from your total budget and also deduct a bit more for unexpected or miscellaneous expenses.

In addition to the money to buy the land, you need the money and time to have access to a car and spend months driving around looking at properties and looking up information about titles, water, easements, zoning laws, building codes, mineral rights, contracts, and so on and so on. Doing it right is too hard for most people to do alone. Better to buy with a group or find a shortcut.

If you're going to buy with a group, choosing the members of that group is even more important than choosing the homesite. One energy vampire, one person who's contributing more money and demands more respect or decision-making power, one person who can't take criticism or won't compromise, even one person with a selfish and competitive view of reality, and your group is doomed.

I think one happy-dog person, friendly and easy-going but undisciplined, will add to a group, but two is too many. You need at least one person who's good at working out conflicts between the other people, and at least one person who's good with numbers.

Remember to only buy within your means. I strongly recommend you save up money and pay cash for the land. Loans are difficult to get, stressful, expensive, and multiply the things that can go wrong.

Even if the seller will take gradual payment for the homesite, it's more expensive and consumes energy. Save up a bunch of money, set a maximum, and then push down from that maximum, not up. Think through what you want.

Think through what you don't care about when buying a homesite. You get a better deal if you don't buy features you don't want. Do not get "land fever." If you're overwhelmed with desire to just get on some land right now, you will not get a good deal.

You can practice this just buying cheap stuff on eBay: the more patient you are, and the more auctions you are willing to lose, the better deal you will eventually get. Also, land fever tends to make you ignore red flags.

Unless you have more than $50,000, don't hold out for a piece of land that you are in love with, because you can't afford it. And don't fall in love with a piece you've seen, or refer to it as "my land" or "our land," until you actually own it. If you do, you are setting yourself up for the bait-and-switch, for ignoring red flags, for wishing yourself into a bad deal or a disaster.

Tell family, friends, friends of family, family of friends, and friends of friends, what you are looking for, and if you're lucky, someone will have a piece of land, or know of one, that is what you want.

Then you can deal directly with the seller to buy the homesite, who might be someone you know and trust, and you can cut out the real estate agent and a lot of precautions you would have to take with a stranger.

Follow the basic guide and you should be on your way to buy a homesite successfully.