how do you find a house/lot to build?

[ktgrok]

Ok, talk to me like I'm five, lol. I've bought houses before. Used a realtor, no biggie. But, if we were to want to build so we can customize number of bedrooms/den/whatever....how do you find that? We are not quite ready to hire a realtor, so if I was looking at established homes I would use Realtor.com or whatever. And we are doing that, to get a feel for prices, etc. But if I want to just browse like that for a house to be built in a neighborhood, how does that work? Is there a way to search for that on Realtor.com or something? A way to find what neighborhoods have lots open and model homes or what? We are looking for something on the east side of Orlando, or between there and the coast, or even on the coast (although then insurance becomes WAY pricier if we go east of 95 I think). So a huge area, not like we can just drive around, lol. 

I'm sure there must be something?

[Lecka]

When we looked online, those showed up.  The kind of thing where there is a new development, you go look at a model home, they show you lots, they show you floor plans, they show you upgrades.  

That was just showing up on zillow and trulia -- it would show up at the top like they advertised 😉

We would also see them in the Sunday newspaper -- they would have advertisements for those neighborhoods -- it would be in the section about open houses.  

We looked at one this time around, but it was not right for us.  

[Lecka]

Where we looked -- there are only so many builders doing these.  And then -- the builders will each have several "communities" going on.  So whenever you see a builder, you can look at the builder's website and then see where their communities are.  

Here -- the builders might do the same floor plan in more than one community.  They won't all be available at every community, but some will be available in more than one place.  

 

[Lecka]

We found when we looked -- if they say "this price and up," that price is for the smallest, cheapest lot with the most basic options.  

We also found -- the sales people would have our information and be contacting us, at the point that we said "okay, for this many bedrooms, for this floor plan, how much would it cost."  It's not that they were pushy -- it was just -- not something where we could get a good idea of price without giving our contact information and then hearing back from the sales people.  

[Carrie12345]

In my area, you search “home builders near me” and view their featured homes on their website.

There are a few builders who just do their own developments here, but most will build anywhere in their radius. They own lots throughout the area, they can acquire one for you, or you can buy your own. Individual lots (not builder owned) are listed on realtor dot com. Again, in our area.

I finally rescheduled a builder meeting for Sunday. I have a lot in mind, but I’m going to drive past it tomorrow to make sure there isn’t some ridiculous slope to it or something. 

[Carrie12345]

P.s. I’m still not saying I’m actually going to do it. But I might!

[Katy]

You can filter for lots on realtor websites. You may find the best ones talking to reputable realtors, especially if you’re okay with choosing a customized floor plan in an existing development vs a custom build. IME a good realtor will direct you which builders are great & which will cut corners. 

[mommyoffive]

In our area you can change the search on the reatlor's website to search for vacant land.  I have also been contacting several builders and they own lots in different areas or have their own developments. 

[KungFuPanda]

You can also buy the land and purchase a prefab home to be delivered and put together on your site.

[gardenmom5]

Dh tried to go through a real estate agent.   Less than helpful, and tried to switch him to a condo.

so - he started driving up and down streets looking for vacant lots.  Then he looked up the owner on tax records.  and here we are.

[ktgrok]

8 minutes ago, gardenmom5 said:

Dh tried to go through a real estate agent.   Less than helpful, and tried to switch him to a condo.

so - he started driving up and down streets looking for vacant lots.  Then he looked up the owner on tax records.  and here we are.

I'm looking at way too huge an area to do that. DH works from home, but may want to commute sometimes. So anything in an hour radius of his office, plus trying to be within that of my mom, and there is just...a lot. The orlando metro area has 2.5 million people, to give you an idea. That's a lot of streets to drive. 

[Alte Veste Academy]

https://www.newhomesource.com
Look for your local area at this site. You can view results on a map instead of the list. For every listing, you can click to visit the builder’s web site for more detailed info.

Edited March 4, 2021 by Alte Veste Academy

[gardenmom5]

53 minutes ago, ktgrok said:

I'm looking at way too huge an area to do that. DH works from home, but may want to commute sometimes. So anything in an hour radius of his office, plus trying to be within that of my mom, and there is just...a lot. The orlando metro area has 2.5 million people, to give you an idea. That's a lot of streets to drive. 

the metro population here in 1980 (when dh bought the lot) - was 1.75M. (it's double that now.)  But he had a VERY NARROW area where he wanted to live.  (when we were house shopping for 1dd, she had a bigger area than dh, but still a pretty narrow area where she was willing to live - and we mapped off a portion where I looked.  That included commercial, and light industrial areas that narrowed it down even more.)

do you know what part of orlando you're interested in?  Focus on that.  Look at areas with livability factors.  location to where you want to be, low crime, access to amenities, etc.   there are a lot of sites that can help with that information.  (1ds's gf is from orlando.  Her words: 'everything is about the mouse'.)

then you could narrow it down further by using a satellite map program to see where there is vacant land.  It also gives you a perspective you don't get from the ground.

things you would do to narrow down an area you'd be looking for an already built house, you wouldn't just go in for the entire orlando metro area, you'd have narrowed it down with a RE agent.

Edited March 4, 2021 by gardenmom5

[ktgrok]

45 minutes ago, gardenmom5 said:

the metro population here in 1980 (when dh bought the lot) - was 1.75M. (it's double that now.)  But he had a VERY NARROW area where he wanted to live.  (when we were house shopping for 1dd, she had a bigger area than dh, but still a pretty narrow area where she was willing to live - and we mapped off a portion where I looked.  That included commercial, and light industrial areas that narrowed it down even more.)

do you know what part of orlando you're interested in?  Focus on that.  Look at areas with livability factors.  location to where you want to be, low crime, access to amenities, etc.   there are a lot of sites that can help with that information.  (1ds's gf is from orlando.  Her words: 'everything is about the mouse'.)

then you could narrow it down further by using a satellite map program to see where there is vacant land.  It also gives you a perspective you don't get from the ground.

things you would do to narrow down an area you'd be looking for an already built house, you wouldn't just go in for the entire orlando metro area, you'd have narrowed it down with a RE agent.

That's the thing, we really are looking all the way from orlando proper to cocoa, plus up to oveido, plus down to lake nona. Unfortunately, the east side is NOT showing a lot for sale that is affordable. West side of Orlando, and out to clermont is full of new stuff...but we already live on that side, lol, and are trying to move to the other side. My mom lives in Merritt Island, my sister lives sort of near UCF off the 408. We are in Apopka, and want to be closer to them, but not particular which of them, just "over that way more", lol. 

And we can't really afford what we want, so are trying to find what we need and can be less than particular on area, since we don't need schools, etc. 

[Carrie12345]

On realtor.con, Orlando proper has over 200 pieces of land for sale. (Some in the millions, but I didn’t filter price.) You can use the map feature to zoom in on preferred areas.

“Orlando area home builders “ pulls up more companies than I could bother to count, lol.

[Lecka]

Sometimes builders focus on a price range — if you start to find builders in your price range, that could help.

We are in a town of 100,000, and the entire metro area is probably 1,000,000.  We already knew which part of the metro area within two towns.  So — already more narrowed down and also just smaller!

There is also just not a lot of — builders on lots that aren’t planned developments, without it being either pretty high-end and expensive or else someone going through a contractor — a lot of the builders doing neighborhood developments don’t do that here.  
 

I think knowing your price range might help a lot?  Especially if there are a lot of bands of price ranges.

Here — basically the same development would have prices differ by $100,000 depending on having a central location or having a 45-minute drive to get to a central location.  So just knowing price would go a long way because even though there are some variations by amenities, a lot of the variations are price/location.  
 

But here I think there are 8 builders who do developments on this side of the metro area — it’s not a huge number.  
 

 

[Carol in Cal.]

Pro tip—be extremely careful about easements if you buy a lot.  Don’t necessarily take the realtor’s word for it that there are none.  Look at the plot map and descriptions at the county office and ask about anything that looks weird.  This is how my brother avoided being stuck with a lot with a RAILROAD TRACK easement through it (but no tracks.  It was just that they could build them if they wanted to.). The realtor lied or was ignorant, and said it was just a stray mark on the plot map.

Edited March 4, 2021 by Carol in Cal.

[kristin0713]

My DH is meeting with a builder today that I found by asking around on a local homeschool facebook group. He is a small builder with lots available, not a huge neighborhood but single lots on streets here and there that tie into public utilities.  It is exactly what we want -- a little more property but not in the  middle of nowhere.  I'm hopeful but trying *not* to get my hopes up. 

[ktgrok]

wow, lot shopping is even more confusing! I keep clicking on things to have thm be a weird shape, or "might be wetlands, might not be allowed to build" in among the actual lots.