After moving several times in the last few years I told the wife, the next time we’re gonna pile all of our crap in the front yard and burn it. Fortunately we’re pretty much settled now, but that’s my advice: Sell or get rid of absolutely everything you don’t need first.
If the builder says 8 months to build, expect a year or more. Add an extra 30% to the cost they quote you. It will NEVER be what you estimate.
Also, find someone that can coordinate paint, flooring, lighting, etc.
Been there done that. Will never do it again. Your mileage may vary.
Why not have two homes?
If you are renting and have everything in storage, you are paying out a lot for that so financially, you are not coming out ahead.
Plus, most leases for rental require a year commitment and a penalty if you back out early.
If you stay where you are, you can do a few things to make it saleable and go through your stuff to weed out what you don’t want.
Seems like renting would complicate things a lot.
I’ve done this twice. Count on delays. Building a house always takes more time and more money than you can anticipate.
Seriously weed out your belongings. If you haven’t used it in a year, you don’t need it, so don’t waste storage space on it.
Same goes for large furniture, unless they are high quality all wood pieces or heirlooms, they aren’t worth storing either.
With the boomers popping off, there is so much beautiful furniture being sold off cheap on facebook marketplace and craigslist. So you can replace what you get rid of with better when the house is done if you are patient and persistent.
The lesson I learned, is that the longer you are in a house, the more obsolete it is, buyers are looking for certain things, and if the house isn’t “modern” they won’t want it, and it seems the things people want in a house change every couple years.
So if you don’t intend on constantly upgrading the house, best just to move every five years or so, so the house isn’t “out of date”, or requires you to spend tens of thousands of dollars just to get it to sell.
Check out Houzz.com for design and decorating ideas.
Millions of photos on just about ever house style in every city in the world.
Very searchable down to things like “white cabinets”. You will he provided with 100,000 photos of any search. Use an IPad and just swipe till you are blue in the face.
Create an account with email and save anything you like to a folder labeling each pic with what you like about it (wall color, cabinet style etc)
Then you can email or message your ideas to the builder or decorator or contractor.
Visit as many open houses as you can to see knew styles and ideas.
Do all this very far in advance so you won’t have buyers remorse wishing you had know of certain options before you made a decision.
I’ve remodeled kitchens and baths for hundreds of customers and decorators. Most use a method similar to this.
Gotta quote Bob Dylan's 115th Dream here, "I just said 'good luck'."
2 X 6 exterior walls, foam filled. Fill every drill hole in the 2 X 6s that carry elec wire with foam. Use pink batts for interior 2 X 4 walls for sound.
Use R-60 blown cellulose in the ceilings. Design big overhangs to protect interior rugs and furniture.
Consider a geothermal heat/cool system. Ours has a thermal floor switch for the coldest months. Add a energy recovery ventilator for cooking or when you have a houseful of guests. Put the switch in the kitchen.
Best double glazed windows. Don’t go cheap. Andersens stand out. Ditto Andersen exterior doors. Double wrap the house corners with white foam sheet. Corners are where most leaks occur.
Good luck and make sure the builder has experience with geothermal...
Consider an exhaust fan for the roof to keep the attic cool.
Add a 1/4 hp circulating pump to your hot water heater. Saves water and gets hot water to where its needed without wasting fill in the pipes.
Take posts #2 and #4 to heart. Make sure you have a great lawyer for #4.
I did 40 years in all phases of real estate. I would stay in the current house and save the rent payment and hassle. Why move twice? I have some tenants right now whose house burned down. They’ve been with me two years and aren’t in their new build house yet. Their cost estimates are now a joke.
About a year and a half ago we decided we wanted a second home. We’ve had one before, converted it to a rental.
We found our desired town, bought a modern home, had it carpeted and painted and moved in. We are on our second winter and things are great. We would still be waiting if we had tried to build.
There are only so many years left.
Once you figure out where you want to live, buy the Land and order a Modular Home. (Not a Mobile Home, a MODULAR Home)
You can be living in your new House in two Months time, maybe less.
You’re in for an adventure... :)
I think there’s some cynical “law” out there that says whatever you put in storage, even if you haven’t needed it in decades, will become needful in proportion to how hard it is to access it. Expect, then, many trips to storage facility.
Personally I would never buy (commission) a house that is not already existing, unless I knew the builder and his work product. What you see is what you get. What you don’t see, who knows what you get.
And I stay as far from realtors as possible, and would never trust them to buy what they can’t sell. Why would they do that?
As for renting, make sure you check out the neighbors, the landlord, and the premises thoroughly. Find former tenants if possible and learn what they had to deal with, especially with regard to pests and plumbing.
In all, I do think you’d have a lot less chance of adventure, if you just went with “worrying about two houses,” rather than worrying about four places: your house, your storage facility, your rental abode, and your future house. You can only watch one in real time. Three others, you need to trust people who don’t love you, and one of the three is completely invisible yet you’re financially bound to it.
Cost of rental, cost of storage, cost of moving to each (several costly events). Cost of insurance on existing home (which may be different if the insurer knows it’s vacant) and cost of insuring your personal property at the rental.
Lots of extra costs, including two partial moves, to avoid one complete move.
Then there’s the yellow lab, who may be unpredictable about adjusting to the rental property.
Find out what the average duration of a listing is in your area, ie, how long might you be waiting for a buyer.
Realtors come in all varieties but most do not devote a great deal of time to selling one property. I always sell my own, single-minded, focused, and one at a time. You’d need to find an exceptional lean-and-hungry realtor to match that.
You have a lot riding on a house that is, at this time, solely a concept. (And so is the timeline for building it.)
But, good luck to you.
We bought a smaller house next door to the one we were living in that needed a lot of work. It took two years to get it ready and we moved in around Christmas. It was easy to move things since it was next door.
Since it was smaller we had to downsize considerably. Big job. Huge yard sale, throwing oust, burning etc. It is not easy to do. I have to fight with myself to let stuff go.
Getting ready to sign the closing papers on the original house. We used the flat fee MLS. I highly recommend doing that. So we showed the house ourselves and saved the sellers commission. Buyers had a realtor so we have to pay that, but she’s been a great help even for us.
So we owned two houses for a while. It worked for us.
Decide today who gets custody of the dog. Building a new house many times ends in divorce.
Not really related to your specific question, but if you are looking to have your house built, take a look at fox blocks
They sell insulated forms that are stacked, tied off to the re-bar, and then pour concrete in the center. Makes a high R value, super strong wall. Basically turns your whole house into a panic room / storm bunker.
I just sold my house.
My movers offered storage services @ $120/month.
All my stuff went to storage and I’ve been living out of a box in hotels until I find another house to buy.
I just could not stand the idea of moving twice. Too much stuff, to much sorting and packing. Too many trips to the dump.
I’ll never move again.
Hotel it. The cost is not that much different from your mortgage and utilities.
Change your FR screen name so you can find a girlfriend or two online who’ll be willing to help you out. Then explain to the wife that they’re long-lost neices. Labor is the single most expensive component to moving, or constructing a new home.