[DouglasKC]

The house we now have is probably about that amount. But we started off with a $90,000 house, paid it off, then went to a more expensive house. And so on and so forth. I never considered any of them an investment, just a vehicle to be able to store some money in to pay for the next house, until we were done moving. Which is hopefully now! Not to mention having a pretty nice place to live. If I was paying rent I wouldn’t be willing to pay $3,500 a month, I would live in some squalid Apartment since I’d be throwing my money away. Absolutely. I'm 62 and my wife and I are building our last house. 1652 square feet on a 2 acre spring fed pond plus 3 acres of land. But started off much as you. First house was cheap, second house we built. Third house was 50 years old, fixed it up, modernized it and sold it for a nice profit which enabled us to build our new house.

[kennedy]

Absolutely. I'm 62 and my wife and I are building our last house.

I'm 63 and last year my wife and I built our last house.

We have been married over 35 years and it is the first new house we have ever owned. Every other house we have owned (almost a dozen over the years, some as rentals and some to live in) has been an old house that we have remodeled ourselves. I developed pretty good carpentry, plumbing and electrical skills over the years.

Our last house we had to gut to the studs and slab twice, once when we bought it 23 years ago and again when it was substantially destroyed by a flood 5 years ago. When we gutted and remodeled it the second time, we decided we did not have it in us to ever do it again (my days of crawling under houses and climbing onto roofs are over). We mentioned to a neighbor that we were going to list it for sale and for how much and the next day a friend of his offered our asking price in cash (this was in 2021, when the real estate market in Texas was insane).

Building a new house is like watching sausage being made. My best advice is to hire a good building inspector to do independent inspections at every stage of construction, especially after framing and electrical and plumbing rough-in and before insulation and drywall.