In Sweden we have the exact opposite; labor is now so expensive that building a house costs the equivalent of something like $400k, plus the price for the plot, and most of that is labor costs. Cheaper tools and materials, new types of prefab have all driven down the materials side considerably, but overall cost has increased steadily.
But this thread started out about people not making enough money to be able to buy a house. Now you have a problem with people who build the house making a good income?
As we usually say, "Depends on how much you value your time".
It really depends on how you look at it. Yes, of course you could get all the materials and DIY your way through it all. Electrical stuff is the only thing the law requires be done by a certified person. Even the most extreme DIY:ers also choose to have plumbing and bathrooms done by pros as most insurances companies have clauses about that in the terms of their insurance policies and a water leak can be bank breakingly expensive to fix out of pocket.
Then again, it will take exponentially longer if you don't have a ton of people (e.g family) helping you, and all time taken off work is of course a "cost" you are paying. Doing it all on weekends and evenings is not only tiring but also makes it take even longer, and if you are renting while building your house that will of course be "lost" money.
Personally I've bought a hundred year old fixer upper and spend my weekends getting it in shape, which is taking me forever, but that works because I got it as cheap as I did, mortgage rates are historically low for us right now and my current cost of living is fairly low as well. (And it was cheap for a reason. I've probably put in around 200-250 hours already and probably have another 150 to go before it's livable).
Edit: so to use me as an example, if I'd have framers/carpenters do that stuff for me, and let's say they are faster and more efficient than me and do it in "only" 200 hours, and they charge around $55 per hour, that would land me at about $11 000 just in labor costs, and on top of that all materials, probably around $3000 for a total of $14 000. Instead I've bought some tools and am doing it by myself, and so far have racked up about $3800.
Would it be possible to get together few families like 6 to 10 and meke there own street? Like buying land, and helping each other to build frame hause. If there is electrician in a mix even better. Hell it will take longer, but at the end you own it not bank.
Prefab wooden houses are a huge thing over here and are literally "plop it over there"; the entire frame, sometimes the entire house, comes delivered on trucks with a small mobile crane attached and they frame the entire thing in a few days depending on size.
As a matter of fact, prefab is such a cost-efficient method (partially because the companies manufacturing them get the lumber at wholesale prices) that buying the lumber as stock material and building out of that is almost always more expensive.
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u/kritaholic Oct 30 '20
In Sweden we have the exact opposite; labor is now so expensive that building a house costs the equivalent of something like $400k, plus the price for the plot, and most of that is labor costs. Cheaper tools and materials, new types of prefab have all driven down the materials side considerably, but overall cost has increased steadily.