Question about construction choices and house hunting

[bull]

We're tentatively looking for a new house and this time we're looking for something semi rural with a shop or at least room for a shop. We've found a place in Boring, Oregon (yes, Boring) that has a sweet 30'x48' shop on one acre and a 1,920 sf four bedroom/two bath house that's got no garage. So my question is, is it cheaper to build a shop (say 30'x30' or larger) on another piece of property or add a garage (a double, about 22'x22') onto this house?

If you want to see the place just click on the link below and enter 8012762 in the MLS number search but the best pics are below. You'll notice that this place needs cleaned up, it needs a yard and landscaping and other misc but it's two years old and in a really nice neighborhood with high-end homes. Also, the shop is not wired. The guy has an extension cord running from the house to the shop that only powers a couple lights so I'd like to have an electrician come out and put electric in. Any idea what that might cost?

http://rmls.com

[Old Moparz]

First thing is, the house & shop pix you posted look nice.   

If there are no issues with fitting a garage in, it's probably going to be cheaper to build an attached one instead buying another piece of property & building a free standing structure. You won't have to bring new utility services to an attached one since you are next to an existing building. No purchase price of land, etc.

Things to consider with an attached garage are, will you be allowed?

1)  Sometimes there is a zoning issue with the amount of square footage you can use to build "non-living space" on property. Sometimes referred to as "accessory buildings".

2)  Distances from property lines called "setback limits" may differ for detached garages & houses. In my town a detached garage was not allowed to be closer to the front property line than the house itself, & a minimum of 5' from the rear & side lines. If I had attached it to the house, they would consider it as part of the main dwelling & it would have different setback limits & I wouldn't have been able to meet those distances.

3)  It may interfere with a septic system if you don't have sewer, so make sure you know where the system is. It should be on file with the building department & DO NOT TAKE THE REALTOR OR HOMEOWNER'S WORD on where it is. The realtor has no clue & the septic field can be as large, like 50' wide by 150' long.

Bull, you plan on doing any of the work yourself, or would you hire a contractor? I bet if you did it yourself you can save 50 to 70 percent minimum.   

[PocketThunder]

So your wife parks outside?    

I agree with everything OM said... 

[bull]

So your wife parks outside?    

Well, we both park outside now anyway with the Charger filling our current garage.

There is plenty of room to the left of the house for a garage (I wouldn't have to buy more property). We got a brochure with three floor plans for this house from the buiilder and one of them shows two different options for a garage, the third shows no garage. All we need to know now is if the current owner left it off because he had to or because he was being cheap.

Other than putting juice to the shop and probably the framing of the garage I'd do most of it myself.

[Dans 68]

Bull,

To get power to the existing garage would entail trenching (100-ft?) and burying new power lines (the electrical contractor will probably run new conduit down from the existing electrical panel) to a new subpanel at the garage. Make certain there are provisions for 220v. Are you going to wire up the garage yourself? Figure about $1,500 to $2,000 to get a powered subpanel installed (Bay Area prices, of course. You should get it for less) and an additional $1,000 to have the building wired (assuming the building structural members are not covered by wallboard, plywood, etc.). And it is always a good idea to call a contractor before you buy to see what the costs actually would be.

Dan

[Charger_Fan]

That guy must have a lot of crap in that garage, if he can't get that little fold-up cherry picker in there.

Looks good though, makes me wanna move there.

[bull]

Bull,

To get power to the existing garage would entail trenching (100-ft?) and burying new power lines (the electrical contractor will probably run new conduit down from the existing electrical panel) to a new subpanel at the garage. Make certain there are provisions for 220v. Are you going to wire up the garage yourself? Figure about $1,500 to $2,000 to get a powered subpanel installed (Bay Area prices, of course. You should get it for less) and an additional $1,000 to have the building wired (assuming the building structural members are not covered by wallboard, plywood, etc.). And it is always a good idea to call a contractor before you buy to see what the costs actually would be.

Dan

Thanks for the info. The walls are bare so I would probably plan on doing the outlets myself. It's not difficult to do that but I definitely would not know how to get 220 service to the shop myself and I'm not sure I could legally do it anyway.

That guy must have a lot of crap in that garage, if he can't get that little fold-up cherry picker in there.

Looks good though, makes me wanna move there.

It's a mess. It looks worse there now since they took those pictures too. He's got a Ford Exploder sitting in front of the shop that's missing parts and a big axle sitting in the grass above it. The shop itself looks like the aftermatch of a Tornado but it's brand new. Once all the crap is hauled out of there and a few improvements made it would be a very nice place. He's the scumbucket of the neighborhood which is a good thing really because any improvement I make would make the place more valuable and probably make the neighbors a lot happier.

[Old Moparz]

That guy must have a lot of crap in that garage, if he can't get that little fold-up cherry picker in there.

Looks good though, makes me wanna move there.

Do you think Bull would let you? I don't know if he stocks that much beer.   

[Charger_Fan]

That guy must have a lot of crap in that garage, if he can't get that little fold-up cherry picker in there.

Looks good though, makes me wanna move there.

Do you think Bull would let you? I don't know if he stocks that much beer.   

That might be ok, my beer intake has decreased considerably as of late.

[Old Moparz]

That guy must have a lot of crap in that garage, if he can't get that little fold-up cherry picker in there.

Looks good though, makes me wanna move there.

Do you think Bull would let you? I don't know if he stocks that much beer.   

That might be ok, my beer intake has decreased considerably as of late.

Well, make sure you get your Charger in there before there's no more room.

[bull]

My wife and I talked about it at length today and decided to stay put. No matter how we penciled it out it would cost us more money per monthly payment and increase our debt, which is probably not a great idea in the current economical climate. The only problem is that it's the current climate that makes this place such a good deal right now. It's actually bank owned and they've got it priced about $100k less than its appraised value so assuming the market goes back up at some point within the next year or so we could see a huge increase in equity without doing a thing; even more if we added a garage, landscaped and built a fence and a deck.

But then there's the $200/mo increase in the mortgage payments (at least) to consider plus the costs associated with selling and buying a home which would take probably subtract $10k-$15k from our equity. Add that to the cash it would take to do the improvements in the paragraph above and we'd probably be pretty strapped. I don't envy the guy who lives there now. He owes the bank $50k more than the asking price. By contrast if we sold our place for what it's supposedly worth we'd walk away with $90k-$100k in cash. I think we'll wait until the kids are a little older, maybe five years or so, and hope that by then my wife will have a full time job and we'll be able to get something nicer.

[PocketThunder]

My wife and I talked about it at length today and decided to stay put. No matter how we penciled it out it would cost us more money per monthly payment and increase our debt, which is probably not a great idea in the current economical climate. The only problem is that it's the current climate that makes this place such a good deal right now. It's actually bank owned and they've got it priced about $100k less than its appraised value so assuming the market goes back up at some point within the next year or so we could see a huge increase in equity without doing a thing; even more if we added a garage, landscaped and built a fence and a deck.

But then there's the $200/mo increase in the mortgage payments (at least) to consider plus the costs associated with selling and buying a home which would take probably subtract $10k-$15k from our equity. Add that to the cash it would take to do the improvements in the paragraph above and we'd probably be pretty strapped. I don't envy the guy who lives there now. He owes the bank $50k more than the asking price. By contrast if we sold our place for what it's supposedly worth we'd walk away with $90k-$100k in cash. I think we'll wait until the kids are a little older, maybe five years or so, and hope that by then my wife will have a full time job and we'll be able to get something nicer.

But if the equity increased $100k over the next couple years you could cash out a home equity loan and make that trip to Carlisle in your newly finished 68!   

I'm in the same boat right now, only we sold our house about 10 days ago and are trying to get that deal of a life time on a house we othewise couldnt afford.  But the sellers wont come down to our offer and they think they are going to get full price for the house even though they owe $20k more than its worth.   

[bull]

Yea, I understand the equity thing but there's more to our reasons for passing on it than just the possibility of making money. My oldest daughter has been in three different schools between preschool and 2nd grade and we want to give her some stability. We've made a lot of friends in our neighborhood and we're closer to a lot of places we need to be close to with gas at nearly $4/gal. The move would add 8 miles to my commute round trip and it's pretty tight making our current payment as it is, I would think another $200/month would be tough considering all the improvements we would have to make to the other place. We're just not in a position to take on more debt until my wife can get a full time job. Although the potential is there to make huge amounts of equity we would still have to find a way to tighten the budget even more to be able to pay for it in the meantime.

And you mentioned one thing I also don't get about some of these sellers. They are trying to get the same money the houses were worth two years ago but the market is in the tank. It's a buyer's market and yet these people just sit on their homes expecting to make money. If they really wanted to sell they'd price them to sell quickly.

I wish Charger Fan would buy this place so I would have a friend with a nice shop.

[PocketThunder]

I wish Charger Fan would buy this place so I would have a friend with a nice shop.

My house is sold am i'm looking for something right now, then i could be your friend with a nice shop..    Any work for oil refinery estimators in your area?

[bull]

I wish Charger Fan would buy this place so I would have a friend with a nice shop.

My house is sold am i'm looking for something right now, then i could be your friend with a nice shop..    Any work for oil refinery estimators in your area?

Um, I dunno. Probably not.