The Amazing Seller’s Market Comes with a Catch

In the previous post I explained that we sold our house and moved in with my parents. We had a really good reason, I promise. The Seller’s market is on fire and when you’ve just bought land you can’t really turn down the extra cash. We doubled our profit by going ahead and selling now, before our new house has been built. We’re truly fortunate to have been in a position to go ahead and sell and to have a place to go during that time of transition. While it seems a little awkward at times, I know we’ll look back at this time and look fondly on all of the wonderful memories. Especially for our children with their grandparents.

However, selling at the height of the buying frenzy does come with it’s challenges. The Seller’s market is amazing, but the buyers market isn’t. Properties are selling at record pace and for record prices, often much higher than they did a year ago. While we aren’t buying another home, this very uneven market has had an effect on the home construction market as well.

The unprecedented demand for housing, the great migration from cities, and supply chain issues due to Covid -19 have caused the cost to build a home to skyrocket at the same pace (or higher) than buying an existing home. Now we’re in a calculated guessing game of when to pull the trigger and build. It makes no sense to have gone ahead and sell our home, and then turn around and essentially “overpay” for our new home. We’re too practically minded to go full steam into that situation if we can help it.

Lumber prices have went through the roof, but has finally started to cool. However, other essential building materials have went up as lumber has went down. We’re trying our best to determine what the new “normal” and acceptable home price is before signing on the dotted line. We don’t want to be in a situation where in a couple of years our house is worth less than the mortgage on it.

We’re the type of people to look for a solution, even if it’s less expected and traditional. We’ve looked into alternative build styles, which fit more in line with our goal to build “greener” and more sustainable.

Prior to the dramatic shift in the housing market, any type of building outside of traditional “stick built” (a wood framed home on some form of foundation) was more expensive. We had plan to find more sustainable materials, but not to stray from the traditional home construction technique…until now.

The crazy housing market has shaped our entire vision for our home and farm. We have some very ambitious plans that we hope to bring to life in the the near future. We’re currently in the negotiation phase, and working out the final plans.

Once we’ve signed that dotted line, I’ll be able to reveal just exactly what we’re building. Stay tuned, I promise you’ll never guess where we’re going, and how it has the potential to change everything.