Unfinished Homes A Great Way to Buy a Home
So youre looking to purchase a new home and contemplating on whether or not it makes sense to buy an unfinished home to save money.
An unfinished home is great way to get into a new home and save dollars. Buying an unfinished home can lower your initial investment and keep the monthly mortgage payment lower. In addition, you might be able to buy an unfinished home with a larger foundation size, such that someday when you finish the home youve gone from a Starter Home to a large highly sought after custom home.
Typically an unfinished starter home (e.g. Colonial/Gambrel/Cape of around 24×36 or 26×36) means that the upstairs is unfinished. How unfinished is a question of how much sweat equity you are willing to put into it. I have seen some unfinished homes where the only thing done to the upstairs was a framed center bearing wall to support the roof trusses. Others have included all of the rough framing, electric and plumbing. Based on my experiences, not finishing the upstairs will save you around 15%-20% of the finished cost of the entire home. For example, a normally finished home of $200,000 would...