Hey Fellas,
I've reached a cross roads. My wife and I have been saving for a while now to hopefully
build our new home. We have the money saved, it's just a matter of when we pull the trigger.
My wife wants to start ASAP. I, on the other hand, am a bit gun shy. Things suck in the economy,
the situation in the middle east is deterorating under the current administration, oil prices are
rocketing. Not to mention the stock market is on a high, I see that as a sign of a coming collapse.
I want to hold off and wait a couple years, but on the other hand building materials are at a record
low cost. And the contractors I am talking with seem to beleive that now I can get the most bang for my buck.
We are building a home designed with ICF, Insulated Concrete Forms, and encoroporating
a metal roof and some solar panels for the long haul. This should prove to be a very robust and sustanible structure.
I am just worried about draining the fundage, not to mention my preperation budget will be slashed.

On the other hand, if a collapse is near, using those funds to get a tangable, secure home might not be a bad thing
afterall if things really go south the fiat dollars we have saved wont be worth the paper they are printed on anyway.
So what do we do? Use the money now and hope for the best? Or sit and risk the loss of the money anyway due to inflation etc?
thanks again guys!

It is a good time to build and you can choose quality contractors.

Build it rock solid brother. If you finance and SHTF - I don't see anyone coming to take it away from you. ICF is the ONLY way to go. As soon as we get funds to start we are doing exactly the same thing. You also may want to consider a 1000 gallon buried propane tank for your home and a high efficiency wood burning stove for heat source, especially in WA> THere are some new ones out that are awesome. That combined with the ICF construction and solar will set you up well....

This. The collapse (if it happens) will come no matter what. If it doesn't, you now have a house.

This guy knows what he is talking about!

Hard Assets +1K having the assets where they can be stolen before nailed down -1trillion fail

We put an old mobile home on site for under 4K lived and built on site and then sold the trailer for 5K

In this economy theft is on the rise and you don't want to be a stat.

IFC is awesome! Only way to go IMHO.

Don't forget to allow for 20 to 40% over budget. That's the nature of the beast on building your own home.

That's a percentage that has be pretty much the norm for custom builds. Things get fluid during construction and if you don't have allowances for some overages you may miss a very lucrative opportunity to add something unforeseen for very little investment during the build that you could no way afford after it was complete.

Things like extending a room for cheap or adding special trusses to an area to allow for a second floor where one wasn't planned. Even a chance to upgrade wiring or plumbing cheaply when there are no walls in the way.

Modular is the way to go. They construct in an enclosed factory, work regardless of weather. I even went with a modular basement by Superior walls. It came insulated to R12.5 with continous envelope, I just insulated 90% of the walls so far with R19 fiberglass although you could use foam. My upstairs are R22.
The only problems I had were with the local contractors. And yes build.....if there is SHTF.....the banks will collapse anyway.....come on take my house...My cousin was in banking...he told me...we are in the money business, not Real Estate, not selling cars.

Sounds like write the check and pay as they go. No loan.

YOU sir, are smart.

Like you, I am debt free and proud of it...

Do it now before the SHTF

If it's in a realistically safe location, then yes it's probably a good time.

I don't know about materials being cheap right now, they aren't in my neck of the woods. Plywood we paid $10. a sheet for 5 years ago is now $15. a sheet.

Everyone is cutting their timber- day late and a dollar short IMO. The loggers are saying the mills are giving them quotas to maximum number of loads a day. Even with that, see a lot of smaller and smaller trees on log trucks....

We built with block and poured solid, sorta similar to ICF. The nice thing about using a masonry product like these is that you can leave the masonry walls for a while before having to move forward.

I.e, you pour your slab or build a basement probably where your at, lay your block for your walls, pour them solid and you could walk away for a month, a year, couple years, etc. I.e, everything is masonry at this point- no wood to rot, etc.

Why might this be important? Because above all else you want to build your retreat DEBT FREE.

What good would it be to have 20 acres, bulletproof fire resistant house 3KW of solar, etc. only to lose it during an economic slowdown?

Whereas with stick framing, once you start moving off of the slab or basement- you have to keep moving till it's dried in. Just putting 2x6 walls up and then walking away for even a couple weeks is a bad idea.

Also, cement blocks you can STOCKPILE. We bought 900 in 2001 for the eventual use on an addition. We paid $.75 or so per block delivered. Years and years later we used the block on the addition when blocks were $1.50 each. Had that money just been sitting in a savings account marked "addition" it would have PURCHASED LESS MATERIALS a few years ago versus in 2001. Make sense?

I would advise- and it sounds like this is your plan- to go forward paying CASH as you go. Take no mortgage. If you have to get your masonry walls down and let it sit for six months, so be it. The world is NOT going to end tomorrow.

The beauty of masonry like that or reinforced block is that- even with just the walls done- you have a TOUGH, fire resistant, bulletproof shell that even without a roof, would be a great place to pitch a tent inside if TSHTF.

SHTF aside, truly OWNING your own home, i.e, no mortgage, is one of the BEST PREPS you can make and gives you a freedom you would not believe. So many of us are concerned about TEOTWAWKI but few of us consider COLMOLLIIN.

Good luck!

Lowdown3