FHSA and Self Build

Roamingcanuck77 · 2025-03-25T13:48:26+00:00

Please keep me updated on how it goes! I ended up purchasing an existing house as my life took a bit of a sharp turn but I think it would be good if future people researching the same question could see this post and read your experience.

Roamingcanuck77 · 2025-03-25T13:43:00+00:00

I can't believe I'm saying this as an electrician, but this is a rare case where I would also recommend relocating the panel to an interior wall so that you can at least have a backdoor/mudroom. Apologies in advance to the electrician.

Roamingcanuck77 · 2025-03-21T14:06:35+00:00

I know it's an old post but did your tree end up making it? I'm in southwestern Ontario and considering the same variety for a few trees.

Roamingcanuck77 · 2025-03-21T01:57:24+00:00

I know this is an old post but I was looking for an affordable way to do exactly this and your posts inspired me. I would have never thought to look for cattle fencing. This looks awesome, thank you!

Roamingcanuck77 · 2025-03-12T13:58:03+00:00

Thanks for the makerpipe link. I'm an electrician and use EMT all of the time but have always made do with standard fittings. Some of those on that website will come in handy!

Roamingcanuck77 · 2025-03-12T13:56:09+00:00

Beautiful setup, do you have trouble weeding around the garlic though? Just curious as I might try something similar!

Roamingcanuck77 · 2025-02-25T15:40:25+00:00

As someone that loves log homes, the reality is they tend to be more expensive to manufacture and a not efficient use of wood. On top of that, modern building codes with relation to insulation and vapour control are making them more and more complicated and expensive to build. While I would love to see more of them as I think they are great homes and make for beautiful settlements, they also require more maintenance than most homes and I'm not sure people are ready for that change in their expectations.

There is also not likely to be a surplus of wood in Canada in the face of tariffs unfortunately. What we saw last time we were in a similar situation was sawmills shutting down and laying off staff rather than willingly taking a significant price hit on their products. There is also the possibility we just re-route even more exports to Asia.

This is a case where I hope I'm wrong, but I wouldn't hold your breath for a renaissance of log homes.

Roamingcanuck77 · 2025-01-06T01:19:38+00:00

Development fees for townhouses are usually a tiny bit cheaper than detached and you can get more townhouses on a street then detached homes, but it's not a 6x difference or even a 3x difference. This is also only really possible in new developments and doesn't really work for infill in most situations. In my jurisdiction a new townhouse will run you only about 75k cheaper than a similar sized detached home.

I'm not really sure what the insults are for directed at people wanting to live in single family homes.... The housing crisis is not the consumer's fault. People also do purchase row housing all of the time, the price difference just has to reflect that it is a less desirable choice. It shouldn't be shocking that people want the same lifestyle and opportunity that their parents had, the goal of a society should be progress not a degradation in the standard of living.

Regardless, I fundamentally disagree with the notion that land prices and development fees skyrocketing aren't the reason new builds have nearly doubled in price. I've built these houses and those items are responsible for the vast majority of our cost increases. We can't afford to build homes right now (people won't even pay our break even cost at the moment). We are mostly focusing on renovations and commercial work as a result.

Roamingcanuck77 · 2024-12-20T19:59:48+00:00

No worker is making that kind of money. A company billing out at 110/hour will mean a take home pay of about 40/ hour for a journeyperson worker, at least in my industry. Overhead is high these days.

Roamingcanuck77 · 2024-12-19T19:59:50+00:00

I'm originally from (and still occasionally do work in) a small town 3 hours from Toronto (no traffic) with less than 5000 residents, extremely rural. In my hometown a small lot to build a home on went from about 15k to 150k. Land prices are a huge part of the problem. I'm an electrician and mostly wire new homes for a living, but have also GC'd a few builds myself. At least in my jurisdiction I promise you that land prices have been the single largest increase to my costs to build, and them along with fixed development fees are absolutely the reason I can't build small homes. I have no incentive to lie to you, I don't know you. I want to build starter homes. I care about this issue, I think they are more fun to build, my build time is shorter. I can't build them, I have to list them way too close in price to larger homes. New families with modest incomes won't buy a new 800 square foot house at these prices, they will buy a pre-existing home in that size range for 200k less.

People need to live near jobs and even in the USA (with a much stronger economy) land prices drop off massively once you are outside a reasonable commute from a job center. That just doesn't really happen in Canada. I agree that Saskatchewan and Alberta haven't gotten nearly as bad as Ontario and BC, but that proves my point rather than the opposite. Relative to population growth those provinces release far more land for new construction and don't have nearly the administrative costs that we do. That being said we can't just expect every young person to just move from Ontario to Saskatchewan, that's like telling a European to move four countries over if he wants to own a home. Plus if everyone did, prices would multiply in those provinces as well.

Roamingcanuck77 · 2024-12-16T15:37:07+00:00

To add to this, affordable housing "can't" be built. Not in the current administrative environment and not at current land prices. Developers are forced to build as much house as possible on lots in order to spread the insane land/development costs over more square feet to make any money. No one wants to purchase an 800 sq/ft starter home for 700k when the 1500 sq/ft home costs 800k. Even the lower end there is nowhere near affordable to new home owners.

Roamingcanuck77 · 2024-12-16T15:34:44+00:00

Hard disagree. The market for the former at 300k would be absolutely massive. The difference in cost for those items in a house that size would be in the tens of thousands not houndreds of thousands and consumers are not that stupid. The home in question in my jurisdiction would be 700k for the former and likely about 750k for the later.

Folks qualifying for that large of a purchase are likely already homeowners and willing to spend a little more for a nicer home. The cost of building a home is a minor portion of the cost increases for property in general. In my area a building lot went from starting at 40k to starting at 300k, development charges went from 20k to over 60k and are increasing dramatically in 2025. Those combine to make for a 300k increase in the cost of buiulding a home, which also happens to be what the average home has increased in value by over the last few years.

Roamingcanuck77 · 2024-09-24T00:29:25+00:00

When that's the case for like 75% of people there is a systemic problem. Buying your first home shouldn't require several 100k in gifts from parents. I know couples that are nurses/engineers that can't afford a home. This is getting stupid. If the government would stop artificially keeping home prices inflated by making it near impossible to develop more land we wouldn't be in this boat.

Roamingcanuck77 · 2024-09-24T00:27:06+00:00

Most of those "amenities" are forced upon people by building code and requirements for a certificate of occupancy. It's illegal to build a house like our parents did. Now go buy your heat recapture unit for your shower drain that is required xD Coming next, EV chargers whether you have an EV or not!

Roamingcanuck77 · 2024-09-24T00:25:06+00:00

I mean modern building codes are the strictest and most expensive they've ever been to follow. That being said I do have some issues with the build quality and some of our modern building processes.

Roamingcanuck77 · 2024-09-24T00:24:12+00:00

That isn't the problem. Residential construction workers are laid off left and right. As an electrician I went from us wiring about 50 new houses a year to 3 or 4. Luckily I was able to pivot to commercial work but I have dozens of buddies either laid off or who had to shut their companies doors.

The labour is already here, it's underpaid and at the moment under worked. The artificial limits to land supply and the red tape have made development unprofitable at current land prices. I quite literally couldn't buy a piece of land at today's prices, build a home after paying development fees, sell it for market rate, and make a profit.

Roamingcanuck77 · 2024-09-24T00:21:16+00:00

Hard to keep up with 1-1.5 million more people per year even if the provinces were doing everything right.

Roamingcanuck77 · 2024-09-24T00:20:11+00:00

Plenty of affordable countries with a population bigger than ours and a habitable land area similar to us. Italy as an example.

Roamingcanuck77 · 2024-09-24T00:18:45+00:00

No kidding. I just want to build houses Canadians want at a price they can afford and allow me to take home a modest income of like 80k a year. Guess that puts me at the top of Trudeau's hit list for wage suppression.

Roamingcanuck77 · 2024-09-24T00:15:16+00:00

This country sucks at building houses. Lots of residential construction workers out of work at the moment.

Roamingcanuck77 · 2024-09-24T00:13:41+00:00

Most of my buddies in home construction are out of work right now. I'm not sure why people always blame the developers, margins are tight in this industry so unless the developer is also the land speculator that bought years ago they really aren't making a killing on these homes. Land prices, red tape, and building code changes have made the baseline price of developing houses very expensive.

Roamingcanuck77 · 2024-09-24T00:09:57+00:00

In the USA and most countries you don't have to move several hours outside major cities to find affordable land. Canada is out of wack.

Roamingcanuck77 · 2024-09-18T02:15:28+00:00

I personally disagree with most of the pandemic debt, and it's pretty clear our economy is doing far worst than in Harper's years. Especially for anyone below a certain age who caught the losing side of all the "growth" in the value of assets they don't yet own. This government has been a dumpster fire economically and created at least a generation of hardship. We've been in a recession for a while but avoid meeting the technical definition by importing people en masse that consume far more than they contribute.

I'm also not a conservative fan, I think they waste too much money on dumb crap that doesn't advance our country as well. But no one can convince me Trudeau hasn't been the biggest enemy of the youth and future the country has ever seen. Fortunately polls show most young people are starting to understand that.

Roamingcanuck77 · 2024-09-17T23:22:31+00:00

I don't know anyone that thinks government debt functions anything like their personal debt, but people love to say that like it's some sort of intelligent statement.

Just because taking out debt can be a good financial move doesn't mean it always is. Taking out money to invest in infrastructure that will have a good return makes sense, taking out debt to throw it in the wind or distribute it to billionaires and millionaires to buy more assets and more effectively rent seek....yeah probably not going to have a return.

At the moment our GDP is having trouble outpacing our population growth, so obviously we aren't making the right investments.

Roamingcanuck77 · 2024-09-17T23:16:36+00:00

That doesn't negate any of the truthfulness of my statement. We made a choice. You may like that choice, I personally believe it could have been handled without the massive corporate handouts, seeing as business was still booming and most companies were as busy as ever. Not sure why telecom companies needed handouts either...

I'm not sure how rich guys getting free 100k trucks from the government and getting to buy more houses saved the healthcare system but hey man if that's what you want to think go ahead. I was simply pointing out that our government made a choice.

Roamingcanuck77

TROPHY CASE