How has the economy affected your plans?

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Permalink Reply by Glenn V on December 15, 2008 at 9:30pm

Great CJ . I'm excited for you. I bet the wait till May will seem like a year, I know it would for me as it has been so far. We have sold several campers thru the years for people building homes to live in. Sounds like great fun to me. Makes life better and exciting seeing whats past the turn in the road and seeing another turn ahead. Hope you have wonderful holidays.

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Permalink Reply by Dave and Julie Christiansen on January 27, 2009 at 2:34am

Hi CJ: Julie and I put our tent trailers on the back side of our property and had a porta potty delivered as well. But I never tried living out of a pop-up camera. lol Just a lil bit of humor there. Anyway, we also had our water hooked up as well as our electricity early in the process which gave us water and electric for the camper as well. When you have the water line brought to your site, have them install a farmer's water faucet on the main water line before it terminates at the foundation. It was one of the best things Julie and I did. If you don't know what a farmer's water faucet is, look at ours on the side of our log home. Dave

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Permalink Reply by Bayern-Landhaus on December 16, 2008 at 8:50pm

Has the economy affected our plans?

You bet it has, for the good and for the bad.

Amerlink Being Sued by Carroll County
AmerLink Ordered To Return $600k, 32-Acre Parcel to Carroll County
A Pause in Production for Northeastern Log Homes
Barna Cuts Jobs
Millionaire Rustic Retreat Files for Bankruptcy
Neville Cites Onerous Taxes as Reason behind Canadian Bankruptcy
Original Lincoln Logs Ltd. Files for Bankruptcy
RIP Northern Log Homes

And the list goes on....

Now more than ever, producers for log homes are under the microscope.

For the good:

“Reputable and Honest” log mills and firms are really competing for your $. There are some good prices out there, best to do your homework.

Interest rates are coming down. Look at what the Fed did today with 0%-.25%.

“Reputable and Honest” log home builders and General Contractors are not turning business away as in the past.

Local prices for building materials are coming down.

Purchase your logs, but why purchase everything else in a kit package?

Why not support the local economy and the community where you are going to live?

Case in point: If Log Homes Kit Inc. Log ships you 6 bunks of plywood, timber, doors, windows, etc. cross country and you could have had a local building supply company deliver it free, or at a reduced cost, where is the value?

If your builder or General Contractor purchases materials locally and has a problem it can be taken care of immediately. No phone calls back to Log Homes Kit Inc. who gives the contractor the run-around trying to find phone numbers of who to call. If Log Homes Kit Inc. cannot take action and your workers have to stop working, who would be paying for them to sit around?

The log homes we invest in now will represent one of several things – such as – a place to come home – a place of security - a financial inheritance to our children, or a financial resource to pay for our own long term adult care.

The economy may be down, but look around. I mean really look around. Do your homework, and then do it again. There are some great deals out there, and if done right, you can use the state of the current and short term economy to your benefit.

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Permalink Reply by Marsha Raymond (Ponies) on December 17, 2008 at 1:18am

We're still going ahead with our time schedule, but we are cutting back in other areas to make the log home a reality. The house won't have all the "bells and whistles" I had dreamt of, but when the market comes back in a couple of years I'll just revisit things... of course I may be so happy, I won't miss the things I let slide! Besides we shook hands with the builder. My Daddy would come back and haunt me if I backed out on a promise. The builder will do his part and I'll do mine... somehow or other.

Hope you're okay too!

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Permalink Reply by Mick on December 21, 2008 at 11:11pm

We are here in balmy Ohio and here is what I have found in my area where we are building; Excavator charges 80 dollars per hour, that includes labor and machine. Labor, rough framing carpenters, 18 dollars per hour, kitchen cabinets from Kraftmaid warehouse @ 60-70 dollars per cabinet, some GREAT buys there ! Nice thick granite countertops for 45 a lin foot, including install. Well and septic approx 9 grand. Great deals, however, having my money with the Ohio Police and Fire Pension fund, was not in my best interest, have moved it since retirement but a little late, so this puts us back. For how long, only the economy knows.

But the good part is that we have some great folks on this and other sites such as this one to keep me focused and offer up ideas on how I may trim costs and be more of a DIY type of person. ( Thanks Glenn)

Just the thought of being able to build one day puts a smile on my face. All we have on our 5 acres is a 12x16 barn we turned into a small efficiencey, electricity a drive and our lions, and that'll do for now.

Merry Christmas to all !!

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Permalink Reply by Ted on January 26, 2009 at 6:02pm

I tried plugging in Kraftmaid warehouse into my search engine and came up with nothing. Is there an actual www address for a Kraftmaid warehouse?

Thanks, Ted

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Permalink Reply by Ro Bailey on January 27, 2009 at 6:15am

My handcrafted log home was already underway when the economy hit the skids. The first impact was financial--my bank got cold feet and backed out of the loan, which put a couple months delay into the project. A new bank granted the construction loan with mortgage prequal, and we were off. But, the assessors in town are all hiding behind the market and cutting appraisals way down, so the amount available for the loan was low by a couple hundred thousand. I had paid about half the land, and most of the log package in cash, which helped but not enough. So, out went the granite countertops (but there are formica products that look much like the granite, and it's easy later to switch), hardwood floors will wait but there are fabulous products to finish a concrete floor DIY (LastiSeal--haven't tried it yet but will know in about a month) for less than $1 sq ft, and the discount websites are bursting with great products for far lower costs and often free shipping. So, I have a solid copper bar sink, originally $640, for $99, light fixtures for 40-60% off, faucets, hardware, all sorts of things, for the cost of time online. Just explore overstock.com, lampsplus.com, lightinguniverse.com, pricegrabber.com for comparisons between sites, even Amazon.com sells home improvement products. It's amazing. Then, I haunt my local stores. At the local plumbing supplier, I found a pedestal sink ($438 orig for $75 with the faucet thrown in) that was discontinued, a soapstone kitchen sink that came off the display for a clearance price, and others that didn't work for me. Custom orders come back to big box and local lumbers stores all the time--if you're there, you may get the super deal. I am doing all my own painting, and tile work also with help from some more experienced friends. Consumers Reports helped by showing me appliances and fixtures that were plenty good enough, or even great, at the best prices. For example, the $750 Kohler whirlpool tub outperformed those costing thousands more--bingo! My builder is most cooperative, letting me know where I could save or avoid costs. For example, by reducing the size of the very large windows in the roof gables by just a little, the glass could be 2/16 in thickness, for three panes per window, and cut almost $300 per window cost. I have dozens of other examples.

So, it can be done. It takes your dedication to the search and willingness to be flexible on choices. The money you save where you can be flexible becomes available to spend on the signature items that will make your home unique and special to you. Plus, once you've wiped down those logs a half dozen times to get sawdust, sap, sheetrock dust (over and over), and sheetrock mud off, you will know every single log--something of a bonding process!

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Permalink Reply by Gail & Robert on February 1, 2009 at 11:55pm

We are just now buying our land, a 15 acre wooded tract (mostly oak) a half-hour drive from Tulsa. We hope to begin building in 2010, and are already planning what work we can do ourselves on the house. Any tile work, painting and staining we can do, and most flooring work. The enormous floor to roof rock fireplace is already out, in favor of a high-efficiency woodstove. Tree cutting? I can do it. In short, if the local economy doesn't get much worse, we should be on track to build our dream house and escape the city.

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Permalink Reply by Injaka Country Estate - Mpumalanga, South Africa on January 27, 2009 at 10:23am

Josh, Greetings from South Africa. Whilst folk in South Africa have also impacted on the global credit crunch which ultimately affects primary home buying quite dramatically in all parts of the world, we are fortunate to be developing a beautiful leisure Golf (Nick Faldo Signature Course) and Bass Fishing Estate in close proximity to the world-renowned Kruger National Park. I would imagine a vast majority of Log Home owners utilize these homes as secondary homes and not primary living space. As our development is aimed at the tourist industry on a Fractional basis (4 weeks per annum), we have fortunately not been affected. Most Fractional buyers are cash buyers and they see fractional ownership as a risk free investment. Furthermore, with the South African Rand trading way below the US Dollar, ($1:R10) Pound Sterling (₤1:R16) or Euro (€1:13), purchase prices in this upmarket, plush Estate become reasonably cheap for International buyers wishing to visit South Africa. Our Fractional Units are selling from $10,000 - $45,000 which is appealing for folk wanting to visit this area and to own their own accommodation. The beauty of this is that should an owner not be visiting in any particular year, they can place their 4 weeks in the rental pool so their asset accrues income for them. I hope this throws a bit of light on the status in South Africa.

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Permalink Reply by LITA JONES on January 29, 2009 at 6:16pm

We are 1/2 finished with our home. We started at the beginning of the crisis last spring. Luckily everything worked out and our home is gorgeous and really taking shape. We are concerned about what will happen when we start the process of switching from a construction to a permanent mortgage. Will the banks assess everything right? Will the interest for jumbo loans be lower? Who knows... We are hoping for the best. We live overseas and are lucky to have family in the area to check on things. My builder is awesome. I met him 4 years ago and talked with him every chance I could before we started the plans. I was lucky to see several of his houses and the fact that he built my neighbor's house is a huge plus! I was at the sight for delivery and bought everything I could before building started and stored it-appliances, lighting, etc and found great deals. I was just back in the states and really couldn't tell a big difference in the cost of things since the change in the economy. I like many others search the internet for great deals and scoop them up where I can. I am confident that everything will work out the way we have planned. I know I will have a great home!

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Permalink Reply by Mitch & Rene Jones on January 31, 2009 at 7:41pm

We are log home builders in MO. and I just wanted to give a positive report about the log home business. We finished a home in October for a customer and started immediately on a new one in Nov. and within the last two weeks we have had 3 new families have us write up a new log home proposal for them. I know watching the news can bring down our spirits, because they mostly show the bad out look, but I know there is some good news out there and I just wanted to let people know.

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Permalink Reply by forestrider on February 23, 2009 at 4:02pm

Our plans to build our log home are on hold until we sell our present home in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Wish we had thought of getting on with the log home project three years ago!

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