These Are the Cheapest Houses You Can Build

If you want to live in a newly built home, you have two options: you can buy a ready-made home from a developer or build one from scratch. Either choice can be incredibly expensive: the cost of building a new home in the US varies quite a bit , with a national average of $332,397 , but the final price depends on a wide range of factors.

If these numbers make your eyes water, you may be wondering if there are ways to spend less. Well, if you already have a piece of land properly zoned for a home, you can actually significantly reduce the cost of building your dream home through two main cost vectors: the construction methods used and the style of your home. If cost is your main concern when building a new home, here’s a look at options that will save you some money during the process.

Construction style

How you build your home has a huge impact on its value. Options that are cheaper than the traditional approach include:

• Cob ( Value Range: $30,000 – $90,000 ). Building a house requires either money or sweat. The more of the latter you are willing and able to provide, the cheaper the build will be in terms of the former. And the cob requires a lot of sweat. Similar to adobe, adobe is a mixture of sand, clay, straw and water that is formed into clumps that are then used to build thick walls. Because you use materials that can be found at your construction site (or that can be obtained very cheaply) and do the handwork yourself, you can build an adobe house at a very low cost (for example, these people built it for $20,000). ). Cob houses, once cured, are very strong and durable, but keep in mind that getting local permits and financing for them can be difficult.
• Container ( Value Range: $25,000 – $250,000 ). Built from one or more shipping containers, these homes can be cost-effective because they are essentially modular. Once you have a foundation, containers form walls and a roof of durable material, and you can create anything from a simple one-room studio to a more complex multi-level home simply by adding more containers. Of course, shipping containers are pretty basic, so you’ll have to add everything else, from wiring and plumbing to roofing materials and windows.
• Barndominium (Value Range: $153,000 – $182,000 ). A barndominium is essentially a prefabricated barn—a large, open barn-like building, usually made of metal—that is attached to a foundation. They are usually quite large and require a lot of land to build, but they can be very affordable since the home’s exterior arrives ready to assemble and there are few complications with floor plans.
• Modular Homes ( Cost Range: $180,000 – $360,000 ). A modular home is a prefabricated home that comes in large sections that are assembled on site. Because the modules are manufactured in a factory, the overall costs can be much less than assembling a traditional home. You can cut these costs even further if you do the assembly yourself; You can find small whole-home kits for under $10,000 , and one person can build a “kit home,” meaning you won’t have to spend a lot of money on labor other than licensed professionals for things like plumbing and electricity.

Home style

Another factor that affects the cost of building a new home is the style of the home. It comes down to the obvious: the simpler your home, the cheaper it will be to build. The cheapest options include:

• Tiny houses. Tiny homes, typically 400 square feet or less and often built to be moved around, can be very economical to build simply because of their small size. Tiny homes can be surprisingly luxurious, however, and their costs will vary depending on your choice of materials and the area you build on. On the other hand, if you do the work yourself and choose your materials wisely, you can build a home for under $15,000 .
• Ranch house. A ranch style home (or any home that is essentially a one-story rectangle, L- or T-shaped layout) is usually the cheapest style of home to build since it is limited to one story. Layout efficiency and keeping things close to the ground eliminate many of the costs associated with more complex home styles.
• Colonial. If you want two floors in your new home, a Colonial is the best choice because it’s essentially a box. As with ranch-style homes, simplicity of form and layout helps keep costs down.