Hi all, Just a brief update on the current state of affairs. Building material and labor costs have outpaced the growth in real estate prices since 2019, especially when accounting for the recent decline in real estate prices in Ontario and BC. Calgary may be an exception here. However, most builders are currently running on very thin margins, if not outright losing money on their builds. As an owner-builder, you essentially benefit from paying yourself as the builder and capturing the market upside of owning land in an appreciating market. When builders are profitable, owner-builders also have limited potential for significant gains. Cities like Peterborough have city councils pushing for 30-50% increases in development charges, effective January 1 this year, to make up for infrastructure budget deficits. This will likely be the final blow to significantly reduce building starts. It is my current view that your time and efforts in building your own property are better reserved for improved market conditions unless you already own the land from a prior time. If your goal is purely to build the home you desire, this may still be a justifiable avenue. However, if your goal is to create an affordable house, unfortunately, the prospects are not good. If your goal is to grow your capital/net worth through real estate, this is not the best avenue for that goal under current conditions. I hope everyone is doing well, and for those who had already started a build when they joined the group, I hope you are finishing strong and have a home you love!

Words of warning to anyone who has not acquired land yet but is considering this avenue. I have spoken with several owner builders that have had problems with this recently, and even big builders are under pressure seeing banks trying to shrink their access to credit. If you can get a smoking deal on land right now have a long time horizon, it can be worth considering, but otherwise, you should be aware that this is likely the number one hurdle you will face right now outside of the fact that material and labor prices still have not come down enough to make building your own home lucrative at our current resale prices. At this moment, resale prices seem to be falling faster than the construction inputs to build new (material and labor), so the ideal time to build your own home if your goal is to maximize your upside or value for your dollars does not seem to be at this part of the cycle. I hope everyone is well. Take this time to learn and be patient, the time to buy land and build will return. If you already own land, simply GC'ing your own build at this time can still save you money vs paying a turnkey builder, but if you have not committed to this route yet, beware of the current challenges.

Hey all, Perhaps a really stupid noob question, but my excavation contractor and I have been going back and forth on best materials to place under my slab prior to concrete. We're trying to find a balance between ease of digging for running conduit and plumbing, cost, and ease of getting compacted/leveled. Any insights or thoughts are greatly appreciated! Cheers, Matt N.

While not everyone's cup of tea, we need to be building more homes like this: https://youtu.be/EhnbpakXk7U?si=h7GEjH3b62rVt2-o

I started this group many months ago with the intention of it being a simple place to go to understand whether or not building your own home was feasible for you. My intention was that, if it was feasible to build, I would be building out the perfect solution to help you manage your first build with a full video library I had been working on from a real build over a period of 9 months. What I have found so far is that people need far more help with budgeting and feasibility analysis than I first anticipated. At first I thought most of the help people would need would be on the technical and logistical side of actually being in charge of the building process, but I see now that a high level of help is needed from day one. With all that being said, I know that in order to actually help everyone in here move forward meaningfully, I would have to start hosting at least weekly calls, and pulling in more resources, experts, templates ect for people to follow. In order to be able to set aside the time required to do this, I would need the time invested in these activities to produce some revenue to offset the time away from my regular business. I am currently in the middle of considering whether it is best to: a) Leave this as a free group in its current format, more or less user driven without much direct guidance. b) Start to charge some kind of a monthly fee for remaining in the group, but include more direct coaching and continue to build out the video lesson library. c) Start a second group aimed only at the most serious owner builder/ first time builders at a higher one time fee to provide a high level of direct support and consulting. Please take a moment to fill out the survey below, and feel free to chime in with comments or shoot me a DM if you have further thoughts on this topic. Regards, Mitch