toefu

in general, most of the architects we spoke with quoted 150-200 per sqft, but honestly, it's impossible for them to truly gauge it. Most of it depends on the quality of home you are looking to build. Numerous factors heavily influence the cost of the home. Frame material - Steel, cement, wood external material - brick, stucco, concrete, metal, hardy plank Window sizes and thickness ceiling heights flooring - tile,wood, cement all these factors can sway your home cost from 130/sqft to 200+/sqft. The architect will almost always ask atleast 150 as he probably doesn't want to design a modern home w/o any freedom of design (he'd have to use all the cheapest materials). i'm pretty sure architect fees vary dramatically, but i'd expect 15k->40k for that fee alone.

We just finished drawing up the plans to our home with MDGI. Looking to get the loan now, hopefully we'll knock down the home soon. So far so good.

Thanks for all the replies, This has been very educational for me. My wife is a bit on the extreme worryside with the lead paint, and I'm not likely going to push that agenda on her. The home is in pretty bad shape as well, and renovating it just to rent out would be costly, assuming i can get it rented out quickly, since I plan to eventually bull doze it and rebuild within a few years anyhow. And wouldn't renting it out also violate my mortgage, since this is a primary residence mortgage?

A while back, I bought a property with full intent of knocking it down in a 1-2 years and rebuilding. The idea was to do minor remodeling and rough it out in the home. Unfortunately, the home had lead paint and my wife got pregnant. We ran the numbers and it simply didn't make sense to do the repairs, as the total renovation budget would exceed the cost of renting for 2 years. So, the new plan is to knock down the home and leave it an empty field. pros: insurance is less for the home (need insurance for a mortgage) property tax should be same or less cons: will I still be able to file the property tax and mortgage interest if I theoretically don't live there? what else should I be thinking about? Thanks for any help

that's some hardcore trip. You should pickup fishing, you'll always be able to find a partner on the TexasKayakFishing forums.