This may be a dumb question...

[BrokeEF]

But how do you guys pay for these bigger builds?! We recently moved to a house that has enough land to be able to build a shop on. I haven't actually priced it out, but even ball parking it the cost gets into the stratosphere quickly. Which has had me questioning how do I finance a build like that? It seems like it would be more than we could reasonably just save cash for. Well at least in a time frame that makes any kind of sense. Do you get a mortgage on a building? Personal loan? Equity loan?

Sorry if this is a dumb question, just cant see how to build a shop that will cost as much as a house.

Sean

 

[Jeffh40]

Saving up for it.
Equity loan on your house
Construction loan (15-20 % down payment)

 

[klassenl]

After reading about some of the ambitious plans I have often wondered that as well. When I but my modest garage we had been saving for almost 3 years and we did it cash.

 

[laser3kw]

I saved for 15 years and paid cash.
Just how big of a garage are you planning? I am near the area you are and if you are looking to " build a shop that will cost as much as a house", that is $200k ~300k? That is a pretty elegant building. Prices I have seen could get you a nice 1200 sq ft for around $60k. Maybe less if you do some of the finish work yourself.

 

[BrokeEF]

Saving for it makes sense of course, but as I think about saving that amount of money the time table gets pretty long. Throw in the house needing to be remodeled, built out, roof, siding, windows, etc. Stuff like that, some of which is optional of course, would just put it so far out.

Sounds like it will either be a combo of saving, scaling back the scope (size, building type etc.), and some kind of partial loan to get it done in any kind of reasonable time frame. Either that, or we sell this place in a handful of years and buy a property that already has a building on it.

 

[BrokeEF]

I saved for 15 years and paid cash.
Just how big of a garage are you planning? I am near the area you are and if you are looking to " build a shop that will cost as much as a house", that is $200k ~300k? That is a pretty elegant building. Prices I have seen could get you a nice 1200 sq ft for around $60k. Maybe less if you do some of the finish work yourself.

Well I didn't mean as much as my house, but some houses cost that much. I would love to do a stick built 40x80. Prices change a lot based on all kinds of things as you know. Thickness of concrete for the slab has a decent size impact on the overall cost. Stick built vs steel, wall height, doors (quantity and size), the list goes on and on. I could easily see it getting to 100K finished out with a thick slab, power, gas, water, and driveway. I can probably be more like $50k if I did a steel building, asphalt driveway, less power (not a additional service) and a lot of other concessions. I wont be doing anything in the next few years so my mind races with all of the possibilities and the widely varying cost associated with those options.

Sean

 

[3rdgendslmech]

I had about half of the cost saved up for my 24x32. Didn't want to totally wipe out my savings. Went to my bank and talked about options, ended up getting qualified for a 0% interest for 18 month credit card. You'll save a lot in labor.....at the time to have mine built, was about half the cost of the building. Im no carpenter but I know plumb, level and square so I saved 3500 just on building it myself.
A close family friend does concrete, coincidentally at the same time we poured the pad, I replaced the hydrostatic travel pumps on a skid steer on-site. Worked out even.

 

[jmarkwolf]

Put up a pole barn shell, complete construction over time, perhaps doing some of the labor yourself.

 

[firebirdparts]

I parted out a bunch of cars.

 

[cj7jeep81]

Here's a similar thread on it.
https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=422973

I saved some up, and took out a home equity loan for mine. I would have loved to pay cash, but that would have delayed building by quite a while, and to me, there is a lot of value in having it and using it now. If I had waiting another 5 years, I would have paid more (stuff keeps getting more expensive), and that's 5 less years of use I would have had.

 

[corvette43056]

Put up a pole barn shell, complete construction over time, perhaps doing some of the labor yourself.

This is how I did mine did all the work myself had father help with trusses and a coworker help pour the concrete

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

 

[vavet]

I didn't want to finance a hobby building. We sacrifice elsewhere. The combined value of our two vehicles is less than $15k. We live below our means. We cut back on retirement savings for a couple years to have the cash. I was realistic with my wants. I could've easily spent $100k if I built bigger, added a bathroom, etc. My 24x32 was just over $40k as an unfinished shell, but including asphalt and ground clearing. I've since added insulation, drywall, and a mini-split. Some of that I DIYed, some I hired out.
Take a look at your bills. What can you cut out? Do you need a new vehicle? Do you need the top of the line trim? Can you cut back on TV services or eating out? Can you wait another year before getting a new cell phone? All those little things add up.

 

[BrokeEF]

I had about half of the cost saved up for my 24x32. Didn't want to totally wipe out my savings. Went to my bank and talked about options, ended up getting qualified for a 0% interest for 18 month credit card. You'll save a lot in labor.....at the time to have mine built, was about half the cost of the building. Im no carpenter but I know plumb, level and square so I saved 3500 just on building it myself.
A close family friend does concrete, coincidentally at the same time we poured the pad, I replaced the hydrostatic travel pumps on a skid steer on-site. Worked out even.

I have a family member who can finish concrete which is a big savings for sure. I have helped with concrete projects my whole life, so I'm due a favor on that As far as building myself, I can and would love to. My concern is how long it would take to get it closed up. My main thought would be to do the framing and sheeting myself, then hire out siding and roofing.

As we are talking about this it seems less daunting. I am someone who over thinks everything so it starts to get overwhelming. It is still a big, expensive project, but its not an impossible task. It makes me feel better that people are not just responding "I just paid for it. It was only $130k which is nothing." or something like that. Not that I expected answers like that but seeing people say it took X years to save up a down payment, or partial amount, and what other ways they came up with the rest helps.

I don't want to bankrupt myself to build a shop, but I also don't want to wait 20 years to save for it all in cash. The more I think about it it seems like I could build it in stages.

 

[corvette43056]

It took me most of a summer to get mine shelled in.the next year the concrete.then just took my time finishing the inside.

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[kd3pc]

the first thing is to address needs, vs wants. And understand there are a lot of folks in debt up to their eyeballs and they will never see a return on the garage "investment".

40x80 is a very large building. Is that a "need" or a "want".

I traded for my 24x24, HD, some radios, labor trade, and did the electrical, insulation and all prep/site work myself.

Zero cash, and it matched the house exactly.

 

[BrokeEF]

I didn't want to finance a hobby building. We sacrifice elsewhere. The combined value of our two vehicles is less than $15k. We live below our means. We cut back on retirement savings for a couple years to have the cash. I was realistic with my wants. I could've easily spent $100k if I built bigger, added a bathroom, etc. My 24x32 was just over $40k as an unfinished shell, but including asphalt and ground clearing. I've since added insulation, drywall, and a mini-split. Some of that I DIYed, some I hired out.
Take a look at your bills. What can you cut out? Do you need a new vehicle? Do you need the top of the line trim? Can you cut back on TV services or eating out? Can you wait another year before getting a new cell phone? All those little things add up.

I can at least say with all of your examples we are pretty good There are places to cut back for sure, but we drive older cars that are paid for with no want to get new. We had our cell phones for ~5 years before just recently replacing them. We don't have cable, and haven't in a long time. We are bad with eating out, and I have other hobbies I spend too much on. Like I mentioned before I think the hardest part is going to be balancing doing work on the house vs also saving for a shop.

Sounds like the best starting point is to re-evaluate all the bills and figure out a way to set aside X specifically for the garage project and just squirrel away money. What will be hard is me having no patience, but if we are staying in this house essentially forever I need to learn some real quick

Sean

 

[BrokeEF]

the first thing is to address needs, vs wants. And understand there are a lot of folks in debt up to their eyeballs and they will never see a return on the garage "investment".

40x80 is a very large building. Is that a "need" or a "want".

I traded for my 24x24, HD, some radios, labor trade, and did the electrical, insulation and all prep/site work myself.

Zero cash, and it matched the house exactly.

It is all a want for sure. I also don't want to be in debt up to my eyeballs which is why I am asking in this thread vs just getting a loan and going for it I do also realize there will be no return on any building I put up, but we aren't planning on going anywhere so that is fine.

40x80 is a very large building. The idea behind that size is that it would be able to act as a 40x60 shop for machining, cars, metal fab, then have a sectioned off 20x20 wood working space, and also a 20x10 "shed". I would also build storage over the wood shop and the shed. Again though, this is perfect world scenario, and it will likely be scaled back before anything happens.

I am lucky in that I can do a lot of the work myself. I can do it in stages myself as well which would help cost big time. Just sounds like a lot of planning to make sure the money is in place in reasonable amounts of time. Like to not have a slab poured for 10 years before I can frame it.

Sean

 

[CraigStu]

I would get a home equity line if you can. Do the concrete w/ your friend. Do the walls yourself and wrap them very well w/ Tyvek so you can put off the siding a bit. Walls are easy to build on the floor and then tilt up into place. You can even put most of the osb on while on the floor. A friend had 4 feet of foundation above ground on two sides of the garage. So we built just 8ft wall sections. (At the time he was 55 and I was 65 so a 12 ft section w/ osb was too heavy for us to raise) We started in the left rear. Put the osb on so the left 2 feet was w/o osb but the right end had osb over hanging 2 feet. The next 8ft section done the same so the bare left 2 feet fit right into the overhanging 2ft of osb from the previous section. This way he had to lift just a 2x8 piece of osb up the ladder to nail in place. It was also easy to nail the overhanging 2 feet on each panel since no need to lift anything. Depending if you can get a few friends or not you can do trusses w/ their help as long as they are standard trusses in the 30ft length range. My friend found that moving 4x8 sheets of plywood up onto the trusses was beyond what he could do so he hired a crew for plywood and shingles. They had the roof on in <a day. If you add doors and windows you have an enclosed lockable shell that you can use while you do the interior and siding. Do all the planning, permitting, finding help now. Get the concrete done in Late March/April and you can have a usable garage by August.

 

[glend123]

I bought a house with one already built, because I knew, like classic cars, it's cheaper to buy it than build it.

 

[BrokeEF]

I bought a house with one already built, because I knew, like classic cars, it's cheaper to buy it than build it.

Yeah, wish we could have done that. It was the plan up until we decided we needed to move quickly. Because we didn't have the time to build up our savings like we planned we looked for either a building on site or the ability to put one on site. Within our budget we were only finding places that had the space to build, so here we are.

I am not complaining at all. We have way more house and land than I ever thought I would. We also made sure to have a good size garage, so I will be able to feed my hobbies just fine until I can build a shop. I just look at that big empty yard and want to build a shop ASAP! Just think how much quicker cutting the grass will go

Sean

 

[vrinner]

We wanted to build a big garage for 15+ years and knew we didn't want to finance it. Through a lot of saving and some good real estate decisions we were able to do the basic build without a loan.

For most of us a large build is a luxury item (like 2nd cars and boats) and should be treated as such...if you can't afford to buy it debt free then don't.

 

[zmotorsports]

Like others have already mentioned, saved and paid cash for the shop.

When we bought our first home we saved for a couple of years until we could pay cash for the build and I built it myself. I did side work and stashed the money aside. The shop was 34'x34'x14 and all in I was around $20k and took me about 4 months to build at night and weekends.

We had a 30-year mortgage on the house and we paid extra so we had it paid off in 15. The next 11 years we saved and invested while we lived there and never thought about moving until the last couple of years we were there.

We then bought a new house and put the 20% down to avoid PMI then when our home sold we were able to build the new bigger shop and after it was done took the remainder and dumped it on back onto the new mortgage.

Bottom line is we have never financed either of our shops but it takes time and discipline. If you haven't planned or want it now you will be limited to financing.

 

[tstaude]

I have been trying to save up to do a build but it just keeps not happening!
In the end what I will probably do is save up for all the concrete and dirt work, then do the Menard's 0% for 48 months on building materials and put it up myself. I do a lot of side work that can cover the monthly payment with no problem.

 

[BrokeEF]

I have been trying to save up to do a build but it just keeps not happening!
In the end what I will probably do is save up for all the concrete and dirt work, then do the Menard's 0% for 48 months on building materials and put it up myself. I do a lot of side work that can cover the monthly payment with no problem.

Thats my worry with just saving. We have a lot of projects in and around the house that will easily eat up all the shop money. So its either going to take forever to build something, or we will have to finance it. I don't want to get into crazy debt over a building that isn't 100% needed, but I also don't want to wait 20 years to put something up.

Sounds like lots of planning is needed to make it happen in a reasonable amount of time without being in a massive hole at the end.

Sean

 

[napaul]

I bought a 5o+yr old house 22 yrs ago that had a 30x24 newer garage shell with ****** concrete under it. my wife and me knew eventually we would need to plan for repair. well that year was this year after one corner had sunk 3". We started getting some ideas of what we actually needed vs wanted. Came up with min cost around 20k to lift the building and pour new concrete under it with repairing the structure for shity prior workmanship. now of course it all snowballs once you begin. so what ever you plan or budget for plan for unexpected costs. in my case I used combination of savings and cashing 10k of my holiday pay I had banked at work. im currently sitting at 20k with still siding to do on exterior and some minor finishing on interior. decide what are your needs required to meet and what few extras you can afford now and what can wait till later as a lesser priority over time. Good luck with your project it all starts with good planning

 

[frank001]

I paid cash for my garage build in S. California:

http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=284998&highlight=frank001

 

[hotrod1968]

But how do you guys pay for these bigger builds?! We recently moved to a house that has enough land to be able to build a shop on. I haven't actually priced it out, but even ball parking it the cost gets into the stratosphere quickly. Which has had me questioning how do I finance a build like that? It seems like it would be more than we could reasonably just save cash for. Well at least in a time frame that makes any kind of sense. Do you get a mortgage on a building? Personal loan? Equity loan?



Sorry if this is a dumb question, just cant see how to build a shop that will cost as much as a house.



Sean

I was sitting about 90,000 at this . Outside complete, all electric in, insulation mostly done. Did a bunch myself over about three years while working on some projects in the shop. Sold place two years ago and now gearing up for a new shop a bit larger. No rush as my new place has a 4 car garage, and 26x36 shop with 12 foot ceilings so I have a bit of space to work in and can afford to take my time. If you have skills you can save a bunch. My advice is take your time and get what you want in the end vs settling for cheaper and faster.. good luck ( this shop was 2600 square feet plus 600 square feet up stairs)

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[Northislander]

I think it all comes down to priorities, every-bodies priorities are different and our priorities change over time.
In my case i built my first home in 1987 it included a 24 x 24 shop. I built two more homes over the next 5 years all with a shop.
Then i decided i needed a house on 5 acres on a lake, that home had no shop i couldn't afford it.
When i sold the lake house and moved back in to town the house had no shop but also no mortgage. over the next 15 years I saved 100,000 cdn. in a shop account and two years ago i started building my new shop. Now finished and enjoying it every day.

 

[Antoin]

I often wondered this myself when I see some of the gigantic buildings on here.

I am very similar to the OP in that whilst I would like a bigger shed (I have a single car garage that works ok) the house renovation is the priority and eats up money and time. Coupled with a young family, spare cash isn't abundant and neither is my time.

Ideally I will have a 9m x 6m prefab metal framed shed done on a concrete slab eventually. I helped my uncle do his slab so I will have him and my da about to help with that (Approx £2k including groundworks) Then it is a matter of purchasing the actual shed kit. Probably about £5k will buy and erect it. I had looked about fabricating my own but when I price it out individually I cant even buy the materials for the price the companies are supplying and fitting it for. Good material buying power on their part.

 

[tradesman]

Put up a pole barn shell, complete construction over time, perhaps doing some of the labor yourself.[/QUOTE]

This is how I am doing it.

 

[BrokeEF]

Thanks for the insight guys. I think I am going to build a decent size shed in the spring/summer which will help free up some space in my garage. That will help hold me over for longer till I can build an actual shop. It will also give me some insight into what it will take to actually build the shop. I have done lots of carpentry, electrical, HVAC, etc. type work, but never a building from the ground up.

Sean

 

[Innovate1]

We would have loved to find a spot with a large shop (maybe I should say modest shop compared to your size!) but they are few and far between. But there are a few out there and lots cheaper than building not to mention that a lot of locations don't allow new large detached garages but may have existing ones. We planned to move to a new parcel where we could build a detached building the size we wanted (30 x 40). But the more we thought about it and worked on it the more the cost of building a house and shop sunk in. We changed our plans to staying put as we have a nice house and some land - the downside is the high taxes but decided that was offset by the high cost of building new elsewhere. So we decided to build the garage (shop) where we are. In addition the rules on what I can do myself are a lot less restrictive here and in general the rules are more reasonable although still inspected. We are a few years from retirement and have always been savers and lived below our means. We have bought a few modest new cars over the years but mostly used cars, etc. We dumped cable TV years ago and just do over the air with a home built DVR (MythTV if anyone in interested). We don't have kids - not really a choice, just got married late in life when we were beyond that.

Sounds like you can do a lot yourself which can save you a lot. Look for deals on materials and build it as you can. But don't stretch out the build so long it never gets finished.

 

[b-boy]

Put up a pole barn shell, complete construction over time, perhaps doing some of the labor yourself.

This is what I did.

I used equity from my prior home sale to get started. Put up the shell the first year (paid cash). Ran utilities and put in the slab the next (paid cash). I'm finishing the inside myself. I've used some Lowes 24 month financing deals for insulation, lumber, cabinets, etc... Other stuff I buy as I need.

 

[LB-1911]

Thanks for the insight guys. I think I am going to build a decent size shed in the spring/summer which will help free up some space in my garage. That will help hold me over for longer till I can build an actual shop. It will also give me some insight into what it will take to actually build the shop. I have done lots of carpentry, electrical, HVAC, etc. type work, but never a building from the ground up.

Sean

Start with a site plan.

Verify your setbacks and easements, position your shed keeping in mind a shop later on.

Site Plan Example @
https://www.co.thurston.wa.us/permitting/apps-forms/subapps/Res_bulletins/site-plan-checklist.pdf

Are you on a septic system ? if so you'll need a reserve area.
( That .05 next door could be of benefit )

HOA or Covenants a concern?

 

[bobj49f2]

I think it's a combination of a lot of things that make owning a shop possible. Hard work, saving and luck.

I wouldn't be able to afford my shop, 30'x50' pole building if I didn't have my business pay for it. I could never justify building something like this for just a personal shop to store and work on my vehicles.

I started my business in a rented, run down building for $300/month. I built my business up so I could move to a better but a more expensive place. Then a bit of luck stepped in, my mom died and I got $50K. Don't worry, she wasn't a very nice person to anyone and the money was from when my dad died. I used the money for a down payment to build a small shop for the business. After about ten years we stumbled upon a small farmette with a nice old farm house and a couple of out buildings including the pole building for a decent price (luck again). We sold the business building and took what we got out of it for a down payment on the farmette. The pole building wasn't insulated or heated so my son and I insulated it and installed the heat ourselves. Still cost quite a chunk of money but we saved a lot by doing the work ourselves. But again, if I didn't have the business to pay for and justify the building I wouldn't have it.

Also remember a lot of the guys, myself included, who have these nice buildings didn't get them over night. We worked most of our lives out in the rain and cold on gravel, or dirt, doing what we could in the heat and freezing cold temperatures.

 

[BrokeEF]

Start with a site plan.

Verify your setbacks and easements, position your shed keeping in mind a shop later on.

Site Plan Example @
https://www.co.thurston.wa.us/permitting/apps-forms/subapps/Res_bulletins/site-plan-checklist.pdf

Are you on a septic system ? if so you'll need a reserve area.
( That .05 next door could be of benefit )

HOA or Covenants a concern?

Shed will be on the other side of the house, so no worries there. I am on a little over an acre, and will be buying the ~.5 acre next to me before I build a shop. Not sure if that is what you were referring to with the .05 next door?

We are on septic, but again the plan for the shop location is further away from it than the house is. No HOA or anything like that. Hell I cant even get anyone to tell me who I would need to talk to for permits etc. We are in unincorporated of a small town. The person in city hall (which is only open 1 day a week) sent me to someone else, I think maybe the town next door? I called over there, they said to talk to the county. Called over there, they said its up to the town.... Keep in mind I think two of these were the same person wearing two hats.

The moral of the story is I can probably build whatever I want without any real push back. Not that I will go rogue and build something like that without a permit, just saying I don't think I will run into many issues. My tendency to be OCD means I would build way over what would be required anyway.

I do realize that some of these bigger/crazier/nicer builds are guys who flat out have money, are in crazy debt, own a business, are older etc. I am still relatively young, so its not like I am freaking out that I need it next year or anything. I was just curious to see if most people saved, or took loans, what type and so on. I also know there are mere mortals like myself on this site who have very nice spaces. I was hoping to hear from them, and I have.

10 years ago I could never imagine owning a house. 5 years ago I never imagined owning a house like the one I have now. Who knows what the future holds, so I like to dream and plan big

Sean

 

[Kevin54]

One thing to do is your homework and source a lot of things out yourself. If you can do a lot of the work yourself, do it. Other than that, ask people around your area for who does what. Most concrete places, lumber places will give you info on the side who they recommend. Talk to the person doing that work and ask to see places they have done. One thing to remember....if you throw it in the lap of one person, a lot of times you will get screwed or you won't be satisfied. Remember this above all...if you are willing to spend, everyone is more than willing to take your money.

 

[MattRMagnum]

But how do you guys pay for these bigger builds?! We recently moved to a house that has enough land to be able to build a shop on. I haven't actually priced it out, but even ball parking it the cost gets into the stratosphere quickly. Which has had me questioning how do I finance a build like that? It seems like it would be more than we could reasonably just save cash for. Well at least in a time frame that makes any kind of sense. Do you get a mortgage on a building? Personal loan? Equity loan?

Sorry if this is a dumb question, just cant see how to build a shop that will cost as much as a house.

Sean

If you're serious about building, I would suggest partnering with an architect (unless you're going with a simple steel building/pole barn), and design the most extravagant, over-the-top ridiculous garage you can. Find out what the build cost would be, and how much you'd be paying per month (assuming you finance it via home equity loan, construction loan, etc).

Assuming you can't afford it, look over that ridiculous dream garage, and start identifying things you can either live without, or finish yourself (i.e: if you want a bathroom or a sink? Maybe have water&sewer run to it, but left roughed in, and not finished, and plan to build the bathroom yourself down the road). Do a round of that, and see where the cost comes back. Rinse/repeat until you've a number you're comfortable with.

The reason I suggest this model, ftr, is that a buddy did the precise opposite of this when having his house and garage built, and he wound up going ~$300k over budget. It's a lot easier to start with where you want to be, and pare back to what you can actually afford, than the opposite, in my opinion.


Oh, and this isn't meant to disparage steel or pole buildings. Those are both solid choices, depending upon local/funds/etc. I just wanted to offer this approach if you decide to build from the ground-up using conventional construction.

 

[bczygan]

And then there is the real money to fill it with machinery and tools!!!


Bill

 

[kaymccampbell]

Saved for it. Then nickeled and dimed it together. Which I'm still doing.