Opinions on building rentals.

[Christopher Parsons]

Hey everyone, new to the community here and eager to get started with Real Estate investing. I've been reading a lot of material on rental investment strategies, but one thing I haven't heard yet would be thoughts on having a unit built. 

I live close to Seattle and house prices are pretty ridiculous at this point. One thing I've noticed though is that I can find the occasional piece of land for sale under $100,000. I've seen companies that have 8 to 12 models of homes they specialize in at a decent price (say around $200,000 to $400,000) which is still below what a lot of older houses go for (one of my realtors is sending me $800,000+ listings). In this case, would it make sense to build instead? 

I'm not necessarily stuck on the Seattle market, but would like to try to take advantage of house hacking while my wife and I live here for the next 6 years. Any opinions would be greatly appreciated, thanks!