Financing owner build

[Quinn Sjoblom]

Hi, I'm looking for advice on the best direction I should go in with my current situation. I'm 33 years old, and recently married. Right now I'm paying 800 dollars in rent. For the last 10 years, I have also been helping my mother pay her rent as well, which has now climbed to 825 dollars. She receives 1400 a month for disability and is 67 years old. I make about 40k a year at my job that I have had for 15 years.  At this point, I have put nothing into retirement. There has to be a better situation for us other than paying rent for the next 20 years just to end up with nothing and no retirement. 

Recently we received a bit of a break and have the opportunity to do something to change our situation. An older man that my mom was helping out recently passed away. He was 80 years old with copd and also pretty wealthy. Before he died, he put my mom in his will and left her 50 thousand dollars. She used 10k of it to pay off my car and take care of some dental for both of us. 

At this point we are thinking about options. One idea is to use the 40k as down payment to buy a peice of land and build a duplex on it. My family of 3 in one side, mom in the other side. For the next 20 to 25 years, myself and my mom would share the mortgage payment, which would be far less than the combined 1625 we are paying in rent currently and rent is just gonna keep rising. Once my mother passes away, I can rent out her side of the duplex. Not only cheaper cost of our housing, but also a retirement plan for me and my family. By the time I'm 55, I could have a paid off duplex and use the rent to pay my property tax and bills. 

here's where it gets a bit tricky, to get the peice of land and duplex at a mortgage amount I'm willing to pay, I would want to build most of the house myself to save money. I have 15 years experience working in construction and I'm 100% confident I can build a house from the ground up with my own 2 hands. Most likely I would sub out just a couple areas like excavating and electrical. The obvious issue is, banks dont want to give construction loans to owner builders that are building their own house. They prefer that the owner hires a general contractor and the general contractor hires subcontractors. I have the experience needed, but no contractors license. 

is there any way I can make this work and convince the bank to give me a loan to build my own house? I would be very thorough with a complete budget and timeline, but I don't want to waste my time if they are going to say no anyway. I haven't talked to any banks yet, but I have been doing some research and it's already extremely difficult for an owner builder to get a construction loan even when subbing out the work. I'm sure it's even harder if I'm literally doing the work myself.

should I just forget the idea of getting financing to build my own house and save money? Or is it possible? If it just can't be done, whats my next best option? it's not necessarily out of my credit range to get a large enough mortgage  to do it the traditional way using a general and subs, I just hate the idea of spending all that extra when I know I can do it myself. On top of that, the overall interest paid goes up exponentially with budget and loan term. I would really prefer a budget that I can pay off in 20 years. When i look at the total interest paid on a  250k 30yr mortgage, it just sickens me. Literally end up paying the bank double what they loan you. Something more like 170k in 20yrs is much easier to swallow and it's enough money for a lot and duplex if I can do the labor myself. I'm talking about a relatively small, offset duplex. 1100ft on my side, 600ft on my mom's side. Easily buildable for 100k if doing most of it myself. 

I would very much appreciate any advice. I feel like we need to do something now before the 40k we have dwindles away into nothing along with any chance of a bright future. Every month we go paying rent is just throwing more money away.