House values (Stick house, timber frame, log)

[Boone McEntire]

I have been wanting to get into real estate. But one thing I did want to do is buy land and build on it. And so I wanted to hear what you all said about the values of houses on property.

I am just going to make up a house build and see what you think the values of them are. 

The houses are brand new, 4 bedroom, 2 bath. It has a full-size basement and small attic (crawl space). The houses are made of Log, Timber frame and stick (Maybe the wrong term. But that is what I used in construction regarding building made of something like 2x4 with drywall)

I know that you really can't give a great value since this is all made up. But I was trying to see which type of house would value.

[Jason V.]

If you're building from the ground up.... consider Insulated Concrete Form (ICF) homes.

Essentially, you get VERY light pallets, which are like styrofoam panels that sit parallel to each other, being connected by plastic accordion doohickeys to make the "block" form.  Start stacking these blocks on top of each other over the course of a week.  Then in ONE day, you pour the concrete between the parallel styrofoam wall/block dealies, and you've got yourself the best house money can buy.  They are SLIGHTLY more expensive than stick homes, from what I hear.... but in the long run, these houses are FAR more energy efficient, mold / flood proof, sound proof, termite proof, rot proof, etc.  The only disadvantage I'm aware of is that they are a bit more difficult if the owner wants to alter the home, add-on or whatnot down the line.  I'm really surprised that all homes aren't built this way today, but builders I guess stick to what they know, not what is optimum.  Personally, I prefer optimum.

I was considering buying a VERY cheap piece of land next to a railroad track and just north of our hurricane prone beach.... then building one of these ICF homes.  But as I was researching the ICF building process on YouTube, somebody else grabbed it up.  Pretty silly on my part, but I didn't want to maintain the property for a year or two while acquiring the money to build the house myself.  But ICF is definitely the way to go if you're living in it yourself.  And even if you're not, they make very excellent and certainly unique selling points.

EDIT:  Also, just remembered one other negative to ICF homes -- sq. footage.  Since the walls are thicker, you lose a little interior footage compared relatively to what stick homes look like on the outside.