I Loved Building a House But Probably Won't Do It Again. Here's Why

Building a house was one of the most fun experiences of my life. Many years ago, my husband and I couldn't find anything we really loved that was for sale, so we opted not to buy an existing house but instead built our home. Despite really enjoying the building process, I don't think I'll ever build a home again. Here's why.

1. The process was really time consuming

Building our first house took a ton of time. We had to find a builder, examine different floor plans and designs, and then wait for permits before the building process started. Once we did get underway, we spent endless hours visiting stores to find the right granite, lighting fixtures, and tile.

The entire process took about two years from start to finish, and we spent endless hours making design decisions during that process. We had the time to do it then because we didn't have kids. Now, with two young children, it would be hard to devote the time to building.

2. There were a lot of added costs

One of the things we learned when building our first home was that there were a ton of surprise expenses that made our home pricier than we had anticipated and ultimately necessitated taking out a larger mortgage.

In some situations, decisions we made added costs. We opted for some upgraded lighting fixtures, for example. But, it wasn't just our choices that increased our expenses; there were some that we had no option but to incur. For example, we had to pay more for a deeper well than we'd planned on because they couldn't get enough water with the standard drilling process we'd budgeted for.

I would be a lot more wary about building now that I know all of the things that can go wrong. I'm not a huge fan of costly financial surprises, so it would be hard for me to sign up for that again.

3. There was a lot of uncertainty involved

Another big downside in the building process was the level of uncertainty involved. We had an idea of what the house would look like when it was done, obviously. But as we made countless decisions from what color to paint the walls to what door hinges we'd use, we had no idea if everything would turn out right.

We did end up ultimately loving the house we created. But with all of the stress, uncertainty, and time involved in getting to that point, it was undeniable at the end of the process that building a home was a ton more work than buying one.

This is why, for subsequent houses, we opted for pre-existing homes that we wanted to make our own. These homes have come with set prices, we were able to move in quickly, and we knew what they would look like since they were already built. For us, these benefits are worth giving up on building another home and opting to buy pre-built instead.