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 Expert
Posts: 2128
  
| We have been getting serious latley about what kind of home we would like to build. A metal house is at the top of the list. We have read and been told they can be really affordable in comparison to custom homes with equal sq footage. If you or someone you know has done this could you give me pros/cons anything you can think of? I read that most banks consider a metal building a barn and will not finance it. Not sure if thats true. Guess it depends on the bank. Also if you know of any construction companies I can look up for ideas that would be great too :) |
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 Miss Laundry Misshap
Posts: 5271
| People are building "barn/metal homes" all over the place up here, so I'm not sure why they wouldn't down there.
Morton Buildings has some impressive ones on their website. mortonbuildings.com
IDK your zip code, so IDK if there is a dealer near you. There is one in Mississippi and multiples in TX.
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 Expert
Posts: 3782
 
Location: Gainesville, TX | There are plenty of places that will finance a barndominium as they are called. And yes they frequently cost less to build per square foot. However, you can still spend a decent amount if you want some nicer finishes. |
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| My husband and I had a metal house built about 8 years ago. We had a 60 × 90 building with a nice custom home, oversized two-day garage (as in i could fit my crew cab dually and a car in it), and a separate workshop all under one roof. It cost us the same to build the metal house as it would have been to build a traditional home WITHOUT the garage or workshop. Also, at that time a bank would not finance a metal home because they could not find comparables in the area. The financing options may have changed over the years. We loved the house! |
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 Elite Veteran
Posts: 889
Location: on the fine line between insanity and geniusness | Our bank will finance them. I do know however with the barndominium- you have to build a separate building for your hay or you can’t insure them. When we build, we will go metal. Insurance is much cheaper and they are low maintenance. |
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 Half-Eaten Cookies
Posts: 2076
Location: Fort Worth / Springtown | We have a metal home and love it, not a good cell signal though, and you have to get the right antennae for that - some work, some don't.......but the insurance premium is more than we expected. I tried to shop around and some insurance companies don't even do metal roofs.
I grill my insurance agency every year it goes up and they say they are going by the cost to replace the roof. Even though the roof is much more durable and made to last, it is expensive to insure because IF you have to replace it, it would cost a lot. Grrrrr
Spray foam insulation if you can - we don't have it, but my husband is in a lot of metal homes and higly recommends it. We will get it, one day.
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"Heck's Coming With Me"
Posts: 10797
Location: Kansas | I would think your resale value could suffer as not everyone would be interested in a metal house.
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| Frodo - 2017-10-16 2:52 PM I would think your resale value could suffer as not everyone would be interested in a metal house.
We just sold our metal house. We did not lose any value becaue it was a metal house but each situation is different. |
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| One the construction/design side. We had an architect design the floorplan we wanted. He gave us a traditional elevation plan and a metal building elevation plan. We priced out both options and went with the metal building because of the cost. We used a steele company (Athens Steele in Athens, TX) to build our metal building and we used a traditional contractor to construct the interior. Essentially we had a structure within a structure. The advantage was double insulation which reduced our electric cost. We just had a house not a house/barn combo. PM me if you want pictures. |
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 My Heart Be Happy
Posts: 9159
Location: Arkansas | TryingToStayOn - 2017-10-16 3:39 PM
One the construction/design side. We had an architect design the floorplan we wanted. He gave us a traditional elevation plan and a metal building elevation plan. We priced out both options and went with the metal building because of the cost. We used a steele company (Athens Steele in Athens, TX) to build our metal building and we used a traditional contractor to construct the interior. Essentially we had a structure within a structure. The advantage was double insulation which reduced our electric cost. We just had a house not a house/barn combo. PM me if you want pictures.
Please post them on here for all of us to see!! |
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Married to a Louie Lover
Posts: 3303
| TryingToStayOn - 2017-10-16 3:30 PM
Frodo - 2017-10-16 2:52 PM I would think your resale value could suffer as not everyone would be interested in a metal house.
We just sold our metal house. We did not lose any value becaue it was a metal house but each situation is different.
I think it would be so dependent on the area and property. I don’t think value would suffer much/at all where the house was an acreage/horse property - we kinda like that sort of thing.
We have a combination. The framing of the house is all traditional 2x4 wood stick with metal siding and a metal roof. Love it. We plan to add on 2 more bedrooms, a master bath, and a walkout basement in the next couple years. We also have in floor heat with acid stained concrete floor and love that as well!
Happy house building! |
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 Dog Resuce Agent
Posts: 3459
Location: southeast Texas | FYI, closed cell foam is stronger than open cell foam. Wonderful insulation. But, not a good noise barrier.
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 I Prefer to Live in Fantasy Land
Posts: 64864
Location: In the Hills of Texas | I just saw a commercial for Germania Insurance and they said they insure Barndominiums. I don't know if they are just a Texas company. |
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 Veteran
Posts: 253
Location: Back Creek Valley!!! | OMG! I love them!
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Veteran
Posts: 253
Location: Back Creek Valley!!! | OMG! I love them!
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 Extreme Veteran
Posts: 312
Location: KS | We had one built 3 years ago after losing our old farm house and everything in a fire.
We used Morton Buildings, and like someone mentioned above they look very impressive. However after dealing with the entire process, I don't know that I would use them again. I love our house and we wanted a metal (steel) home to keep away from any type of major maintenance and I really like the looks as I made mine look similar to a barn. If your truly serious about building one, I would advise you to look and price several different companies. Go to some trade/farm shows where they have them set up.
What was nice about using Morton was they did the job from start to finish, finishing all the interior instead of us hiring it out. We were staying in an old farm house that my husbands grandparents own and no matter how hard I tried to make it home it wasn't, and his family felt even though we were living there they could come in and nap, etc. and do whatever in it while we lived there, absolutely no privacy, not that I have anything to hide, but Morton had us in within a year start to finish. I'm still dealing with some issues and its a major pain getting them back to finish or fix things, but I think it would probably be like that with any company. I was working full time when we built it and I think a person could get away from some of the petty stuff it they could be around to supervise more, goes with any project really.
We had no problems getting financed, as this is consider a home/house. We had consider a shop/home and this would have been a little more difficult I think but there are banks out there who do it with no problems. We put a separate building up for a shop/garage which I preferred. Again pros and cons to both.
As far as retail value, that would really depend on your area, if they have no homes to compare it too, they cant give you a good appraisal. Our house is out in the middle of no where, in a very small county.
Ill try to attach a picture, be forgiving as we built on a rock cory and have yet to have all the dirt hauled in a landscaping done, which I have been very patient about, something I'm waiting for hubby to do as he is more than capable but seems to get put on bottom of the list. :) |
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Expert
Posts: 2128
| Peewee212 - 2017-10-18 10:00 AM We had one built 3 years ago after losing our old farm house and everything in a fire. We used Morton Buildings, and like someone mentioned above they look very impressive. However after dealing with the entire process, I don't know that I would use them again. I love our house and we wanted a metal (steel) home to keep away from any type of major maintenance and I really like the looks as I made mine look similar to a barn. If your truly serious about building one, I would advise you to look and price several different companies. Go to some trade/farm shows where they have them set up. What was nice about using Morton was they did the job from start to finish, finishing all the interior instead of us hiring it out. We were staying in an old farm house that my husbands grandparents own and no matter how hard I tried to make it home it wasn't, and his family felt even though we were living there they could come in and nap, etc. and do whatever in it while we lived there, absolutely no privacy, not that I have anything to hide, but Morton had us in within a year start to finish. I'm still dealing with some issues and its a major pain getting them back to finish or fix things, but I think it would probably be like that with any company. I was working full time when we built it and I think a person could get away from some of the petty stuff it they could be around to supervise more, goes with any project really. We had no problems getting financed, as this is consider a home/house. We had consider a shop/home and this would have been a little more difficult I think but there are banks out there who do it with no problems. We put a separate building up for a shop/garage which I preferred. Again pros and cons to both. As far as retail value, that would really depend on your area, if they have no homes to compare it too, they cant give you a good appraisal. Our house is out in the middle of no where, in a very small county. Ill try to attach a picture, be forgiving as we built on a rock cory and have yet to have all the dirt hauled in a landscaping done, which I have been very patient about, something I'm waiting for hubby to do as he is more than capable but seems to get put on bottom of the list. :)
Great info! Thank you! I do worry that with only one or two other homes similar to this in the area that appraisal may be difficult. Do you have problems with cell phone reception? |
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| scwebster - 2017-10-18 10:49 AM Peewee212 - 2017-10-18 10:00 AM We had one built 3 years ago after losing our old farm house and everything in a fire. We used Morton Buildings, and like someone mentioned above they look very impressive. However after dealing with the entire process, I don't know that I would use them again. I love our house and we wanted a metal (steel) home to keep away from any type of major maintenance and I really like the looks as I made mine look similar to a barn. If your truly serious about building one, I would advise you to look and price several different companies. Go to some trade/farm shows where they have them set up. What was nice about using Morton was they did the job from start to finish, finishing all the interior instead of us hiring it out. We were staying in an old farm house that my husbands grandparents own and no matter how hard I tried to make it home it wasn't, and his family felt even though we were living there they could come in and nap, etc. and do whatever in it while we lived there, absolutely no privacy, not that I have anything to hide, but Morton had us in within a year start to finish. I'm still dealing with some issues and its a major pain getting them back to finish or fix things, but I think it would probably be like that with any company. I was working full time when we built it and I think a person could get away from some of the petty stuff it they could be around to supervise more, goes with any project really. We had no problems getting financed, as this is consider a home/house. We had consider a shop/home and this would have been a little more difficult I think but there are banks out there who do it with no problems. We put a separate building up for a shop/garage which I preferred. Again pros and cons to both. As far as retail value, that would really depend on your area, if they have no homes to compare it too, they cant give you a good appraisal. Our house is out in the middle of no where, in a very small county. Ill try to attach a picture, be forgiving as we built on a rock cory and have yet to have all the dirt hauled in a landscaping done, which I have been very patient about, something I'm waiting for hubby to do as he is more than capable but seems to get put on bottom of the list. :) Great info! Thank you! I do worry that with only one or two other homes similar to this in the area that appraisal may be difficult. Do you have problems with cell phone reception?
We had some trouble with cell phone signal when we first moved in. We used a cell phone booster to resolve the problem. |
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  Fact Checker
Posts: 16575
Location: Displaced Iowegian | txbredbr - 2017-10-16 2:16 PM We have a metal home and love it, not a good cell signal though, and you have to get the right antennae for that - some work, some don't.......but the insurance premium is more than we expected. I tried to shop around and some insurance companies don't even do metal roofs.
I grill my insurance agency every year it goes up and they say they are going by the cost to replace the roof. Even though the roof is much more durable and made to last, it is expensive to insure because IF you have to replace it, it would cost a lot. Grrrrr
Spray foam insulation if you can - we don't have it, but my husband is in a lot of metal homes and higly recommends it. We will get it, one day.
We have State Farm and we got a reduction in premium when we put a metal roof on our house. However, it does not cover "cosmetic" damage (i.e. hail dents).
Edited to add: ..... And I have lousy cell phone reception. I have to stand next to the window......LOL
Edited by NJJ 2017-10-18 6:57 PM
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Duct Tape Bikini Girl
Posts: 2554
| Build one that will qualify as a "barndominium." Can save you a bunch of money on property tax! |
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