vagabondo. Both my NorCal and SoCal agents will tell you I am a high maintainence client, but not a rude one. When I bought my current house with my current NorCal agent, I toured 60 homes and wrote 17 offers. We beat that easily this time, with both agents. That same NorCal agent is selling my current house. No I am not an agent.

fromnj. I have been down the build from scratch, remodel a tear down, etc path before and written about it a few times on this board and lets just say we have hired architects and contractors in the past and the only thing we will consider is a “project” house that needs work and perhaps an addition or two, but not a tear down or build from scratch. Building costs in SD are about half of what they are here, but that is but one factor for us.

And I don’t want to spend my max, just enough to get the house that will meet our needs in the area that we want.