Buying or Building Your Cottage Part 2

This Part two-

The first part of this blog focused on buying and existing cottage, the pro's and con's of doing that in today's extremely tight real estate market on the Bruce Peninsula.

This half of the blog will focus on buying a piece of vacant land and building yourself a brand new cottage.

BUILDING A NEW COTTAGE

If you have looked around at all the older cottages for sale you have probably come to the conclusion that you don't really want to spend money on someone else's problem, the old cottages just come with to much work and unknowns for you liking and any cottage that is newer and in better shape is priced so high that you wonder if its worth it.

At the moment there is a fine line between the price of buying a newer cottage on the Bruce and just building yourself a brand new cottage on the Bruce.

Here are the Pro's and Con's of Building a Brand New Custom Cottage;

Pro's

• You get exactly what you want, not somebody else's idea of what a new cottage should look like.
• You control the budget on how much you want to spend on the project.
• You don't have to finish the entire thing if you don't want to before you start enjoying it.
• With everything new you will have a warranty encase something goes wrong.
• New cottages are more energy efficient, this will save you money in the long run.
• You will have a cottage that is built for 4 season fun not like an old cottage that has to be shut down when the colder weather arrives.
• New home means that your water will be safe to drink, you won't have to buy bottled water like in old cottages.
• New cottages don't have any rot or leakage or rodents or bugs like old cottages do.
• You will have a brand new septic system and a warranty that guarantee's that it works.
• Building permits in the Bruce Peninsula are extremely cheap compared to everywhere else.
• You can have as many bathrooms as you want, most older cottages only have one bathroom for everyone to share.
• You get to pick your lot, so you know exactly what you are getting.
• You get to position your house on the lot so you get the view you want as well.
• You will have a new driveway so that you know that it is built right.

Con's

• It takes longer to build a new home then buying an older cottage and renovating it. 
• You will be waiting a long time to use your new property unlike buying an existing cottage.
• New cottages are set farther back from the water then older cottages.
• You might find that certain properties are heavily restricted on building, limiting the size, shape and height that you can build your new cottage.
• You will have to find someone to create a proper set of drawings for you.
• You don't live up the Bruce so you will have to be ok with communicating over the phone and email with your contractor instead of being on site to see what is going on.
• Construction material is at an all time high, meaning that building cottages will cost you more then you think.
• With material rising monthly you run the risk of ending up over budget.
• Most peoples ideas surpass their budgets.
• Making all those decisions about a custom home can be very stressful, almost two stressful for a lot of people.
• You might not be able to build what you want too, you must take the time to check on what's allowed before you buy the land.

Building a new custom cottage is a big commitment, as I have informed you above there are pro's and con's to doing it. One thing that you need to understand with building a new cottage right now is that if you had to sell the place for whatever reason you would probably get all your money back even the cost of the land. The real estate market is that hot and the inventory that low especially for newer waterfront cottages.

If you are thinking about building a new cottage on the bruce peninsula email me at greatlakescustomhomes@gmail.com and lets see if we can make your dreams of a new cottage a reality.

Rob Abbott

Great Lakes Custom Homes Inc.

How Far From The Water Can I Build My Cottage?

This is one of the most important questions that you should be asking when you are looking to buy property to build a new waterfront cottage.

Every municipality has a different setback from the water for new construction.

Every municipality in Ontario works off the same location no matter how far back they are restricting the building of new cottages. That location is the historic high-water mark. The high-water mark is determined by what the historical level of high water is in your area. Every area can be different. If you are building on the great lakes you would have noticed that they tend to rise and fall up to 4 to 5 feet in less then a 5 year period. That means that sometimes your new cottage will be close to the water where other times (if your waterfront is shallow) the water could be a fair ways away. Every municipality has a different distance from that high water mark.

Finding the historic high-water mark can be done in two different ways depending on the municipality;

1. Hire a surveyor to come in and survey the property. They will be able to determine the high-water mark with the actual elevations and also be able to mark for you the location of the high-water mark and the point that is closest (to the water) that you can build a new cottage on paper or PDF to submit to the township.
2. Some municipalities do not require a survey as surveys can become costly to people, especially in certain remote cottage areas. If you can identify trees that are large enough to be older then the last time the water hit the high-water mark then you can use the ones that are closest to the water as your mark. You do all your measuring from those trees and the local building department will approve it once they either seen the drawing you have done or visited the site to see the stakes and take some measurements. 

There are municipalities in Northern Ontario that still allow you to build cottages within 50 feet of the high-water mark. Where other municipalities in southern Ontario require you to be 100 or even 150 ft from the high water mark.

These setbacks can greatly affect the amount of enjoyable space that you end up with around your cottage. If you cottage is pushed back 150 ft on your lot and you end up near the road then you are kind of defeating the purpose of having a waterfront cottage.

It is easy to find out this distance, either your real estate agent can find out for you or you can make the calls to the local municipalities yourself. The building and planning department will not only be able to tell you the setbacks on the piece of property, they will be able to tell you also what the restrictions are for the size, height and shape of the cottage you are allowed to build on are. That goes for any accessory buildings that you want to construct like garage's, bunkies or storage sheds.

The only way that you can build closer to the water then the municipal setbacks is to buy a piece of property that already has a cottage on it. Most municipalities will allow you to replace an older cottage with a new one and place it in the same place as the existing cottage even if it violates the setbacks from the high-water mark.

Before you make that offer make sure you do your due diligence.

Rob Abbott
Great Lakes Custom Homes