Understand the Basic Construction Application Process, So You Won’t Encounter Obstacles on Your Dream-Building Journey
Taiwanese couple who returned home to open a store despite financial difficulties
The place where most people live, from studying, working, to starting a family, is usually influenced by various factors, making it impossible to design or choose completely according to one’s own wishes. However, after gradually stabilizing in the latter half of life, have you ever thought about where you want to live at the end of your life? How do you want to live? What lifestyle do you want to adopt or what kind of house do you want to build as the final destination of your life…?
Today’s article shares the story of a couple who always make decisions contrary to others, who spent 18 years building a private residence in Pingtung Fangliao.
During the era of money flooding the streets in Taiwan (1980 to 1989), peers were rushing north to seek employment and entrepreneurial opportunities, even buying houses and properties, but this couple decided to rent out their house in Kaohsiung, raise funds with their family, and return with their two daughters to their hometown Fangliao to prepare for the second half of their lifeโs house-building plan.
They opened their first restaurant “Green Grass Square” in their hometown Fangliao, selling the trendy hamburgers of that time (the kind you find in breakfast shops now). The entire restaurant was designed in the shape of a large “G,” and they intentionally left a native mango tree on the land. The back of the restaurant was planned with a grassy courtyard and outdoor elegant seating. The owner Yang San Er not only personally supervised the construction but also built a fountain himself. Before they turned fifty, they raised two children with the income from this restaurant, and in the tenth year of operating Green Grass Square, they decided to start from scratch to build their retirement home.
The Romantic Dream of Being an Engineer
Yang San Er (known as Master Yang) once worked in Arabia and was employed by Arabian American Oil Company. This foreign laborer from Taiwan returned to Taiwan and participated in the Ten Major Construction Projects. Building his own house was an ambitious and essential plan for Master Yang, who had been active in the engineering field during his youth.
When deciding to construct another future home, it was around the year 2000. Master Yang believed that steel materials were too expensive [note 1], and he was unwilling to use the reinforced concrete brick construction method, which faced issues of leakage and wall cancer over time. While searching for suitable building materials, he read about a lecture on wooden construction in a newspaper. After attending that lecture, Master Yang conversed with the speaker, Professor Chen Qiren, who is currently the president of National Kaohsiung University. He borrowed a book titled “Japanese Wooden Houses,” co-authored by Mr. Matsui Ikuo, Mr. Kobayashi Kazuhiro, and Architect Miyakoshi Yoshihiko, which is detailed and about A3 size. Master Yang felt as if he had found a treasured gem, and after flipping through this book several times, he decided to use the Japanese mortise and tenon wooden structure method to build his retirement home starting in the year he turned 50.
[Note 1] Reinforced steel is approximately NT$20,000 per ton (current reinforced steel SD-280 average price is about NT$14,150 per ton _ Check price update date is February 2, 2015)
The purest “naked value” emerges from sweat and perseverance
Making the decision to build a house by oneself is like deciding to apply for a working holiday abroad before turning 30; for a person like Master Yang, who is full of engineering spirit, his motivation for self-building a house, in addition to saving on labor costs, is to personally practice and create the process of building a home.
Building a home is a major project in life, and it is recommended to start this romantic plan when you have the most physical, financial, and mental resources available. As you imagine the final journey of life step by step, ask yourself what kind of life you want to live, envision various future living scenarios, and hope that the blueprint of the home you personally tailor will be faithfully presented, allowing you to slow down and see the “naked value” of this plan.
Choosing a non-mainstream way of building requires plenty of patience and an unwavering determination. The harsh reality is that living in a utilitarian environment, time equals money. We live in this era of coexistence with digital technology and shared resources, where upon opening our eyes, there are a pile of bills and basic living expenses that must be paid, making it impossible to ignore the existence of fixed monthly deduction bills.
For this reason, the strategy of Master Yang and Mistress Yang of the large wooden house is to lower their desires for life, save on living expenses, treat living in a tent on the construction site as a joy, and use waste materials and dry leaves to start a fire for boiling water for household use. These few tricks are not just a camping experience for two or three days; they are a genuine and tangible change in life that has been maintained for nearly ten years during the process of building a home, wholeheartedly dedicated to creating their house.
Basic Construction Procedures for Self-Built Houses
People often ask, “Why does it take so long to build a retirement home?” A family member would respond, “We are not very wealthy, so we choose to build the house slowly.” If your budget is sufficient, you don’t have to choose to build the entire structure yourself like the large wooden house, which took 18 years just for the main structure. In fact, hiring professionals to participate in the construction is a good option to simplify the complex process.
Regarding self-built houses, one of the biggest differences from purchasing a completed house is that in Taiwan, if you only have land, it will be more difficult in terms of loans and financing, with very few options and not much loan amount available. This is the primary threshold. Therefore, in the budding stage of the dream of building a house, most people ultimately choose the mainstream method of buying a completed house and negotiate credit with banks. While “where to buy” can be decided by oneself, “what kind of house to live in” depends on how many projects are available in the area to visit and choose from.
But buying a completed house has never been an option for a family of a large wooden house. When Master Yang was young, he returned home with US dollars from working in Arabia, and following his father’s advice, he bought a fifth-floor apartment in Kaohsiung City. He experienced not only the inconvenience of coming and going and the heat absorption from the rooftop but also the constant maintenance issues that troubled the entire building. In recent years, there have been more disputes over insufficient parking spaces, and various uncontrollable factors in daily life have troubled his ability to settle down. Therefore, even though funds are not abundant, building a house independently remains the only option that Master Yang and his wife insist on.
The rhythm of self-built houses in Taiwan and the application process for construction can refer to the following steps:
House Builder Guide
When you think about what kind of house you want to live in and what kind of life you want to lead in the future, do you often enter a state of reverie, filled with anticipation? Of course, you don’t have to mobilize your entire family like Master Yang did, insisting on building a house for 20 years. You can choose to hire a housing agent, who, with the perspective of someone who has walked the long road of building a house, can become your best guide on the path to realizing your dreams, clarifying the feasibility from your vague wishes.
Starting from the planning blueprint, assist in calculating suitable construction methods, provide usable material references within the predefined framework, avoid wandering around for price inquiries and always failing to find reasonable market rates. You can use that time, which lingers outside the walls and cannot find its way in, to think and establish your residential blueprint, allowing the construction agent to help you translate the wishes on the blueprint.
The three biggest conditions for self-built houses are also the three key points that need to be reviewed for any project initiation:
People (family support)
Money (house building budget)
Time (dedicated vacation days)
Building a house by yourself or commissioning a house will be one of the most fulfilling periods of your life, but the payment experience is completely opposite to buying a completed house where you enjoy first and pay later. The speed of self-building will vary according to the builder’s daily schedule, and it may be delayed due to work commitments, halted because the budget for the next phase of construction funds has not been gathered, or changed due to family requests for living needs. This is a romantic endeavor that requires you to continuously reflect on your feelings. Various pauses seem to question again: will this self-built house be the destined residence?
If you are also looking for the best measure of life in a residence
Start looking for your destined home builder agent for home building consultation!
