I built my house for materials cost. You can absolutely most definitely do it for nothing but material cost. My community is also all private roads with easements, so no public development costs of roads. I built mine with an axe and a shovel. As always the solution is to remove the government from the situation -- with private roads, private water, private septic, and private power there is no one to screech their deranged ramblings on why we need 1,000,000 safety regulations and $30,000 worth of paperwork and permitting to break ground because their precious public resources will be impacted.
$60k for a house, near jobs, USA. Anybody with half a brain and a little brawn can do what I did, if they can come up with what would be a down-payment on a house in a coastal area. Although I admit, it would be much easier for most just to whine on the internet while watching others do what they say is impossible .
