Building own home answer to market

TJim Weiker

revor Wiley was tired of the hunt.

He was tired of competing against a dozen other buyers and being outbid for homes. He was tired of finding fixeruppers for $300,000.

He was tired of not finding the type of house he liked — a contemporary home in a nice neighborhood inside Interstate 270 for less than $250,000.

“This market’s crazy,” said Wiley, a 31-year-old finance manager with Byers Imports. “I work a lot, and every time I got off to look at a house, there were multiple bids for it.”

So Wiley came up with a solution that might offer an answer for other frustrated home shoppers in this off-kilter market.

After failing to find a home to buy, he decided to build his own.

He wanted a very specific house: a narrow, loft-style design with living space on the second floor, a style found in dense urban settings but not so much elsewhere. He also had a strict budget.

All of which meant he wasn’t interested in a production home in the ‘burbs and was priced out of a custom new home in Italian Village or other trendy neighborhoods.

“I like to be different,” he said. “I’m not a cookiecutter kind of guy, it’s got to have something different about it.”

After a yearlong search, Wiley found his spot: a 35-by-135-foot lot on East Lincoln Avenue east of High Street and two blocks south of Worthington.