making a house yourself

I looked into this before I bought my house. I was going to convert a bunch of shipping containers into a home just like we did in Afghanistan but I discovered to my surprise that the cost of accomplishing this to a level that was acceptable to me as a living space was actually more expensive than just "buying" a new house.

I just thought that this was crazy.

["Buying" in quotes because anyways we all know you don't really buy a house unless you are paying cash.]