diff --git a/Build/local_build_id.txt b/Build/local_build_id.txt
deleted file mode 100644
index e69de29bb..000000000
diff --git a/Directory.Build.props b/Directory.Build.props
index c26d0f240..8d86b4d95 100644
--- a/Directory.Build.props
+++ b/Directory.Build.props
@@ -12,6 +12,15 @@
         <XSharpRepoRoot>$(RepoRoot)..\XSharp\</XSharpRepoRoot>
     </PropertyGroup>
 
+    <PropertyGroup>
+        <!--
+            This property sets the suffix for local builds.
+            For example, if the value of this property is '100', the version will be x.y.z-localbuild100.
+            The property is empty by default as it's not really easy to generate a unique number per local build.
+        -->
+        <PackageVersionLocalBuildSuffix></PackageVersionLocalBuildSuffix>
+    </PropertyGroup>
+
     <PropertyGroup>
         <PackageVersion>0.1.0</PackageVersion>
         <PackageVersionSuffix Condition="'$(APPVEYOR)' == 'True'">-build$(APPVEYOR_BUILD_NUMBER)+$(APPVEYOR_REPO_COMMIT.Substring(0, 7))</PackageVersionSuffix>
@@ -22,7 +31,7 @@
             resolved version will be the stable one, i.e. without the
             -localbuildyyyyMMddhhmmss suffix.
         -->
-        <PackageVersionSuffix Condition="'$(PackageVersionSuffix)' == '' AND '$(DesignTimeBuild)' != 'True'">-localbuild$([System.IO.File]::ReadAllText('$(RepoRoot)build\local_build_id.txt'))</PackageVersionSuffix>
+        <PackageVersionSuffix Condition="'$(PackageVersionSuffix)' == '' AND '$(DesignTimeBuild)' != 'True'">-localbuild$(PackageVersionLocalBuildSuffix)</PackageVersionSuffix>
         <PackageVersionSuffix Condition="'$(APPVEYOR_REPO_TAG)' == 'True'"></PackageVersionSuffix>
     </PropertyGroup>