How to Know What Type of Home Should You Build?
If you are going to build a home, rather than buy a home that is already built, you should build a home that you will absolutely love. When you build a home, there are two things you should consider: What will make you the happiest while you live there, and what will get you the highest resale value.
While it is important to consider what others are going to want in a home so that you can get top resale value out of your home, what is the point of building your home, if you don't build what you want?
In order to know what type of home you should build there are a few things to look at. One of the big things is your purpose in building. You may be building this home to make enough money to move up to the next level of homes so you are really looking at profitability, or you may be building this home because it is the last time you ever want to move, thus you are building a home you want to retire in. Only you can know what your needs and wants and purposes are. Since only you can determine these, only you can define them, and you need to. In order to clearly define your purpose for building your house, answer the following questions and make the following lists, then use these as your guide to decide what type of home you should build.
Questions:
- What sort of atmosphere are you going for in your home? Formal? Casual?
- Do you want a one-story home, or two?
- How many bedrooms do you need? How many do you want?
- Do you want one big great room? Or would you rather have separate family room, dining room, and living room spaces?
- How many bathrooms do you need? How many do you want?
- Where do you want the bathrooms to go?
- Where should you put a laundry area?
- Do you want a TV room or library?
- Do you need a living room?
- Do you want a room that leads in from the outdoors, often called a warming/dressing room, or mudroom?
- Where do you want the master bedroom to go?
- How high do you want your ceilings? Average? Tall?
- Do you want a big kitchen with an eating area in it?
- How do you want rooms to flow?
- How much storage space do you want or need?
- How big of a garage do you want?
- What are your family considerations?
- How many living spaces besides bedrooms do you need?
- What extras do you really feel are a necessity for your family? (game room etc.)
- What are typical homes in the neighborhood you are building in like?
- How many rooms do they have?
- How many bathrooms?
- Are they ramblers, 2-story houses? Etc.
Remember that the answers to these questions are going to determine a lot about resale value, as well as how much you will enjoy and be comfortable in the house. For example, for most homes you need a minimum of two bathrooms, but three is more ideal, and expected in many areas. It is nice to have the master bedroom away from other rooms especially if you have children because it creates more privacy. Two bedrooms are usually too few if you want to resale the house, but more than four gets really expensive and narrows your market to larger families, however, you may need five bedrooms. Laundry rooms are less expensive to put in if you put them near the kitchen or garage, but are more convenient located next to bedrooms, so as you can see, the placements and choices you make are going to effect not only comfort, but costs, so consider carefully what you need, want, and can live without.
Now build your lists:
- Things you want in your home.
- Things you need in your home.
- Things you find most valuable in your own style of living.
By distinguishing on a list between your needs and your wants before you start construction, when you are actually building your house, if you are going over budget you will know which things are ok to cut back on, and which aren't. For example, if you live in an area that every house has a two-car garage, and you wanted a three car, you know that cutting back to a two-car won't hurt resale value, even if it doesn't fit your plans or ideas as well as you would have liked. Another such example is that say you may want to have a sink in the laundry room, but you have to have double sinks in the bathrooms. If you can only spend so much on sinks, you know where you are going to eliminate a sink.not the bathroom!
So, by considering the above items, you will know just what type of house to build to best suit your needs, and get the highest resale value possible.
