Intro
You are thinking about moving homes and you are thinking about building a custom home. You might be on the fence. Is a custom home the best choice? Will it cost more? Will it be worth it if it does? These are all questions that you’ll want to answer. Hopefully, Higher Designs can help you get your questions answered. Now, let me be perfectly honest. Building a custom home won’t be the best choice for everyone. There are just some people out there that should choose different options.
That being said, I still believe that building a custom home is ideal for most people. There are many benefits and that’s the main reason for this article. Here are Thirteen Reasons to Build a Custom Home.
1: Get what you need
One of the hardest things about moving to a new home is getting everything that you need. For the average person, it takes 45 days to find a good home. There’s a problem though. Who is average? Most people have very specific needs for their families and finding that in a home can be very difficult. In a seller’s market, like the one we have in Utah now, it can be very hard negotiating with a seller who already has two other offers. When that happens, you hang your head and go look for another possible home candidate. It’s disheartening.
Instead, when you build a custom home, you can put in exactly what you need. Maybe you are a newly wed couple and you plan on starting a family, but you haven’t yet. You can build a house with lots of room to grow, but with separate areas that can be rented out. Maybe you are an established family and you need a large family room for family gatherings. With a custom home, that’s easy. Maybe you have a disability in the home and you need easy mobility upstairs and down through an elevator. Well, you get the idea. Get exactly what you need.
2: Get what you want
Most people nowadays are staying in their homes on average for around 9 years. If you plan on staying in a place that long, you should really find a home that you want. Certainly, I’m not talking about the Ritz or the Taj-Mahal, but there’s nothing wrong with finding a home with the amenities you want. Getting a custom home plan can allow you such amenities. For example, in Utah, have secret passages or even rooms is an up-and-coming trend. While not relatively expensive, most cookie-cutter floor plans do not include a secret toy room for the kids. So spend the money on the house you actually want instead of a place to live.
3. New
When you buy a house new, you also buy all of its component parts new. This means that all of the mechanical parts will still be under warranty. This comes in handy if anything breaks down before it is reasonably expected to. You instead have a nice new home that still has the “new home” smell. Its windows are unscratched and free of sprinkler water damage. The driveway is uncracked and paved nicely. Your doorbell still rings like a charm. If you are gonna pay the money, get something new.
4.Energy Efficiency
Most homes nowadays are much better equipped with energy efficient material and machines
. In today’s market, it is customary to put in double paned windows which helps seal the house, and that reduces the utility bill. The houses also come with better insulation, and construction companies often use methods to use less wood and produce less waste. Things like solar panels, geothermal heaters, and zonal heating and cooling systems are becoming more popular.
5. Better Comfort
Because you’ve had the home built to your specifications, it will feel homier. You will feel a connection to the home and it will be much more sentimental. That means when you come home from long trips, you will feel like you are coming home.
6. Peace of Mind
Nothing is worse than buying a used car, driving it down to the gas station and having the transmission fall apart on you. There thousands of stories like that circulating through the internet. Well, this doesn’t happen when you build a custom home. Instead, you get the peace of mind that your home will last for years. If it doesn’t you get the peace of mind knowing that you have legal recourse if the home starts falling apart. The most important thing here is to make sure that when things fall apart that shouldn’t you record it and seek recompense before the statute of limitations erases the liability of the builders.
7. Better Quality
With a custom home, you will have the option at every stage to choose what kind of material. There’s even a bonus here. You will generally get better quality craftsmanship as you will likely be dealing with a company focused on producing top-quality custom homes. This is because instead of having to worry about building twenty to fifty homes in a subdivision, they are focusing on building your home the way you want it. There will be businesses that have scaled, so they will be larger, but they are focused on getting your home how you want it. Other builders won’t probably be dealing with the end buyer. They won’t have that accountability.
8. Lower Upkeep
As I’ve mentioned with some of the other reasons, you will have lower upkeep with a brand new custom home. This reason applies to brand new homes in general, but you can maximize that even more with the floor plan you choose. If you want a house with minimal vacuuming or you want to install a central vacuum, you can from the get-go. You can consider which way the which blows to avoid leaves filling up your garage (this is my house because our garage faces a canyon mouth). It’s just a simple fact, when you build new, your maintenance is smaller.
9. Newer Design and Tech
We all like the Addams Family, but we would never want to live in their house. It’s way too old and decrepit. By building a custom home, you get to live in a new home. This means the newest designs and technology. Sometimes there are new techniques for building homes. You could incorporate it into your home. Even the building standards and codes for housing can be updated and when you build a custom home, you will naturally be up to code. All aspects of the building will be new and that is worth the price.
10. Rent Space
Today more than ever, there are newer ways to use unused space. With websites like airbnb.com and neighbor.com where you can rent out your empty space as a place to sleep or storage space (respectively), adding on new space to your home seems like a better and better idea. When you build a custom home you can plan income streams into the floor plan. Why not add a downstairs apartment that can be used as rental space, or used for your daughter and son-in-law? Maybe, you’ll want to add a storage shed attached to your home to rent out storage space. A larger garage with extra storage racks or a mother-in-law apartment could generate a sizeable amount of money per year. With normal homes, you make do with what you have. You can still make money off of them. The amount of money is maximized though, through custom floor plans.
11. Pride of Ownership
Everyone wants to feel unique and special. Indeed, we as humans are special and unique. Why shouldn’t your home be just as unique as you are? A custom home allows you to express yourself. You might not be the one doing the crafting, but certainly, when you entertain guests, they will look at the house and get a sense for who you are. Not many people can claim that their home is distinct and singular. Your custom home will help you keep that pride of ownership that so many people lose after living in their same home (that they never really liked) for a very long time. I reiterate, you will feel that it is your home, because it is.
12. More Options
In the home buying process, you are normally limited to what you can find. Because home sellers want to sell their home fast, most features are generalized and easy to replace. When building most new homes with cookie-cutter floor plans, there are a few things that change, but most of the plan will stay the same. With a custom home, the floor plan is completely up to choice. You can do unorthodox things or stay in the middle of the lane. You could build a loft that overlooks your family room but also serves as the bedroom for one of your children. You could put in secret passages as we’d already mentioned. There really is no limit to all of the options you have.
It doesn’t stop at the floor plan though. You can choose what materials to use and where to get them. It may cost extra to dictate the source of the materials, but you can choose what kind of countertop and what kind of wood flooring. In life, having more options is always better than being limited.
13. Location
What is it that every real estate agent says…? Oh yeah. LOCATION. LOCATION. LOCATION. So when you build a custom home, you get to choose just that. Of course, it’s not as easy as it sounds, but you definitely get the choice. When buying an already built home you just take what you get. With a custom home, you can find the land or get the floor plan and then find the missing pieces. That’s a tremendous benefit. If you find land in an area that you know is just going to blow up you can get a head start. A house with a view is always luxury so with a custom home, you can put in a view.
Conclusion
As I said above not everyone should get a custom home. If you are able to though, you should consider it. Remember that you can pick the location. You’ll get more options. A custom home builds more pride of ownership. It allows for rental space and it includes newer designs and technologies. A custom home will have lower maintenance and give you more peace of mind because of its better quality and comfort. It will be new, more energy efficient most importantly, you’ll get what you need and want. I hope we answered most of your questions, but if you have more we’d love to connect with you. Please comment below or give us a call. It never hurts to ask.
Higher Design is a custom home plan and design company that is based in Utah Valley. Experienced and caring, its staff will work with you to find what you need. Check out their portfolio.