Southeastern Indiana Custom Home Builder
Where to Start When Building Your First Custom Home
Each Spouse should make an independent list of things you want and don’t want in your new home. It is suggested that you do this totally away from each other. Don’t look over each others shoulder and don’t discuss your plus and minus list with each other until both of you have completely finished.
If your list is short you may be the easy one to please. If it is quite long, let’s hope there is some room for compromise. Hopefully, the items on a longer list have some sound reasoning behind them and none of them are “just because”. You may be surprised to know how many people don’t do this list of plus and minus items only to get a divorce before the house is completed.
It is no guarantee that you will both be totally happy with the outcome. You may however be very interested in what you learn about your spouse that you never knew before this all started.
Other than having children, purchasing or custom building a home is the single biggest investment many of us will make in our lifetime, so do it with proper thought and planning.
The list that is developed between the two of you will not only aid in your proper planning and decisions but will be a great tool when talking to your builder or real estate agent or both.
Here is a list of things that you and your spouse should consider
- Determine who your lending institution will be and what the interest rates are at the outset of the project.
- Determine what monthly mortgage amount you can handle. A good lending institution can be a great deal of help with this. There is no need to waste your time looking at $500,000 home if you only qualify $300,000.
- Give great consideration to where you are willing to locate.
- School system
- Access to expressway
- Airports
- Landscaping
- Building in Flood prone areas
- Job Location and distance to work
- Surrounding home and property values
- Surrounding building zones
- Tax Rates
- Once you have decided where to locate now it is time to look for the right lot or acreage to build on. Here are a few things to consider when choosing your final location.
- Size of lot or acreage
- Contour or the lot and drainage run off.
- Position of the house on high ground. This will solve many water and drainage problems and it makes it easy to get in and out of your garage in winter situations.
- Thank about how best to position your home to take advantage of viewing sunrises and sunsets.
- If there are trees, think about how best to use them in conjunction with your house placement for looks as well as summer shade.
- Request that the builder save as many trees as possible. However, you don’t want tree limbs in contact with any part of your home.
- Most builders dislike working around trees and therefore want to level everything in site.
- Think about what which roof pitch looks best with your home and design and the surrounding landscape. One single house plan and design will not look like it belongs in every possible location.
- Think about the real estate factor of your home. If you do something that is too far outside of the normal realm of thinking it will certainly hurt you if you ever want to sell your home and can effect equity home loans.
- Some pluses to add value to your home that are not very costly on the get go are:
- Full Basements
- 9 foot basement walls
- Hallways that are wider than the standard 3 feet
- Quality windows and doors that are easy to clean and maintain
- Quality building materials such as brick and stone instead of veneers.
- Fireplaces
- Large utility rooms
- A well laid out kitchen
- Adequate closet and storage space
- VHF and UHF antennas located in the attic
- Large garage equipped with shelving and storage solutions and work area
- Location of hose bibs
- Adequate outdoor electrical outlets
- Frost Free outdoor faucets
Call us at 1-800-943-1066 and let us show you how we can make your Custom Home Dreams Come True!
© 2006 R. B. Paul Construction, Inc. A Custom Home Builder in Southeastern Indiana.
