A home means something different to everyone. Each person has their own taste, features they want, and aspects of their space they especially enjoy. So it’s tricky to make any type of blanket statements about homes. But I do believe custom home building gives you the opportunity to dream your best dream and live it out every day. Because everyone is welcome to his or her own opinion I hesitate to say something so definitive as new homes are better, BUT I will. I’m going to share with you 5 reasons why building a new home is better than fixing up an older home.
#1 Lot or Land selection
You know the saying the most important part of a real estate investment is location, location, location. You’ve heard it a billion times, because it’s true. Most every feature of an existing home can be changed, remodeled, or altered somehow to better suit your needs, but you can’t change the location.
Building a custom home gives you the opportunity to pick exactly where you want to live. And make particular selections down to which way your front door faces or how to best showcase the mountain or forest views.
In Colorado we have over 300 days of sunshine a year. A good custom builder will take full advantage of that in positioning the home, the windows, the driveway, etc.
The ability to pick your lot or land for a custom build is one of several reasons why building a new home is better than fixing up an older home.
#2 Unique features
Building a new home gives you the opportunity to add unique features perfect for your specific family. Sure every home has a kitchen, a bedroom or three, and a bathroom, but what if the kitchen’s location is just wrong? It changes your daily routine. Buried in the back of the house or behind walls you miss half of the parties while you’re squirreled away finishing things up or the homework routine is a challenge while dinner needs to be started.
With a new custom home you can start fresh and add all sorts of unique features like a pet room complete with a washing and drying station, or the latest trend of outfitting a playful bunkhouse for the grandkids. Are your kids growing like weeds with no end in sight? Plan custom countertop and showerhead heights with this in mind.
You can pick the features you want to provide you comfort and function.
#3 Your Choice
Building a new home you get to pick every single thing.
Every. Single. Thing.
From the size and shape of the windows to flooring, trim height, room configuration, pocket doors, recessed lighting, no step entry, to the perfect workflow placement of your kitchen appliances (which, you guessed, it … you pick).
When you build new you get to pick it all. All of it. Including the vast array of new, money-saving energy efficient features new homes have that old homes lack.
#4 Present and Future Floor Plan
When you start from scratch you can create a living space that serves your current needs and anticipates future needs too.
I have talked with several clients this year about their desire to create a multi-generational house. Their parents are aging, but active, and they’d like to be able to help them out now and have them near.
Another floor plan idea that people are increasingly interested in is a space where a “boomerang” adult child could live somewhat independently. With college costs rising over 200% or more at some institutions in the last twenty years, adult children are graduating with crippling amounts of debt. Some parents think it best to have them come home for a bit to find a job, get their feet under them, and start paying back that student loan debt. A smart floor plan in a custom home accomplishes that without compromising the parents and kids still at home.
Those are just two of the endless list of examples why designing a custom home may be smarter now and also in the long run.
Plus #5 Fewer surprises. More help.
Those home improvement shows on TV make home remodels look so easy. I mean it only takes them 60 minutes. A U.S. News & World Report article on the subject says, “It is a fantasy to think a home renovation project can be done in 60 minutes. “Many of the projects featured on home improvement shows can’t even be done in 60 days, and real-life renovations almost always take considerably longer than they do on TV.”
“No one knows what you’ll find when you open up walls and floors, but it is often something expensive, especially in an older house. “There are so many things that happen that you can’t foresee,” Christy Biberich of HGTV’s Brother vs. Brother says. “The fact of the matter is that renovations go over budget.”
Plus no one ever shows boring parts of the remodel like the permit process, which is tedious, and can take months. That doesn’t make good TV.
When you start from scratch with an experienced custom homebuilder who listens closely to your ideas and knows “the magic floor plan math” for designing a cost-effective, gorgeous home, you encounter far fewer surprises and you have much more help along the way. If you’re picking finishes or appliances you have an expert onsite every day to always be of help.
Save Yourself Time and Money
So even though it sure is fun to watch people on TV Flip or Flop, you may save yourself a lot of money and heartache by building new instead of trying to make the old work for you.
Bill Herebic is a 4th-generation custom homebuilder. Bill’s decades of hard work and honesty mean clients and tradesmen love to work with him resulting in every home being done on time or early for 35 years and counting.