How to Choose A Custom Home Builder
One of the most important decisions you will make when deciding to build your home in Regina is to choose the right home builder. After all, your home is the biggest investment you’ll make in life. To help in your selection process, we’ll provide the top ten considerations when selecting a custom home builder in Regina over the next ten weeks.
Week #1 – Define Your Needs and Your Budget
Unless money is no object when building your custom home, you’ll need to determine a budget before deciding on your needs. A budget helps to set realistic expectations regarding the design of your home and your wants. This is likely one of the most difficult phases of the home building process. Making perceived sacrifices between what you need versus what you want is also a difficult process. Things that may seem like needs may turn out to be more esthetics that you don’t truly need. Esthetics tend to add cost to the bottom line of your custom built home may put it out of reach.
Begin the decision-making process for building your new home by outlining the fundamental requirements. • The number of bedrooms • The number of bathrooms, • The size of the garage • The number of stories, • The size of your lot, • The area of the city that you would like to live based on your lifestyle requirements over the period of time you expect to live there, • Map out the living space - decide on the features of the living spaces both your needs and wants.
Many people start with the idea that they want to build their “dream” home. However, there is no doubt that a budget restricts most of us from doing just that. As well, how many times have we heard someone say “it seemed like a good idea at the time” So before adding dream features, do your research on it? With couples, do an independent list of your needs and wants. Ask yourself when doing the list, is it truly a need or is it a want. For example, I want a three car garage but we need a two car garage. I would love a kitchen with a walk-in pantry but we need a pantry. I would love granite countertops throughout the home but we need a stone countertop. I want a smart home but realistically I'm terrible with technology and will need to phone an IT guy all the time, so I need a less smart home.
Once you're done your list separately, come together and walk through it together over a coffee. Where have differences you are stuck on, talk to your builder. Most builders have had these discussions over features with others and can provide great insight into a certain needs vs wants. It will take more than one coffee meeting to complete your list, but it is worth the time upfront time so that you can design a beautiful home that fits your needs and your budget, with just the right amount of dreams.