Tips we learned building a house in a Home Builders Neighborhood
In our area, almost all the neighborhoods with new construction are owned by specific builders. The lot and house are sold as one and you are limited to that particular builder’s plans and options they make available. There are many different builders with many different styles of houses, different size range of houses, different quality of houses, etc. It’s a much simpler way to build vs. buying a lot, hiring a builder, finding a plan, etc. This was the perfect scenario for us being first-time home builders, the simpler the better!
Tips we have learned building a house in a Home Builders Neighborhood:
Be aware of the standard options vs upgrades.
We don’t do anything on a whim, we checked into several different builders in our area before choosing our builder and location. One of the reasons we chose our builder was because the standard options provided were all really nice looking and great quality and there were very few things we’d want to upgrade. We visited another builder’s model home where they had done many different upgrades and made the house $30,000 more than the base plan was advertising. This is one way they successfully get you in the door, they advertise one price but to get what you see in those homes will cost significantly more money to upgrade. Since we went the building route, we want this house to be as close to perfect as our budget allows and to get those houses the way we wanted it was going to be outside of the budget for us.
Go in as many houses as possible that are available and built by that builder.
Don’t limit yourself to your neighborhood (assuming the builder has multiple subdivisions). We went in several model homes and many other homes that were available for sale. We saw many things we liked and didn’t like in these houses and took pictures to document all of those things. This was very helpful because after looking at several houses we had a good idea of what specific granite, hardwood, tile, etc. that we wanted when it came time to design our own home. Most of us are visual people and need to see it used in a house to decide if we like it or not, so this helps tremendously!
Don’t be afraid to make some changes to the house plan
We strategically thought about how we were going to use the space. We are turning one of the bedrooms into a media room for now and to do so we knew we need it to be a little larger. This is one of the benefits of building, we were able to extend that back bedroom 5ft to accommodate how we will use the space. We widened a walkway, added a pocket door, added a transom, added some can lights, etc. This is our house that we will hopefully live in for many years. It’s much easier and sometimes less expensive to do these changes up front than come back later and add or change them. Also, chances are there are other houses using the same house plans as ours in the neighborhood so it’s nice to change our house up a little to differentiate!
Be Observant
Once we decided we were going to build I started being much more observant to the houses around me. When I was driving or when I was at friends and families houses. I was paying closer attention to brick colors, trim colors, kitchen hardware, light fixtures, paint colors, etc. This can be really helpful when trying to make so many decisions. I was able to narrow down what shutter colors I like just by cutting through a neighborhood on my way to somewhere. This tip seems small in significance but it really helped us narrow down and decide what we like.
DO YOU!
This is your chance to customize your house to reflect you and your style! If you’ve followed my blog for any period of time then you know that I am not really a “fancy” person. I love my rustic and country-chic decorations. I love a house that is warm and welcoming and comfortable. Almost all the homes in our neighborhood had these formal glass front doors that just weren’t my style at all. Sure, to the normal person they may be much prettier than the simple door that I chose, but they weren’t our style. I chose a simple craftsman style door with board and batten shutters and I know the house will reflect our taste and style. Another thing we did to reflect our style was paid a little extra to customize our fireplace to be stone vs. the standard tile. Bryant and I both love stone fireplaces and we knew that was a priority for us making this our “as close to perfect house as we can afford”.
If you’ve done all that above, then you’ve already pretty much done this last tip:
Do your homework and come prepared when designing your home
Because we had done all of the above, we were much better prepared to go to a design center and pick everything out. It can be very overwhelming but luckily we had already made several decisions prior to our visit. It also helped that Bryant and I were on the same page because of conversations and all the prep work ahead of time, if we had waited until we got to the design center it would have taken much longer to discuss all the options available. It’s great to bring pictures of things you liked in the builder’s houses (they can often look up the exact item to see what was used) and also bring pictures of things you found online that you like especially if you want something custom (ex. Stone fireplace).
I hope you found some of these tips helpful. This is all new to us so we’re learning along the way and I figure I’ll share my tips with all of you!