Is Building A Custom Home Right For You? 8 Questions To Help You Decide.
If you’re weighing your options for your next home, you’ve probably wondered what would be involved in building a custom home.
As a starting point, you may want to check out these two posts:
To build off of these ideas, this post will explore 8 key questions you can ask yourself to determine if a custom home may be the right move.
1. Would you prefer to live in a housing development, or a larger piece of property?
Property size and proximity to neighbors are good starting points to think about. If you love the idea of being surrounded by neighbors, especially if you have kids and are looking for them to have nearby playmates, considering a housing development makes a lot of sense.
Some housing developments include fully custom homes. Many others are a mix of production and semi-custom designs, using a couple core layouts repeatedly for quicker construction. As long as those designs appeal to you, there’s no major tradeoff. These developments are also more likely to be closer to schools and parks.
If you value privacy at a higher premium, though, or have lifestyle goals that require land, you’re more likely to find semi-custom homes as a starting point. Sometimes there are lots for sale, and you have the opportunity to build whatever you’d like. Some types of slopes and land shapes might even require a custom build.
If a neighborhood you’re looking at has a Homeowner’s Association, there are usually covenants and restrictions about how different a home can look from the others. Keep this in mind when shopping, especially if you have customizations in mind.
2. Do you have a specific vision in mind for layout, amenities, and square footage?
As we talked about in our previous piece directly comparing semi-custom to fully custom homes, there’s a balancing act of the level of control you might like to have with how many decisions you want to make.
For some folks, starting with a popular design that’s time-tested makes sense with a few customizations to trim, materials, and colors. In those cases, it’s just enough personalization to feel theirs without grappling with too many details. This is one of the bigger value points of a semi-custom home.
With semi-custom designs, you aren’t making choices that affect square footage. Whatever size home you’re after, we recommend starting your search with that criteria, along with location, and refining from there. Otherwise you can end up in scenarios where the home and location are otherwise perfect, but the living room is too small or there aren’t enough bathrooms, etc. Those won’t be adjustments you can make.
If you have a concept for something that’s specific and very important to you, this is where a fully custom design makes more sense. Have a list of Pinterest ideas or inspiration pics you saw on social media? If you’re buying a semi-custom home those won’t be options for you to add, but a custom home allows your creativity to be part of your entire home. (Such as that pocket door, baby gate, or hidden pantry).
3. What is your ideal timeline?
There’s no denying that purchasing a prebuilt home will be a faster process than designing one. The same is even true for production homes that large developers add to new neighborhoods. In those cases, they are new buildings but they use well established designs that are quicker to complete.
Typical timelines for production homes typically range from 4-6 months, from start to finish. Semi-custom designs tend to fall into the same construction window, but require greater time for permitting and design. This may increase the overall process to 6-9 months.
Fully custom built homes usually require more time. The build portion of a custom home may only be 7-9 months. However, finding the right land, clearing and grading it, and drawing architectural plans are all stages that must happen beforehand. The entire process together can take 1-2 years.
Things that can affect build times include:
Permitting and inspections are required throughout the process.
Supply shortages, extreme weather, or other difficult to plan for elements can extend build times.
Change orders and design alterations (once certain phases of the process are underway) can add extra time to complete. Especially if these are changes that require the builder to undo/redo some previous work.
Site conditions. Challenging excavation, such as a basement lot with an abundance of rocks in it that must be cleared, can drastically increase the time required to prep the lot.
4. Do you want to start with a pre-designed plan, or a blank slate?
Semi-custom homes mean that you’re starting with pre-designed floor plans, with a limited set of changes you can make. This is ideal if you don’t want to go through the process of designing a home plan from scratch, and you don’t desire a long list of custom options.
Going fully custom means starting with a blank slate. The upside, of course, is that the sky is the limit on the square footage, design, features, and materials. There will be more decisions to make early on to reach a final design to build, however.
You can simplify the custom build process by:
Basing your design off of an existing design, such as a home you have now or a home you have seen. This allows you to keep elements you already love, and then plan around what you’ve always wished was different.
Purchasing plans online. There’s quite a variety of plans available online that you can purchase to use, and then hand off to an architect to make customizations to. (The first part of this can be cheaper than hiring an architect to design, but making alterations tends to drive that cost back up.)
Hiring an interior designer and architect to help you create a target look. They can suggest finishes, door and window styles, and placement of rooms in relation to each other depending on your lifestyle. This is where one-of-a-kind homes are born!
5. Are you choosing finishes only, or designing the entire home?
Some homeowners have specific features they’re after. They might have dreamed for years of having marble countertops or hardwood floors, for instance. As they look at potential new homes, finding something that checks enough of the boxes AND has the option for marble countertops might be perfect.
In this example, the priorities might primarily be that the home is large enough, has a comfortable layout, and has the right finishes.
Semi-custom homes usually do have options for finishes and trim, so this can be a good balance.
However, one might have other dream features that aren’t usually options on semi-custom designs, such as:
Walk-in shower with custom tile, seating, or shelves
Heated flooring (See: luxury bathroom remodels)
Large custom windows
Fireplaces, screened in porches, or balconies
Oversized rooms
All of those types of features require a personal touch you won’t find in semi-custom or production homes.
6. Do you prefer fewer decisions, or full creative control?
As we touched upon earlier, the approach for building your new home is a balancing act of control and decision-making.
Semi-custom designs make the most sense if your attitude is essentially, “I’m open to seeing any design that flows nicely and feels comfy, and as long as that’s true and I get a couple other key features, I’m excited.”
For that type of buyer, decisions that might feel tedious aren’t required. The floor plan is already set. Doorways, lighting, and primary amenities are already decided upon. All of that can be built more quickly, because it’s using a design process the builder is very familiar with.
Other buyers prefer more control, even if that means more decisions. If any of the following ring true for you, a custom build might suit you best:
I want a design that’s unlike what my friends and family have. Something that feels uniquely mine.
I don’t want to have to make concessions on square footage, room layout, or number of bathrooms.
I want different areas of the house to have distinct aesthetics, or my aesthetic preferences in general fall outside what is considered modern or “in” right now.
I work from home and want a highly customized work space that’s built around my functional needs, whether that’s artistic (such as pottery), performative (video production, podcasting, etc.), or a professional service like accounting.
7. Are you looking for convenience, or a home designed more thoughtfully around your family’s needs?
As we mentioned in #6, a custom design can be tailored to very specific use cases. You can add nooks and sunrooms for the avid reader in your family, a workshop for Mr. Handy, an art studio with wash basins, a workout room, and more.
If you’ve ever had a, “Wouldn’t it be cool if our house had…” kind of dream, a custom build allows for it. None of those features are things you’re likely to find in a production or semi-custom situation. The personal touch of being able to include these things, as well as a builder who carefully oversees the construction, are big differentiators.
Craftsmanship can be more thoughtful on a custom build. This is because of all the extra planning time, and also that the Project Manager is overseeing fewer builds at the same time. The same goes for the level of communication between homeowner and builder — everything carries a more personal touch.
8. Are you comfortable with standardized construction methods, or do you want added care?
Standardized construction (production and semi-custom) relies on consistency and highly streamlined processes. This is why those homes can be built more quickly.
However, production builders tend to have a large number of houses they need to build at once, in a tight sequence. That brisk pacing raises the odds for small or large details to be missed and corners to be cut in the aim of speed or cost-cutting, etc.
Folks are likely to see these issues with what are marketed as “luxury homes” in newly developed neighborhoods. (Often listed at surprisingly reasonable pricing.) The square footage and general aesthetics feel very modern and sharp, but there are concessions in harder-to-notice things like the framing, systems, and even something as simple as the paint.
Have you ever walked into a new home and thought it looked beautiful, only to realize after moving in that the walls get scuffed easily? That’s because a very inexpensive paint was used, often with a flat sheen, and it’s impossible to clean without making the spot more noticeable.
People also notice issues in the framing after a couple seasons have come and gone. The floor seems a little more bouncy, flooring starts showing gaps, and large cracks start showing up on the trim around windows and doors. These often are a result of a fast build where certain parts of the project weren’t done properly. Or sometimes, it’s because the house hadn’t been climate controlled long enough before completion to allow the house to dry out.
In contrast, Project Managers and Superintendents can give more attention to custom home builds because they have fewer projects running at once. That allows for more care on each phase, ensuring things are built properly. By planning ahead, a custom builder can also think through better systems and materials to use, creating a more comfortable and often healthier home for the future homeowners.
Every home buying decision involves priorities. The decision is yours whether the additional time and care are worth the investment.
If you’d like to talk through which option would be best for you, we’d love to discuss this with you during a Ballpark Estimate meeting.