The real estate market is one if the biggest in the United States today, and the total value of all American homes is quite high indeed. This ranges from modest suburban homes to impressive, huge custom homes built along the coast of Florida or California. Many older Americans like to retire in style, and wealthier retirees may turn to home builders and custom home builder crews to design their own house. New construction homes don’t have to be a one-off project, either; some such companies are known to build entire neighborhoods of new construction homes at once. How can a client design their own custom home and see it built correctly? And what should they bear in mind if they ever choose to sell that house?
Making Your Dream Home
Middle and upper class Americans who want to design custom homes may turn to local custom home builder companies, and join a neighborhood of such homes. To begin with, the client should know all of the basics of their dream home, such as square footage, number of floors, basic floor plan, and more. This client will meet architects who work with or work for the custom home builder crew, and these experts may help the client finalize a design that is structurally sound. And of course, before construction begins, the homeowner should actually purchase the land where this custom home will be built.
The final home may have nearly any arrangement of rooms, not to mention some features to really make that house stand out. The client may even choose to have a fireplace installed on the ground floor, and this fireplace may be a stylish brick or stone model in the living room. The custom home might also have a front porch and/or a back deck, or even a sunroom for relaxation, meditation, and more. The client and architect may also decide what sort of windows and doors to put on the house, not to mention what material the siding should be. Siding can be made of cedar, brick, or vinyl (which comes in many different colors). The roof, meanwhile, can be made of slate tiles or shingles, or even made of metal.
Selling a Home
Whether a homeowner is living in a custom home or one that they bought from another party, they will want to take some steps to make that property more attractive on the real estate market. Buyers will care about not only the house’s number of rooms or square footage, but also its condition. This is where interior remodeling and exterior repair will pay big dividends, and updating the house’s hardware can pay for itself greatly. The same is true of landscaping, for both the front and back yards. Remodeling the interior and exterior can generate a high ROI, or return of interest, and a house may sell faster and for a better price after such work has been done.
The outside is a fine place to start. Worn out or stained siding can be replaced with fresher materials, and any damage to the roof should be repaired, too, such as replacing missing tiles. The gutters should be cleaned out, or even replaced, if they are damaged. Meanwhile, the windows and doors might need replacement, since old doors and windows are drafty and may be easy for burglars to force their way into. Besides, new windows and doors will look attractive to home buyers.
At some point, a homeowner may invest in remodeling one or more of the rooms, and around 30% of all home remodeling jobs involve renovating the entire house’s interior. The bathroom and kitchen are two popular rooms to remodel, and fresh hardware and surfaces in those rooms will greatly impress visiting home buyers. These rooms may generate an ROI as high as 70-80% when they are remodeled, in fact. The kitchen counter or floor tiles can be replaced, and crews can repaint or sand down the cabinet doors while plumbers put in a new sink. In the bathroom, the tiles can be replaced, not to mention the lighting fixtures and all kinds of plumbing. Newer toilets, sinks, tubs, and shower heads not only look great, but they may be water-efficient, low-flow models that save on the water bill over time.
