Buying a home often means compromising to get what you want inside your budget, and you don’t always find everything you want and need in one home. When you build, you get everything you want in your new home. Alair Homes in Bradford works with their clients from start to finish to create a masterpiece no matter what you want from your custom home. It’s what makes working with a custom home builder such a pleasure.
Before you meet with your custom home builder for the first time, however, you should do a little homework on your own. Talk to your family. Find out what everyone wants out of their new home. What size, what color palette, what overall style and look does everyone prefer? You might not know much about being a custom builder, but you do play a crucial role in the building of your new home. Here are 5 things to bring to the meeting with your custom home builder.
Your Ideas
You’re building your brand-new home, and you need to bring your ideas. These ideas might not be more than just the idea that all the kid’s rooms are upstairs and the master is downstairs. It doesn’t matter what your ideas are as long as they are yours. Your builder uses your ideas to come up with a design for your new home.
Photos and Examples
Do you have a Pinterest board or a photo album filled with pictures of home features you are in love with? Bring it with you to meet the builder so you can show them what you love. This gives your builder an idea of what you’re looking for, how to create custom plans, and how to create the home of your dreams.
Preapproval and the Budget
Don’t show up without any idea what you can spend. Even if you assume you can afford a certain amount of money on a new home, you need the bank to tell you this is the truth. Lenders are cracking down on issuing unaffordable mortgages to buyers in the years since the crash in 2008, and you might not realize how your outside expenses affect your ability to obtain a new mortgage. Get pre-approved and know what you can afford.
Land Information
If you already have a piece of property on which to build your home, bring all the land information to the builder. They need to know all they can about the land to ensure they’re meeting all building codes, requirements, and easements in your neighborhood. If you’re buying a piece of land with your home through the builder, bring ideas of what you’re looking for in a piece of property to your builder.
Musts and Must Nots
You’ve been living in homes your entire life, and you have a mental list of things you’ve always loved and hated about certain features. Perhaps your current home doesn’t have large windows, or your kitchen is in the middle of the house and doesn’t get much natural light. Maybe it has a feature you love and can’t live without, such as a side-angle garage and driveway. Whatever it is, bring this with you to the builder so they know what small features you love, hate, dislike, want, and can’t stand. It helps in creating your new floorplan.
Your new home is going to be the dream you’ve envisioned for so long. It’s time to get to know what you really want. Your first meeting with your builder isn’t the final meeting, so you can change your mind, find new ideas, and change things before the plans are final, but you should still show up prepared.