How to Choose the Right Real Estate for Your Dream Home

When you imagine yourself standing by the kitchen window of your dream home, steaming mug of coffee in hand, what is the view that is looking back at you? Is the sun gently cresting over a thicket of trees in the east, warming your toes? Or are you basking in its unobstructed brilliance? If your family plans change, do you have to abandon your dream home or do you have the space to build an extension, or repurpose a wing of your house?

One of the most important aspects of building your custom dream home is decided even before the construction team breaks ground. It lies even deeper than the foundation. It’s the land that houses your home.

When it comes to custom home construction, you can change every little detail that you choose. Everything from the stain and spacing of the wooden I-beams accenting your ceilings to the type of fibers in your hand-selected carpets can be modified. But, once the cement is poured, the one thing that you can’t change is the land upon which you will build your home. Architects and interior designers can work with the lay of the land and landscapers can beautify it and make it functional but no amount of design expertise can alter the land itself. That’s why selecting the right real estate is so crucial to getting the home that you’ve always dreamed of.

When you begin the process of hunting for the real estate for your dream home, consider these three factors to ensure that you end up with the right slice of heaven.

Location

It sounds obvious, but the location of your real estate matters when building your custom home more so than with a pre-build. There are common aspects of the location to consider such as distance to and from amenities, work, family, and friends. But there are some added considerations when it comes to location for a custom build.

Take accessibility, for example. It’s always great to have multiple roads that lead to your home in the event that one road becomes inaccessible. But when you’re building your dream home, you also have to consider accessibility for construction crews. If large transportation vehicles are unable to make the trip to your chosen plot of land, then you’ll have to explore expensive alternative forms of transportation or abandon whole design aspects altogether. Then, of course, there’s the accessibility of utilities and other public services. If you’ve chosen a remote plot of land, connecting your dream home to the electric grid, paying for a fiber-optic connection—or settling for a slower one—or even connecting to the sewer system all present the potential to alter the details of your dream home in a way that you might not like.

Another important variable to consider—and an easy one to overlook—is the type of soil that you’re purchasing with that plot of land. A solid bedrock means that you can build with heavy materials and go as high as you’d like but a clay-like soil type will force your architect, engineer, and construction crew to make alterations around your vision.

It’s also important to remember that land changes—even if it does so at a tectonic pace. The land that you purchased won’t always look just as it did when you bought it and the potential for future development—both on your property and in the surrounding areas—can accelerate that change.

We could write a whole post on the importance of location and the many factors that fit under that umbrella but that’s a post for another day. For now, keep in mind that the location of your home’s home is every bit as important as the house itself.

Value

You’ve heard it a million times before and you’ll likely hear it a million times more: for most people, their home is the biggest investment they’ll ever make. Many custom-home-builders figure, perhaps rightly so, that they’re building their dream home and that they’ll never move so the value of the land is immaterial. While it might be true that your custom home will be something that your family hands down from generation to generation as preciously as an heirloom, the value of the property matters tremendously. The wrong real estate can lose value over time and leave custom home builders underwater (i.e., making payments for an asset that isn’t worth the value of the mortgage). Being underwater in a mortgage can have financial implications that negatively impact an individual’s tax status, solvency, and retirement. Even if you never plan on selling your home—because it is, after all, home—consider the value of the real estate it’s built on.

Local Permissions

Zoning laws are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to getting your dream home’s designs stamped and approved. Local town councils, historic societies, environmental groups, and neighbourhood associations can—and often do—weigh in on additions to their communities. Getting to know the members of these various groups and what their interests are is crucial in avoiding turning your dream home into a project pulled from your worst nightmare.

While it might, at times, seem like these various groups are being obsessive and onerous or needlessly nosey, they can actually be great allies for anyone undergoing a custom home build.      Want to know how to best protect and preserve the creek running through your backyard? Seek information from your local preservation authority. Want to add a modern twist to an old-growth neighbourhood? Speak with the historic society about design concepts that take the past into the future.

The importance of choosing the right real estate for your dream home can’t be overstated. Whether or not you realize it, everything from the shape of the land to the neighbours on either side of you factors into that image you have of standing in your dream kitchen. The sun just wouldn’t feel as nice on your skin if something about the land beneath your foundations was off. When you do find that perfect patch of grass—or maybe you need help finding it—we, at Stellar Homes, would love to help you build the dream home that you, and that slice of heaven, deserve. Contact us today.