What are the Pitfalls of a True Custom Home?
What are the main drawbacks to a custom, energy-efficient, modern home?
Let’s face it - when you are embarking on the quest of designing and building a modern, custom home from scratch it is going to be more expensive than you think, take longer than you anticipate, and provide you with too many decision points along the way. On top of it, you are creating a prototype for a home that will be built only once. Chances are you will feel you are taking on too many risks. Last but not least, what you are manifesting for yourself lies outside of the generic real estate metrics, which means that you will end up contributing more hard-earned cash to the adventure than other choices require.
It is expensive
It is time consuming
It comes with too many choices
It comes with too many unknowns
It is too cash intensive
By contrast, when you purchase a traditional house plan in a subdivision development, everything is streamlined for you. It will go fast, the costs will be competitive, they will be covered by the builder’s direct loan offering, the choices are manageable, and you know what you are getting from day one. You even get to check out a model show-house. There are no unknowns. If all this floats your boat, a true custom home created from scratch is not for you. It would be an entirely ridiculous proposition.
To create your home from scratch is meant to respond to other desires. It is first and foremost intended to create a built environment that provides a stage for your life and your life only. It is the very intention of the exercise to design a home that will be unique, specific, and innovative. You are asking design and building teams to create something extraordinary - a home that will make you feel you have arrived. You are asking for the creative act. In return you have to invest some patience. And you have to invest your hard earned money in things you actually covet and desire - that is you spend on what matters to you. You even get to explore and dictate what that might be. You also have to turn to the experts who will surprise you with a myriad of unseen possibilities. You are asking to be confronted with what you don’t know, surprised and swept off your feet, and engaged in a process of discovery and wonder.
Nonetheless, the issues of costs, timelines, choices, anxieties, and the financial make-up are not trivial concerns. Your design team should guide you through them and round off the sharp edges. They can be managed. The unknowns can be revealed before you are making important decisions. To be safely guided through these white water rapids should be part of the offering. The adventure should remain.
~ Toby