If you are in the market for a new home in Alexandria or anywhere in Northern Virginia, you may be wondering if it’s worth your time to get a custom home. Custom homes are homes where you get to choose every detail of your home’s design from start to finish. Spec (short for speculative) homes, on the other hand, are homes that are built by a developer according to their specifications and their best guess of what the market wants. Each one has pros and cons, and it’s important to weigh carefully the different options in order to make the choice that’s best for you. Here are some of the recommendations from our custom home builder in Alexandria on the advantages of custom-built homes.
1. You get a home that meets your needs.
Every family is different, and the way you want to use your home may not be adequately represented by the spec homes on the market. Of course, you would be able to make do with a spec home, but the amazing thing about the custom home is not having to just “make do” but having a space that’s truly optimized for your needs. Here are some examples where a custom home can immensely benefit you.
- The number of kids in your family. Most homes are not built with the needs of a larger family in mind. A custom home can give you the space that you need for them, along with a lot of time-saving solutions for efficient upkeep of their clothes, toys, and other personal items.
- The hobbies you have. What if you are a hand quilter and you need a room where you always have a quilt frame set up with the quilt you’re currently working on? What if that space could be incorporated seamlessly into your home’s design instead of having a room where you feel like your project is in the way? A musician would need a completely different set of custom space than a quilter, like the space to hold a grand piano and a room that’s designed to have pleasing acoustics. Whatever your form of artistic expression, a custom workshop can make a huge difference in the enjoyment of your craft.
- The amount of entertaining you do. If you’re a social butterfly who is always entertaining lots of people, you need a layout that takes this into account. For instance, there’s nothing worse than a home that has several areas where people get bottlenecked, simply because the home wasn’t designed with the idea in mind that there would ever be 30-40 people there at one time.
2. You get to choose the lot.
One of the most frustrating things about spec homes is that you might find a house that’s almost perfect, but it’s in the wrong location. Real estate agents quote “location, location, location” for a reason, because most of the time, people will choose the home in the better location over a home that has everything they’re looking for but is in a bad location. When you build a custom home, you choose the lot that is in the location you prefer, close to your job, your friends, and the part of town that you tend to frequent. Then on top of that, you get to choose everything about your home’s design. Talk about “having your cake and eating it, too!”
3. You get to choose your home’s design.
There’s no substitute for a custom-designed home that actually has the layout that you want. Going the route of a custom home allows you to have all the design elements that you’ve always dreamed of, from the practical ones to the extravagant ones that make you take in your breath and say to yourself, “I can’t believe I get to live here!”
- Perhaps you’ve always wanted a spiral staircase, and that just isn’t available in any of the spec homes you’ve seen.
- Maybe you want a house with a couple of hidden compartments or secret rooms for your kids to build into a play space.
- Perhaps you’ve dreamed of the exact kitchen layout that would be ideal for your master bread baking exploits and now you can actually have it.
Whatever the case, your home’s design will be an extension of YOU and not a generic thing that a builder created to appeal to the lowest common denominator of homebuyers in the market.
4. You get better control over your cost.
The great thing about a custom-built home is that your home’s cost is simply a combination of materials and labor. If there are accessories or amenities that are NOT important to you, you can just choose not to have them. You get to choose all the upgrades, and you can decline all the extras that don’t mean anything to you.
When it comes time for you to choose a custom house builder, turn to the professionals at Dobson Building + Remodeling. We will listen to your needs, create the drawings, and produce the home of your dreams. Contact us today to get started by asking for a free estimate.