Location
One of the first major issues you will need to consider when making your choice between a new custom, semi-custom, production or existing home is where you want to live. Depending on your own situation, you will want to consider factors such as the length of the commute to your workplace, the quality of the schools in the area, the availability of the goods and services that you expect to need in the area where you choose to live, and the type of neighborhood in which you wish to live.
One of the great advantages of having a custom home built is that you get to decide the exact location for your home. One of the first steps for many of our customers is to fall in love with a piece of land and then buy it.
If your dream is to have an unobstructed view of the mountains from every window in your home, you will probably not find what you are looking among the available houses on the market and if you purchase a production home you’ll be lucky if you have mountain views from even half the windows. So, choosing to have a custom home built on your own property is the best option if your desires and the available production home sites or existing homes don’t match up.
If you have children living at home, a Colorado Springs custom home might be the right choice, but a production house may suit you just as well depending on other factors. The proximity of your new home to schools and soccer fields may take precedence over having the ability to see Pike’s Peak from the guest bath.
You may be able to have it all with a custom built home, but keeping your priorities in mind will help you to ultimately make the choice that offers to fill all of your needs and the most important of your desires for a new home.
On the other hand, if you don’t anticipate staying in your new home for more than a couple of years, an existing home or a production home may be your best bet since you may have an easier time selling it quickly. A custom home, especially if it has unusual features or allocates space in non-traditional ways, for example a huge house that has a 6 car garage but only two bedrooms may suit your family perfectly, but it may take a bit more time to sell than a production home with a “normal” layout.
A major advantage of choosing your own home site is that you have more options for privacy and the situation of your home on the property. You can see in advance whether the lots in the area you choose to build on are large enough that you won’t find that a few years down the road that someone is planning to build an apartment complex overlooking the hot tub in your back yard. Building a new custom home on a piece of property of your choosing also allows you to design the home to take advantage of the natural features of the land.
Quality
Although you may find an existing home that has the type of quality features you want in a home, when you buy a production home you may be limited to a narrow selection of items that may not offer the quality you desire. One of the advantages of production homes is that the builder is able to purchase materials in quantity, which allows the production builder to save money that may or may not be passed on to the customer.
Even if you choose a production home early enough in the process to make your own selections on flooring, countertops, paint, cabinetry finishes, fixtures and other trim, chances are good that the options available for you to choose from are limited to items that the builder has already negotiated deals on with his suppliers.
Depending on your own tastes and priorities, the choices that a production homebuilder allows you to make may work out perfectly for you. However, if you want the flexibility to use exceptionally high quality or unique materials in your home, only a custom or semi-custom homebuilder will be able to provide that.
In addition to being able to control the quality of a custom built home, you can also determine the functionality of your home based on your needs and values, not on what someone else has decided that most families of a certain size need.
You get to decide for yourself whether you need extra storage space for your hobby supplies or sports equipment and can work with your custom builder to create spaces for the things that you and those living in your household actually do.
You get to determine for yourself what types of spaces your home needs to fit your lifestyle. Where someone else would choose to place an extra guest bedroom, you might want to build an extra large office space to facilitate working from home or a wine cellar or theater room.
Instead of living with the choices of someone else based on market trends, a custom built home gives you the opportunity to live in a home that is an expression of your own personal style. If your thing is to collect local art, your custom homebuilder can work with you to add cabinetry that shows off your collection in high style or assist you in getting the hand-blown glass light fixtures you commissioned installed property. With the right custom homebuilder, your imagination is the only limit when it comes to creating your dream home.
Values
Your home is a reflection of your values. From the home design you select to the neighborhood you choose to live in, your choice in homes is based on the things in life that you find most important.
For those who value energy efficiency and the environment, one thing that a custom built home can deliver like no other is the ability build for you a home using sustainable, eco-friendly building materials that reduce your new home’s environmental footprint.
It is much easier to design a new home that takes advantage of solar or geothermal energy than it is to retrofit an existing home to be more energy efficient or to ask a production builder to vary from his routine processes and approved materials to accommodate your desire for an eco-friendly home.
As I said in the beginning, we think everyone should enjoy the benefits of a custom home and hope that if you decide a custom home is the right choice for you, you’ll give us an opportunity to build your Colorado dream home.
