You are ready to start planning your new home, and like many these days, you may be looking at your budget and wondering what exclusions would help lower the overall cost of your custom-built home. Truth be told, there are many areas in your custom-built home that you will want to make sure to invest in the quality over the budget. However, we have compiled a list of three exclusions below that may be beneficial for your home build and the impact on the overall cost of your new home.
1. Unnecessary Materials
Evaluate the floorplan of your home with an open mind considering the ways that you can use fewer materials in the home build.
For example, an open floor plan will be less expensive than a floor plan with added walls and rooms by excluding the extra labor, lumber, drywall, paint, and other materials.
Likewise, you want to exclude wasted space such as oversized hallways, oversized entryways, unusable cutouts, oversized rooms, formal spaces you would not use on a regular basis, and any other areas that are for aesthetics rather than the overall function of the home. Also, consider accents that are not required for the home’s functionality. What can you live without and still have a home you are happy with?
Do some research and price your materials and gather lists to compare the prices you come up with to what your builder can purchase materials for. Often you may be able to get a better price for things like light fixtures, doorknobs, or even cabinets. Make sure your builder will work with the materials you have purchased. Sometimes saving a little in the beginning is not worth missing out on warranties that builders provide with their materials and craftsmanship.
2. Going Solo
When it comes to obtaining the best value in your custom home build, it is important to include your builder in the conversation. They need to know your full expectation of what you need out of your home and incorporate their expertise on how to achieve the highest priorities within the budget. Open conversations will ensure that your builder can help you examine the cost of your build and implement value engineering by examining the function of your home and keeping your budget in mind.
Your expert can point out where your budget will be most effective, and what are your best investments for the overall need. For example, selection of windows and door sizing alone can make a difference if you are able to be flexible. You can choose what is adequate for function over aesthetics, or perhaps you don’t need the number of windows that the original plan calls for. Perhaps you can change the windows without sacrificing ventilation and light with other options that are available to you.
An open dialogue with your builder can even give you perspective on what is the greatest importance to you, such as technology, efficiency, and future usage of your home with products that are available on the market today, vs the traditional builds of decades past. You may want to invest in future-proofing of your home with extra panel space for car chargers and solar panels with your future lifestyle in mind, rather than wasting cost and materials on large closets or unused garage spaces that don’t fit your long term goals.
Even the placement of your home on your property can drastically affect the overall cost of your custom home build. With mindful planning you can make the most out of your budget with keeping the cost of added digging/trenching and the placement of utilities in mind.
3. Unnecessary upgrades
Upgrades can drastically increase the price of your home build. Choosing basic appliances rather than higher-priced upgrades can save you significant costs. This is true for selecting simple light fixtures, basic plumbing fixtures, cabinet hardware, trim, doors, etc. This can all lower the overall price of your home’s immediate build and can be upgraded later as you are able. However, there are some aspects of your home that you would not want to downgrade such as anything that will help your home’s energy efficiency thus lowering your energy costs over a long period of time.
You also won’t want to downgrade anything that is more expensive to replace with a higher quality later because you didn’t purchase it during the build. Such as picking the smaller bathtub, with the mind of replacing it with a larger one in the future, which could end up leading to a complete remodel. When you are excluding your upgrades to keep your home build more budget-friendly, function and need is your most important consideration, but make sure your selections are something you can be content with for some time.
These three budget-friendly exclusions can help lower the overall cost of your custom home build. The most important factor when considering these exclusions is to ask yourself, can you live with the decisions that you have made considering the functionality, budget, and overall lifestyle in your new home?