Thursday 22 November 2018

Torn Between Buying New Real Estate And Building A New Custom Home?

By Kevin Harris


You've painstakingly saved up enough money to venture into home ownership. You're now faced with an all-too-familiar dilemma: build a new house from scratch, or buy one that's already on the Bang Saray real estate market. While there are pros and cons to each option, popular opinion suggests that you're better off choosing the latter.

But guess what? It's only by building your own home that you can transform your ideal living arrangements into reality. This is especially true when it comes to efficiency-- it will allow you to leverage today's technologies to the maximum. The same can't necessarily be said of an already built house.

Keep in mind, however, that you don't have to go all the way in with regards to sustainability. Instead, you want to focus more on the areas that'll make the biggest difference. With that in mind, you'll want to:

Choose the Location Carefully: You can save yourself lots of headaches by choosing a plot that has utilities in close proximity. Just make sure to study its topographic details prior to buying. Ideally, it should allow you to orient the house in such a way that the longest sides face north or south. Also consider how the surrounding landscape will affect construction and vice versa.

Size Your Needs: The bigger a house is, the more it costs to build and maintain. Now, that's not to say that you should keep square footage to a minimum. What really matters is to keep your lifestyle in mind when sizing your home -- this will help you avoid paying for space that ends up sitting unused.

Opt For Green Materials: From the foundation to the attic, you want to use materials that will minimize the impact of construction on the environment. Look for products such as reclaimed wood, plastic, glass, as well as natural products like cork, bamboo and linoleum. It's worth noting that these won't cost you more than their conventional counterparts -- just as long as you purchase them from sources closest to the construction site.

Go Solar: It wouldn't be enough to talk about green building without mentioning solar -- it's after all the most cost-effective energy source. Speaking of which, there now are panels that can harness enough to cater for all the energy needs of your home. They're also cheaper and better-looking compared to their predecessors. Don't think that is an enough incentive? Well, how about the chance to qualify for tax breaks?

Invest in Insulation: This starts right during the design phase -- you want to create a layout that minimizes heat loss while optimizing the circulation of air inside. Common sense dictates that a multi-story house will perform better in that regard. For the insulation itself, you can't go wrong by choosing closed-cell spray foam. You'll also want to seal all potential pathways for heat loss and air leakage (windows, vents, doors, etc).

Although there'll be more elements involved in your custom home build, keeping these points in mind should help you create a solid framework for the project. Just note that it will involve more headaches compared to purchasing an existing property. Even so, it'll be a whole less stressful than renovating the latter to match your ideals.




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