Purchasing a home is one of the biggest and most important decisions people make in their life, especially in a hot market like Toronto. If you choose to build a custom home, that decision becomes even bigger and more exciting. It can also be overwhelming though.
Building a new home, especially one customized means you’ll have to make countless decisions. Even the smallest ones can feel monumental. Between making design choices, picking finishes, budgeting, and working with multiple tradespeople, it’s easy to get stressed out.
Here are some of the best ways to reduce stress and avoid getting overwhelmed during the home building process according to our custom home builders!
Know What You Want
Before you even start contacting custom home builders, you should take the time to think about what you actually want out of your new house. Sit down and try writing down a list of everything you want and try to be as thorough as possible. It’s also important to differentiate between a “want” and a “need”.
Think about things such as “what neighborhoods do I like?”, “what style of home appeals to me?”, “what’s our budget?”, “how many bedrooms do we need?”, “what little features would make our life easier?”
Hire a Company You Trust
We’ve been working in the custom home building industry for years, and if there’s one thing we cannot stress enough it’s that trust is key. Building a custom home is a collaborative effort between you, us, and dozens of other trades. The only way it works efficiently is if there is trust there.
There is a lot of money and time that goes into designing and building a custom home, and signing the dotted line before seeing the finished product is stressful. That’s why it’s so important to hire a company that has a long history of professionalism and quality work. Don’t be afraid to ask questions and to see their portfolio of past work.
Stay Involved and Communicate
A good way to reduce stress when building a home is to keep yourself involved throughout the whole process. That way you always know exactly what’s going on. Many clients make the mistake of only getting involved when decisions need to be made, but this means that you’re only getting to experience the stressful parts. Knowing when key milestones like framing, drywalling, etc. are happening not only helps you know what’s going on but build excitement.
Keeping a clear line of communication open is also vital. Things will always unexpectantly pop up during the building process from both sides. If you’re not able to effectively communicate it will only cause more headaches for everyone involved. We recommend establishing a point person and picking a main method of communication (like email, text, phone call, etc.) ahead of time. Also, be sure to ask your builder about things like office hours or how long you can expect to wait for replies.
Set Realistic Expectations
We’ve found that clients that come into the process with unrealistic expectations are the ones that experience the most stress. The reality of home building, especially custom homes, is that delays happen. And often too.
Even the most well-planned builds still hit delays. From materials not being delivered on time to bad weather, there is only so much your custom home builder can control. Expect there to be some delays going into the process. Also, remember that even in a custom home there are still limitations like space, building codes, and money.
Ready to start building your dream custom home? Contact us today!
