Choosing the Right Site for Your Dream Home

 

Dreams are wonderful things, especially when you have the money to help make them come true!  While most of us would love to design and build the home of our dreams, few ever achieve it.  If you are ready to embark on that journey starting with finding the right lot, congratulations!

Unfortunately, we all have to wake up from our dreams eventually and face the cold gray light of dawn.  So here are a few practical considerations you should keep in mind when you go out and look for that perfect lot on which you will build your dream home.

Let’s use, as an example, the dream shared by many of the peaceful house on a hill, overlooking a lake or perhaps a meandering brook nestled in a tranquil forest of trees and fields of wildflowers.

The dream brings a smile and a sigh to anyone but stop for a moment, pinch yourself, and then ask how you plan on flushing the toilets in the loving home you will erect on that stately hill?

Sometimes, reality isn’t pretty and the truth is that some properties in the far reaches of civilization are not as ready for development as others.  And remember, development companies and private lot owners have only one thing in mind:  profit.  While some will fully disclose what is near enough to the property to be able to connect to and what that cost might be, others leave you the buyer to figure some or all of these considerations on your own.

While you might shrug off the lack of a sewer system to connect to and simply add the cost of digging a septic system to your budget, do you know if whatever governing body controls the law of the land there will allow it?  For that matter, do you even know what governing body you’ll be living within?

A home needs water, electricity, and heat; and some country lots have available access to none of these.  Providing your own will add significant cost to your construction budget.

Assuming those access issues don’t apply to the lots you’re comparing, what other issues are important when comparing and contrasting alternative lots?  Location is everything in real estate and when you dig deeper to learn the implications of location, much of it boils down to distance.

Certainly a lot in an area with good schools is better than one without, even if you don’t have or plan to have, children.  Shopping, entertainment, transportation, and other social amenities are important as well.  But what makes one location better than another is not only the existence of these amenities, but the distance you have to travel to get to them.

Simply put, look for a lot that is isolated enough to meet the standards of your dream, but close enough to civilization to meet the standards of reality.

No standard is more important than transportation to your place of business.   Many have let the allure of the dream home make them think they could deal with a daily commute of 2 to 3 hours, or more.  Going to work in the morning and coming home at night are not optional activities like dining out or going to the movies.  In many ways, dreams are what keep us going and making trade offs to deal with realities seems like abandoning the dream.  Remember that the perfect is often the enemy of the good and think of it as simply reshaping the dream a little.