Renovating
Forget 'Keeping Up With the Joneses'; Be Unique Instead
Everybody has an opinion on what a 'nice' house is, but how do you filter through the noise to make the big decisions about your new home?
We all want to create the best possible lifestyle and quality of life for our family, but somewhere along the line we have convinced ourselves that bigger is better and that ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ is more important than focusing on our individual and specific needs. For the amount of money you will be spending on a new home or renovation, I believe you should be thinking very carefully about what it is about a home that is important to you and your family, not to your neighbour or your sister-in-law, and certainly not to a future buyer; especially if that result means that your home will be fundamentally very similar, if not essentially the same as 90 per cent of the other homes in your street.
Like a lot of developed countries, house sizes in Australia are getting bigger, despite the fact that the average household size is getting smaller. Most of the new blocks of land that are being developed are also getting smaller, especially so in metropolitan areas. This combination of bigger homes on smaller blocks, combined with higher building costs, has contributed to the‘McMansion’ phenomenon. Some of these homes will claim to be architect designed, however most will have been designed as part of a portfolio of home designs rather than to a unique client brief. These portfolio designs tend to play it safe in that they are generally designed for the masses so that they have a broader appeal. Unfortunately, one of the underlying goals seems to be that bigger is better.
Rather than doing what everyone else is doing with a view to predicting what a future buyer may want or trying to match it with your neighbours, I would argue that building something unique and tailored to your needs is a better idea and can work to your advantage in the long run. Why build a four or five bedroom home for resale reasons if you only need a three bedroom home; especially if everybody else is doing the same thing? So long as you don’t build a lighthouse or dungeon, you’re probably going to be just fine (and even a good man-cave will have a lot of appeal!).
I believe that building a slightly smaller, cost effective and high quality design is a better option for when it does come time to sell. Your home will be unique amongst a glut of larger homes on the market and although it may not sell for quite as much based on its size, if it is well built, well designed and offers a desirable point of difference, the difference in sale price may not be much. In some instances, the sale price may even be more for the uniqueness factor of building something different.
Read more: How to Love Your Home Just the Way It Is
Read more: How to Love Your Home Just the Way It Is
You won’t have as much competition and the home will be better positioned to avoid the inevitable price discounting that occurs when there are a lot of similar properties on the market; and as it will have cost you less to build, a small difference in the sale price will balance out.
There are many benefits to a smaller home. Firstly, it is likely to cost less to build, which helps to minimise the potential stress occurring from over-borrowing, or, simply allows for higher quality finishes and fittings and custom design elements.
Importantly, smaller homes also have the potential to help build stronger family relationships due to the fact that family members will be sharing spaces more often rather than having multiple options to escape each other. People of my grandparents’ generation would often speak of the closeness of their family – and I suspect that that closeness was created in large part by the physical closeness that was the reality of growing up in relatively small homes where siblings often shared bedrooms and media rooms didn’t exist. That generation had little choice but to learn to live together and share the spaces they lived in.
Read more: Live Big in a Small House: 25 Tricks to Expand Your Space
Read more: Live Big in a Small House: 25 Tricks to Expand Your Space
Think carefully about the type of environment you want to create for your family to grow up in. Do you want them actually living together and getting to know each other or are you happy for everybody to be able to hide away from each other?
I’m not suggesting that we should be going back to poky little homes with one bathroom and the kids all sharing one bedroom, but I do think that we need to be thinking carefully about how big our homes are getting and what our real needs are. Bigger is often not better.
TELL US
Do you live in a big house or a small house? Would you change where you live?
MORE PLANNING TIPS
8 Studios That Prove Small Can Be Stylish
Mental Tricks to Help You Outsmart Your Small Space
5 Reasons Renovating Costs More Than Building From Scratch
I’m not suggesting that we should be going back to poky little homes with one bathroom and the kids all sharing one bedroom, but I do think that we need to be thinking carefully about how big our homes are getting and what our real needs are. Bigger is often not better.
TELL US
Do you live in a big house or a small house? Would you change where you live?
MORE PLANNING TIPS
8 Studios That Prove Small Can Be Stylish
Mental Tricks to Help You Outsmart Your Small Space
5 Reasons Renovating Costs More Than Building From Scratch