Balancing Wants vs. Needs When Building a Home

It’s easy to get carried away when building your own home. However, be wary of the Batman syndrome – adding gizmos, gadgets, secret doors, and false floors is costly and unnecessary. Metaphors aside, some home builders often lose sight of what they need in their home construction, focusing instead on what they want at that moment and in the end their budget suffers.

Planning of this sort is something that should occur very early in the home building process. Preferably, you will know what you want versus what you need long before architectural plans are even drawn for your home. This is the figurative foundation of your home building experience. But adding changes later in the home building process can be costly and time consuming. It is in your best interest, on a number of levels to pre-plan as much as possible.

The first thing to do is: know your budget and know what fits into it. You (and whomever you’re building with) should make a list of things that you cannot live without – those things that are the reason you’re building this home. A breakfast nook in which to do crosswords or perhaps a fireplace, are things that you definitely want even at the expense of other features. A home office is a necessity for some people, a three-car garage for others. If you are planning on having a family, don’t forget to account for the living space they’ll need.
Once you have a list of needs, make a list of wants (again, together, if you’re building with somebody else). These are things that you’d love to have if you have the money to afford them. Maybe some of them aren’t that expensive, and that’s okay. This is a “big picture” budgetary stage.
After these lists are made, it’s fairly simple to assign dollar values to each of the “needs” items, total it up, and see how much leeway you have in your “wants” list.

There are some things that you ought to consider when making these lists. Actually, all of these things pertain to the “needs” list. For some reason, home builders rarely have trouble forming a comprehensive “wants” list. First, the needs of others living with you (if any) ought to be considered. If you have a family, or if you plan on starting one, you need to think about where they are going to live, eat and where their personal space will be. Also, if you work from home or plan on working from home, make sure you have a space set aside for it. Overall, think about resale value, current and future usage, and budget constraints, this will allow you to have a good general overview of your wants versus needs.