Lack Of Homes Pushes People To Build New Custom Homes In Collingwood Area

If you are looking to move up to the Collingwood/Thornbury/Town of The Blue Mountains area and you just started looking at real estate, you might be disappointed at the utter lack of houses that are for sale in the area.

This is because there are simply not enough homes in the area for the amount of people that want to move here. There is also not a lot of people that are moving out of the area to go somewhere else. There has been enough development in infrastructure that people of all ages can now live here.

This has created a scenario that has seen the price of homes rise and the demand for those homes rise as well. Supply and demand in action.

What is a person to do if they can't find a house that properly suits their needs?

You could always build yourself a new house.

That's right you could build a new custom home for yourself. There are still pieces of property inside and outside of town that you can buy and build a new house on.

How do you get started?

1. Look on the real estate listings for a home that will suit your family, if you can't find anything there then you might need to build a new home.
2. Once you have decided on building a new home you will need to figure out what your budget is, remember that a new custom home might cost you a little more then buying a used home, but its a brand new home not something some else has already used.
3. Start looking around through the real estate listings for the perfect piece of property to build a new custom home on, this is were real estate agents really come in handy. Remember that the cost of your lot will come out of the new home budget.
4. Find yourself an architect/builder. Why do I say both? Because you need at least one of them, an architect can find you a builder, but also a builder can find you an architect. They both can advise you on how much building a new home will cost and what you can afford.
5. Once you have both then you can plan your new home and budget for it.This might take longer then you think as architects are fairly busy these days, every time you change the drawings or adjust something in the plan you extend the design time that it takes to get the plan completed.
6. Secure your financing. If you don't have the luxury of having all the money already to build your new home then you will need to take your plans and the budget that your builder has given you to a financial institution for funds. Do not make the mistake of taking less money then what your builder has budgeted. Thinking that you will com under budget is a mistake. You might come under budget in your build but if you don't then there will be a point in the build where you run out of money and the build will come to a stop until you can secure more funding.
7. Get your permits. This might take sometime depending on how many different organizations will be involved (municipal building department, conservation authority, escarpment committee).
8. Build your new home.

It sounds easy and its not actually very hard it just takes some time and patience. Remember one thing about building a new custom home, in the end it might cost you more then a re-sale home but as soon as your new home is completed its probably worth more then what you paid to have it built.

This entire process will go smoother with the right companies, find the right ones for each step and the process will be a lot smoother and less stressful.

If your moving to the area and want to build a custom home send us an email and let us help.

Rob

Village Builders Inc.

Mistakes When Buying Real Estate

When you are looking at a home to buy in the type of real estate market that is today, (a market where there isn't a lot of homes for sale and the price of those homes has risen with the market demand) don't start projecting your dream home on to it.

What do I mean by "projecting your dream home" on a resale home? It means that you look at a home and you start envisioning all the renovations that you would do to it to make it your own.

Now this is a common practice with home buyers, to envision what a home could look like with some changes, but what starts to happen in a tight market (with limited homes for sale) is people start changing everything about the house.

Recently I have been asked for prices from people that wanted to buy homes that wanted me to give them a budget price on renovation work on older homes in the area. The problem is that its not just renovation work that people want they also want to add square footage so the budget price includes an addition. Additions are far and away a lot more money then most of the renovations that are asked for by the potential buyers.
In the end the budget ends up being almost as much as some of the houses that are for sale. These budgets run well into the hundreds of thousands and it ends up throwing a monkey wrench into the deal.

When you are looking to buy a home and you ask a contractor to work up a budget for you be careful what you tell them. If you tell them an endless stream of changes that you want to the house because that is what your dream is then they (the contractor) will work out the cost based on what you have asked for and that can end up being a lot of money all at once.

What you should be doing is putting them into 3 categories;

1. Immediate repairs. These are things that need to be fixed before you can move in or fairly quickly after you move in, these would be leaky roofs, leaky foundations, broken furnaces, broken windows, etc.
2. Updates and making the home functional. People are pretty resilient, they will adapt to pretty much anything but it doesn't make life easier or more functional. These things are new room layouts, moving the laundry room, new kitchen, new plumbing, new electrical, new bathrooms, updating insulation, refinishing floors, painting. Houses should be updated and renovated every 15 to 20 years, that's not just for resale but also because everything wears out and will need to be replaced. So unless you bought a house that had just been renovated then you have to figure on renovating the major areas in the house within so many years of moving in. 
3. Long term Plans. These are plans that will cost a lot more money then you are willing to spend, these plans can change overtime with your life. Examples of this are adding more square footage to the home (an addition). Or building a garage or carport on the property, also demolishing part of the house to rebuild it is a longer term plan. These big ticket items should always be considered part of the longer term, it allows you to save money and properly design something so that you get the most bang for your buck when you fully commit. Additions can a lot of times be added to your home while you still live there, to a certain extent.

If you were to take the rather large budget that you were given by your contractor about the house you want to buy and break it down into those three categories then you can see if spreading out the spending overtime makes sense when buying the home. After decades of spending money on it will you get your money out of it at the end when you sell it? Does spreading the money around for years mean that you can actually afford to spend that money? Do you want to spend that much money over a longer period of time or do you want to spend your money all at once to get it over with?

Deciding on what you want to do renovation wise will help clarify if you can afford to buy the home and also if the house actually will work for you now and in the long term.

Rob
Village Builders Inc.

Are you looking to buy a home but are having trouble figuring out how much it will cost to fix up?

Are you looking to buy a home but are having trouble figuring out how much it will cost to fix up?

This is a problem that most people have when they have decided to buy a home. It doesn’t matter if it is your first home or your tenth; there is a simple process to figuring out the cost.

First things first, when looking to buy a house that is not brand new you must understand that there is no warranty on the home. When you buy that home you own the home and all the things that could go with the home. If something breaks in the home while you own it you don’t get to go back to the people you bought it from and say “the stove in the kitchen broke and I only owned the house for a week, I think you should buy me a new one!”

There is basically no guarantee on anything in the home; you will need to make certain assumptions when you are going to buy it.

The general rule of thumb is that you should be renovating your home every 12 to 15 years. That might sound like a contractor trying to get you to spend money on renovations but if you think about it things start to wear out in a home after 10 to 12 years. Whether its tubs, toilets or the finish on hardwood floors with use and abuse things get damaged and warn out. Style’s and trends change in homes faster than 10 to 12 years.
Since the average homeowner only owns their home for 7 years before they sell it and move on your going to want to renovate to maximize the re-sale value of your home.

With that in mind you should walk through a potential house and take notes on everything you see.

You will want to make a list, your list is quite simple, and you should break it down into 3 categories.

The first category is the things that have to be done right away or within the first year that you are going to live there, these things include; Painting, immediate repairs, changing a furnace and anything that you will need to do to live in the house before your furniture is brought in.

The second category; are things that you need to do in the first 5 years of living in the home. These are things like bathroom renovations, re-shingling an aging roof or updating the appliances in the home.

The third category; are things that you would like to do in the next ten years, basically anything you want to do to the house before you re-sell it.

The first two categories are the easiest to price, get in touch with a contractor and talk to them about what you want to do to the house immediately and in the next 5 years. They should be able to give you a ballpark figure on what a lot of those things would cost. Obviously there are some things that you can do yourself like painting, but fixing roofs or waterproofing in the basement should be done by a professional.

The third category is harder because these things are so far down the road you never count on the costs staying the same. This category you will just have to make an educated guess on, make the guess to the nearest $10,000. The third category is a guide line of what you think can do to the house and if you can afford it.

Looking at your three categories the first and maybe the second you might want to include into the price of the home so that you have the option to add it to your mortgage. The third category is so far down the road that your financial situation might be completely different at that point.

Now that you know the cost of things that need to be done to the house add that cost to your proposed mortgage payment and decide if you can afford it. The worst thing people can do is buy a house that needs so much work that they can’t afford to do the work and are forced to live in a broken house. It gets worse for them when they go to sell it, something that needed to be fixed or replaced only looks worse with time and use. The value of the home decreases significantly as time passes.

When you are looking to buy that home, plan to make a list if you fail to plan then you might as well plan to fail.

Rob Abbott
Operations Manager
Village Builders Inc.