New Homes Billings MT

Move in Ready Home

The Right House Plans

Choosing your home is one of the most exciting things that you can do in life. There are many things to consider that make it fun and exciting for your and your family.

Building your home can be even more rewarding because it gives you the opportunity to customize it to suit your lifestyle. You can decide on so many aspects that will make your new home the perfect place for you and your family to live and enjoy. However, because of the myriad of choices for you to make, it can also be overwhelming.

Here are some things to consider that will help take the stress out of finding the right house plans to fit your needs.

First, and maybe the most obvious factor to consider is what size home you need.

Rimrock House PlanNot every family needs a big, huge mansion, but not every family wants a small, 2-bedroom cottage either. Choosing a floor plan for your new home starts with taking into account your lifestyle. How many bedrooms and bathrooms you need will determine the square footage of your home, which will directly affect the cost. Figuring out the size is the first thing you need to consider.

The next factor to look at is style.

What type of home do you want? Are you only interested in a single level, rancher type home? Do you like having an upstairs and a downstairs? Attached garage or no garage at all? Do you like a more traditional, compartmentalized floor plan, or are you interested in a modern, open floor plan? You will also want to take your furniture and furnishings into account when choosing the type of home that you want to build.

The location of your new home will also impact what style you ultimately decide to go with.

Single-family homes with nice outdoor spaces like a backyard and driveway are typical of certain areas and more urban areas might entail a condo or brownstone type design. Split-level homes are also more common in certain areas than others, depending upon what city you live in. You will obviously need to have some continuity with the rest of your neighborhood, in the event that you are building in a neighborhood. If you are building a new home out in the country, then chances are you will have a lot more freedom to choose any type of design that you desire.

Another thing that you need to keep in mind is that there is no ‘perfect’ floor plan.

Each plan you look at will have advantages and disadvantages. Making a list of what your priorities are will help you figure out what you can live without and what you cannot. For example, having a large, open living room with a lot of natural light is a good thing. However, this can also serve to drive up the cost of your utility bill. An open floor plan can make it more expensive to hear and cool your home. There are pros and cons to every floor plan that you will look at, so just keep in mind that nothing is perfect.

Choosing the right plan for YOU is the most important thing.

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Make sure you choose your floor plan based upon your activities and lifestyle rather than things like finishes and furnishings. Items such as counter tops and appliances can always be changed later on down the road, but your floor plan is permanent. Don’t be wowed by custom flooring or carpeting when you are making your decision. Instead, be wowed by the flow of the rooms and how you and your family is going to utilize them.

Also keep in mind that it is ok to seek assistance and ask peoples opinions.

There are professionals who have a lot of experience in building homes that can go over various features with you. Start with your home-builder or other real estate professionals who can answer your questions based on experience. There is a lot of knowledge out there to be had, don’t be afraid to seek it out and use it. What might seem like a difficult question to you is probably something that your home-builder has dealt with many times in the past.

House PlansOnce you know your floor plan, now is the time to take your furniture into account.

Will you be using your old furniture or buying all new? Furniture is a major investment with tons of options that can be overwhelming, so take this into account and start planning the furniture to match your desired floor plan. You may end up finding out that the floor plan is not as ideal as you thought it might be when you find out what new furniture will cost to furnish it.

With choosing the floor plan and furniture, will also come budget considerations. All of us obviously wan the biggest and best that we can get when it comes to building a home, but most of us are also limited by budget. Before you get your hear set on something, make sure you find out the costs associated with building your new home.

You should be able to work with your contractor to lay out the costs in great detail so that there will be no surprises once you make your decision to move forward. Nothing is worse than finding out that you can’t afford what you thought was your perfect home.

Keep in mind you can also modify floor plans at times to help fit your budget. Your floor plan does not always have to be etched in stone.

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Custom Home Build Features

Being at home and enjoying it is a priority for a great many people. It should be.

We spend a lot of our life times at home and relaxing inside as well as outside your home should be one of the most enjoyable experiences in life. However, to ensure that you get the most possible out of your home, many people look into a custom home build. In this manner, you can have the features that you want, and the features that mean the most to you and your family.

Building a custom home offers you complete control over every aspect from the design and layout to the features and fixtures.

Obviously there are many things to consider with a custom home build. There are basic things like the amount of bedrooms and bathrooms, the size of the garage, as well as the layout of the kitchen, laundry room, and family room. But there are also some smaller aspects and details that you should think about that can make a big difference in building a home that you can enjoy for many years to come.

Here are some features that you might not think of right off the bat, but they are ones that you may be happy you didn’t overlook once your dream home is finished.

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custom home build covered porch
custom home build covered porch

First, consider what you need from the outside of your home. Many people spend hours upon hours considering every last detail about the interior when they build their custom home. However, you will also be spending time outside you home as well. Rather than a deck, consider a covered porch.

Covered porches can be a great way to utilize additional living space, and depending on the area of the country that you live in, you may find that you spend a lot of time on your porch if you construct it correctly.

Covered porches are particularly useful if you have a large family, or if you do a lot of entertaining.

You can easily add a covered porch to your custom build that you and your family and friends will spend many happy hours on. Plus it gets you outside a bit more and it is easier to clean than the interior of your house.

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Another very small detail that many people overlook is power outlets. Have you ever noticed that many of the houses that you have lived in over the years either don’t have a sufficient amount of power outlets or have them in all the wrong places? Most people don’t even consider power outlets when it comes to designing the electrical aspects of a home, but have accessible power outlets for everything from your cell phone to your vacuum cleaner is something that can make life a lot easier. The kitchen is another place where having more, instead of less, power outlets will always come in handy.

Take the time to plan out where you can place additional outlets during the early stages of designing your custom home and you will be happier with the result later on.

Flooring is another feature that sometimes gets overlooked in custom home design. These days, many people are going to hardwood floors in most of their home rather than carpet. Making sure you select the right style for you and your family is crucial and can take a lot of planning and research. Of course you want your floors to look good, but you also want them to be functional, as well as easy to clean. Your flooring should last a long time and be able to withstand a lot of wear and tear.

Think about the high traffic areas and consider using different flooring in those areas than the more decorative flooring you might use elsewhere. Flooring doesn’t seem like a big deal, but it can make or break your new custom home and it also needs to last you for as many years as possible.

custom home build lighting
custom home build lighting

Custom lighting is another is another aspect that doesn’t immediately come to mind, but can make a huge impact on your custom built home. In decades past, it was more about just making sure you had adequate lighting in each room, but with all the advances in technology, it is easy to create some incredible ambient lighting in your house. You should also think about accent lighting in certain places and also making allowances for smart lighting that can pair with things like Alexa and other smart devices are features that you can really utilize. There are so many more things to consider when it comes to lighting that in the past seemed like they might be more part of a science fiction novel than your actual home. Don’t skimp in this area and you will create some very unique features.

Speaking of smart lighting, keyless entry is another newer feature that many people are adding with a custom home build. Nobody disputes the fact that life can be a lot easier without having to worry about where you left your keys, and there are many keyless entry systems available. Keyless entry is also useful when adding a security system to your house and it also makes it easier for people such as house keepers, pet caretakers and other service providers to access your home.

There are many more details and features that can be added to your new, custom built home. Working with a professional builder is the first step in the right direction, because builders have the experience of knowing what features are the most important and which ones work the best in certain settings.

Don’t be afraid to get the opinion of the professionals when it comes to designing your home and adding features to it.

There is a reason why you have partnered with a builder and you should take advantage of all their experience and knowledge.

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Move In ready Home

If you have been looking at homes in Billings MT, you have probably seen the term ‘Move in Ready’.

Obviously, if you are looking at moving, you want a home that you can live in right away, unless of course you are building a new house. You don’t want to have to make a lot of changes, you don’t want to have to wait for various aspects of the home to be repaired, you want to move in and live there!

But, what does a move in ready home actually mean?

Move in ready is a term that gets thrown around often in the real estate market, but what it actually means can depend a great deal on who is talking and who is using the term. Move in ready can mean a pretty wide range of things to different people and you don’t want to buy a house that you think is move in ready and find out that it isn’t.

For some, move in ready means that everything in the house is freshly renovated and updated to not only reflect the newest styles and trends, but to also reflect the fact that things like appliances and window treatments are new and will have no problems or issues.

For others, move in ready may simply mean that all the appliance actually work, regardless of age! Some people may define move in ready as having all the paint colors in all the rooms redone to match tastes and/or current trends and it wouldn’t be move in ready if this type of work still needed to be done.

You can probably see that it is hard to exactly pinpoint what move in ready means because it depends a lot upon who is using the phrase.

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To help with this, we have compiled some guidelines and definitions that will help you navigate what is really being said when you are searching for your next ‘move in ready’ home.

remodeled kitchenYou should start by always taking ‘move in ready’ at face value. Just because a kitchen has been remodeled and the walls painted, does not mean that the home couldn’t possibly have structural damages for example.

Move in ready will generally take on a more cosmetic meaning than if will structural meaning so keep in mind that you will need to inspect aspects of the house other than what you can see with the naked eye.

Don’t forgo a home inspection just because you have been told that the home is move in ready and you can see the remodeling that has been done.

Be prepared to describe to your real estate agent what ‘move in ready’ means to you. Because definitions vary, be prepared to discuss what you expect in your new home. If you are looking at houses in an area where most of them are 20-30 years old, you can expect that they will need updating, and maybe some serious updating. Once appliances, particularly things like hot water heaters get to be of a certain age, they may need to be replaced at a drop of a hat.

The same goes for color schemes, particularly when it comes to carpet. Carpet that was laid in the mid 90’s is probably going to be sorely outdated when it comes to color. If those types of issues are important to you, you need to be sure and relay this fact to the agent that you are working with.

Different strokes for different folks, and this is especially true when it comes to houses and how up to date they are.

If you are really selective when it comes to finding a move in ready home in pristine condition, you may want to alter your search from looking at older, pre-owned homes, to new construction. This way you can either add your own preferences or simply have the house built to your tastes in the first place.

Many builders will offer homes, particularly in newer subdivisions, that are almost finished. This allows the potential buyer to finish off the home to suit their tastes instead of being stuck with whatever the builder decided on.

Timelines can be a concern in cases like this if you are under pressure to move by a certain date, but most builders in these cases want to make the sale and will work hard to accommodate you and your needs.

If you are in love with an area but yet having a hard time finding a home that you view as move in ready, you might have to consider lowering your expectations a bit and living with a little ‘ugly’ for a while. Sure, it is nice to move into a home with all new carpeting and freshly painted walls, but this is also stuff that can be done over time while you are living there, especially the painting.

It’s not the end of the world if the bathrooms are not all painted to suit your tastes, and it can be fun to work on some of these aspects yourself after you have purchased your home. It may be worth it to live in an area that is, for example, closer to your work, or close to your children’s school.

There are trade offs to everything (unless you have an unlimited supply of money) and you may need to decide what is more important to you and your family.

Overall, finding a place that is move in ready can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. You may have to remain somewhat flexible in what you are looking for and your definition of the term, and it may make financial sense to do so.

Remember, finding a perfect home is tough. Finding a home that you can live with that you and your family will be happy in is the main thing, and whether it is a move in ready home or not, you need to take all the factors into consideration before jumping in and making the purchase.

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