As a home designer builders and homebuyers often ask me what is the best house plan for them. This is just such and open-ended question because homes are all unique like their homeowners are. It always depends on what stage of life you are in and what your buyer might be.

This is always the right answer but not the most popular one.

There are 3 controlling factors that control everything about you home. And all 3 factors must work together.

1.    Budget

2.    Locations

3.    Lifestyle

The first item to be considered is how much do you really have to spend on your home. You should always be under budget because you will always run over budget somehow. There are many things that will change your building budget that you will have no control over.

Wood and concrete prices are always changing even if you get a bid today, next week you may find that prices have moved up 8% from your estimate. Now if you budget is maxed out where is this extra money going to come from?

The second item to look at is the location. In real estate they tell you it’s all about location, location, location. The location of your home will have and impact on the exterior styling. Most places now have Architectural Review Boards in place to insure that you will build a home that fits the character and style of the other homes.

The one thing you must know is the ARB is there to help protect your homes value.

I will go into more about working with and ARB in a later blog posting. I have designed homes all across the Low Country and I believe that the ARB is one of the best things that a quality neighborhood can have.

Last but not least Lifestyle is the factor that will drive the budget and location. The home for the empty nester is going to be very different from the family with two kids and working parents. Even the first time homebuyer is looking for something entirely different from the empty nester.

Even within each sub niche you will find that each niche has many more sub niche. As and example I just did a home in Dunes West that was 12,498 sq ft under roof for a empty nest couple. They wanted the home as and investment and they do a lot of events for family and friends.

As you see there is no single house plans that is right for everybody. We each have our own unique idea of what our dream home is all about.