18 Jun 2011

Mull over first and you will be a happier person

A man's home is his castle or so the saying goes.

Before you go ahead build that dream castle, you need to first decide which route do you want to take: i) buy a pre-loved unit; ii) buy a new unit from the developer/owner or iii) buy a land and then build the house.

Design-wise with the first two routes, you are basically stuck with what the developer has conceived. When you do your rounds on the show houses, you imagine what you can and want to do with each living area as you move from one space to another. On the grander scheme of things, you need to decide whether the ubiquitous pseudo Roman pillars are your thing or not. And as if to compound that issue further, you now have to limit your imagination in terms of what you can do in the backyard because the land is only enough for a clothes line or two. Some members in the house may have to share rooms, if you have a large family that is. But, there are few of us who already prefer the condo lifestyle i.e. safe, no garden to tend to, in-house swimming pool, gymnasium, laundromat and even a multi-purpose hall.

The one on the right has peanuts but he might prefer full caramel (Apple iPhone 3GS)

The third option gives you a bit more leeway. You buy a land, engage an architect, design a blueprint that you specify and then build. Actually, that's a lot of leeway. Only, the journey is not as straightforward as the first two options'. Procuring the land can take a long time unless you have a pocket that is as deep as the Mariana Trench. Everyone has a budget and every tract of land has a price tag. The kind of price that you are willing to part money for may end you up somewhere far in the jungle. As a rule of thumb, the closer the land is to civilisation, the more expensive it is. And then, the architect. Which architecture style tickles your fancy or maybe rather, what is your taste like? You then together with the architect develop the design and erect the building. So, yeah, it doesn't sound that easy does it? In fact, it begs the question why would anyone want to go through that.

In the quest to find the right house, there will be many considerations to make. Issues like what kind of lifestyle would I lead or what do I like to do in my free time or how can I make the house functional or how many cars would I have in the driveway would come to mind. These are to quote some examples.

In our case, after a long and hard deliberation, we decided to go with the last approach. Yes, building it. The bottom line is, do yourself a big favour by allocating a budget and have a real think through for the type of dwelling unit you wish for yourself and your family, if you have one or are planning about having one in the future.

Not an easy decision to make (Apple iPhone 3GS)

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