A home is more than a place where you live. It's more than a place to store your furniture, it's a piece of your family and it should be catered to the life you want. You want a home that can make your life better and that comes from your wish list. Establishing a wish list is a powerful tool that will help you prioritize what's best for you and your family. Below, we've got some handy tips on the composition of a wish list, figuring out what's important to your lifestyle and how to prioritize your needs and wants.
Composition of a wish list
There's two main parts of the wish list; your needs and your wants.
First, let's define what you need in a new home. Start with thinking of the things in your current home that are lacking and driving you towards considering a new home. Need better access to major roadways? Require more space in your garage? Need another bedroom on the upper floor? These items are typically quite tangible and very objective. This will help you start to figure out how big a home you need, what part of the city you can call home and the basics of deciding on floor plans.
Secondly we can define your wants. Your wants are items that aren't necessarily items that 'make or break' your decision, they're items you dream about. A long kitchen island for Saturday afternoon baking, a spa like master retreat to escape the world or a theatre room for catching up on Netflix.
A theatre room is a popular 'want' that many clients pursue.
What's important to your lifestyle?
Now that we're actively thinking about how a home could be made around you, we should answer a few questions.
- What could the home include that would make your life easier? For example, if you and your family enjoy being active an exercise room would be utilized frequently.
- What items can you include that would make your life better? Could it be that you've always loved cooking, and want a kitchen that allows you to explore culinary endeavors?
Both of these questions can offer multiple answers and that's great!
Having a home gym in a dedicated exercise room helps with the goal of being more active.
Prioritizing your wish list
We've now figured out what you need in a new home and how a new home can advance your life for the better. Now comes the hardest part of the wish list process, defining parts of your wish list are more important than others. First, start with the 'needs.' These should be fairly straightforward and easy to arrange in priority order. Also, most home builders can satisfy most of your simple needs such as a larger garage or fourth bedroom, so the needs list is usually a bit easier to fulfill. After you've ordered your 'needs', we can start to review your 'wants.' Typically this is where you'll struggle to say what's more important. That's perfectly okay and should be happening. Think about your life and who you want to be, picture that in your mind and then order the 'wants.'
Now that you've got your wish list in priority order, you can discuss with your builder and they should be able to provide you pricing details as well as preliminary drawings quite easily. From here, you can re-prioritize based on other factors like value and difficulty.
Ready to start your wish list? Download our Wish list template to get started!
