You’ll find a website with home plans, photos, spec sheets, articles and a lot of practical help at:

RickAndersonHomes.com

Check it out.  I think you’ll be glad you did.

What is the biggest single reason people ultimately decide to have their retirement home built?  Perhaps some visual aides will make the point best.

Not everyone has the same concept of architectural beauty.  Some like a traditional architecture, and others like . . . well . . . something else.

What is your idea of a beautiful custom designed kitchen?

These photos represent luxury homes in the upper price ranges.  Unless you fall in love with a unique design, you are unlikely to want to pay for someone else’s idea of a dream home.

Some people like log homes, but even among those who do, their tastes and preferences are decidedly different.  Does this catch your eye?  More than that, would you be willing to pay a high price for someone else’s unique log design?  It’s actually a hybrid of log and frame.

The kitchen is clearly one of the most important rooms in your home, so this is where people tend to customize their design, the cabinets, and the countertops, and it’s easy to get turned off by someone else’s kitchen plan.  Just another reason to build your own kitchen from scratch.

The living room or great room is also a major factor for homebuyers, and buyers are usually impressed, turned off, or feel nothing when they walk into a home for the first time.  If the living room doesn’t instantly delight you with feelings of comfort and peace, move on. 

I’ve seen some really impressive luxury homes, but not necessarily something I would want to live in.  When you buy someone else’s design, it never really feels like it’s entirely your own.  Of course, you can redecorate or rehab or completely rebuild a kitchen, for example, but then you’ve just bought it twice.  Why do that when you can design your own and pay for it once?

Granted, these photos are of unique designs, but they are certainly not wierd or way out.  These are designs within the universe of homes for sale. 

My point is that any luxury home, or home in the upper price ranges, is someone else’s design, and while you may look at something more traditional than what I’ve displayed in these photos, you’ll still have the same issues. 

Want to look at more floor plans for the Northwest?  For floor plans, photos, and descriptions, take a look at RickAndersonHomes.com.  I think you’ll be glad you did. 

I’ve written elsewhere about Why Building a Home Now is Smart, and that it’s A Buyer’s Market in Sequim, and I wrote articles here about Low Interest Rates and The Perfect Storm, but who would ever have guessed that interest rates would be at levels as low as half a century ago?

I believe that when the market starts to breath again, inflation will slowly bring prices upward, but one of the first economic variables to go up is usually interest rates, so don’t be surprised if they dip as the are now to sub-five percent, and then level and start to climb in 2009.

Now is a wise time to build your retirment home if you are in a position to do so.

Update:  It appears that the possiblility of inflation is also something experts are predicting:

Robert Higgs at the Independent Institute notes the massive spike in excess bank reserves, from $2 billion to $559 billion, and wonders what happens once that money finds its way back into the real world:

At matters now stand, by far the greater threat is rapid inflation, notwithstanding the ongoing recession. When the banks begin to feel more comfortable with expanding the volume of their conventional loans and investments, they will have more than $550 billion on hand to employ for that purpose. The multiplied effect of such a vast amount of lending, as newly created deposits make their way through the fractional-reserve banking system, portends a gargantuan increase in the money stock and hence a correspondingly enormous jump in the general price level. As the public responds to the acceleration of inflation by reducing its demand for cash balances, the increased velocity of monetary circulation will contribute to even more rapid price inflation.

So much potential new money is now impounded in the commercial banks’ holdings of excess reserves that it is difficult to see how the Fed will be able to stem the flood once the banks begin to transform those excess reserves into normal loans and investments. If the Fed attempts to sell enough government securities to soak up the growing money stock, it will drive down the prices of Treasury bonds and hence drive up their yield, increasing the government’s cost of borrowing to finance the huge budget deficits the government will be running because of its various bailout commitments and so-called stimulus programs. This scenario holds the potential for a complete monetary crackup. [Source of Quote, Read Full Story]

Perc Results	Fire Protection
Soils Report	Environmentally Sensitive Areas
Bluff Stability	Test Flood Plane
Toxic Waste	Test Wildlife Habitate (Owl Nests)
Buried Fuel Tanks	Industrial Noise
Road Work, Road Maintenance	Open Space/Forest Designation
Clearing Bypass/Freeway Construction	Agricultural Designation
Survey Removal	Airport Approach
Exact Size of Property (corners)	Final Plat Recorded
Power/Hook-up Fees	Timber Clause
Water/Hook-up Fees	Telephone Access/Cost
Escrow Note Collection	Well (private, community, utility)
Legal Access to Property	Release Clause/Partial Reconveyance
Covenants, Conditions & Restrictions	Possible Land Use Change
Re-Zone, Variance, Conditional Use	Financial Statement From Buyer
Zone Compatibility w/present use	Shoreline Management Act
Comprehensive Plan & Zone Change	Talk to Neighbors
Irrigation Ditches (run all/partial year?)	Timber Cruise & Value of Timber
Wet Lands	Geotechnical Report

]]> http://www.customhomesblog.com/buying-vacant-land/buying-land-vacant-land-checklist/feed/ http://www.customhomesblog.com/building-a-new-home/building-your-home-website-and-blog-help/ http://www.customhomesblog.com/building-a-new-home/building-your-home-website-and-blog-help/#comments Wed, 03 Dec 2008 15:49:00 +0000 admin http://www.customhomesblog.com/?p=47 If you are building a home in Sequim or Port Angeles, here is a great resource for you–a content rich website covering all the relevant issues, like prices and quality, and options.  Check out this short video:

Don’t make the mistake so many good people make by assuming things that are not true. Know up front what your builder will charge and how he charges.