The Nederpelt Family’s Case Study
When it comes to home ownership, individuals and their families will approach this milestone differently. For some, buying an established home fits their current needs. For others, building a new home is quite literally a dream come true.
Building and designing your home from the ground up is an incredibly rewarding experience. Rather than making compromises with existing houses, you can play a vital role in the placement of everything from windows to closets.
By building with Plunkett Homes, the Nederpelt family experienced all the benefits of building their new home firsthand. The result? A beautiful Hamptons Style home they always wanted that matched form with function and importantly, a home that can withstand the test of time and changing family dynamics.
The benefits of building a new home
Building a new home is an incredibly rewarding process. There are of course monetary incentives thanks to rules and regulations surrounding stamp duty and government incentives. However, there are also personal incentives.
Rather than a cookie cutter home, you can create a home that fits around your lifestyle, laying the foundation for you to live seamlessly. Something that, even after a short period of time in their new home, the Nederpelts are already experiencing.
1. Create the style that suits your needs
One of the main incentives of building a home is the fact that you can create a style that suits your needs. This is especially important when you consider that no two families are the same.
Some families might like to live, work and eat meals altogether while other families may enjoy living and working in separate areas of the home. For Nikita, designing a home to suit the needs of family was paramount.
“I think once we started having a look on the internet and looking into what the build process would entail we were attracted to the idea that we could design and build a house around the way we like to live,” said Nikita.
The benefits that creating a style that suits your needs provides are numerous. As Nikita said, “having our own custom home, it makes it feel more homely, this is a space that we’ve created especially for us so it feels special.”
2. Pay less stamp duty
Another benefit of building a new home is the fact that stamp duty is often less when compared to buying an established home. This is because when building, you only pay stamp duty on the land, not on the house you are building.
3. Government incentives
There are also government incentives in place that provide benefits to those building homes. As such, initiatives like the First Home Owners Grant provide a payment to assist individuals looking to build a new property as their primary residence.
4. Create a harmonised look and feel for your home with the expert advice of an interior designer
To ensure the effectiveness of the building process, Plunkett Homes breaks down the process into steps. One of those steps is a design consultation. This means that an expert is on hand to guide you through the interior design process.
By having access to expert advice, you can create a home that not only exudes harmony, but feels as if it was designed by a professional. The ability to collaborate with someone who can explain what will and won’t work is invaluable.
“The biggest impact was Adriana, (from Plunkett Homes interior design service) she had such an impact on every element of the home. She really helped us from top to bottom and she’s still helping us now,” said Nikita.
5. Create functional spaces
Families such as the Nederpelts need functional spaces that can actually assist in everyday aspects of life. This means creating areas that can aid in preparing dinner or completing a timely school drop off.
By choosing to build their home rather than buying an established home, the Nederpelt family was able to create specific functional areas that were moulded around their lifestyle. One example of a functional space in the Nederpelt home is the ‘drop-zone’.
“We wanted there to be a drop-zone that was out of sight and that was practical. I probably best notice the functionality of the home working well in the busy mornings as I do the morning drop off with the kids. I’m hustling kids out the door so it’s really handy to go down our gallery to the bench seat, get your shoes out of your drawer, put your shoes on and go straight out the garage door into the car. That’s efficient,” said Nikita.
6. Create the perfect outdoors – design your house so that the indoors opens to the outdoors
One of the great modern trends is creating a seamless transition between the indoor and outdoor portions of your home. While established homes may not have this, when you build your own home, you can create a home that invites you to come outside.
7. Design with growth in mind
There is a certain freedom that comes with building your own house. This is largely because you can create spaces that will grow and change with your family. When designing their family home, Nikita said they were “just trying to make sure that the house was designed so that it could grow as our family grew and we could change the spaces to suit where everyone was at at a different stage of life.”
8. Expect less maintenance for the next 5-10 years
When it comes to building a home, it’s important to look into all aspects of the budget. For example, investing in quality materials. While the cost may be higher in the beginning, there are benefits in the long run. For one, longer lasting home features that require less effort to maintain. Especially when compared to established homes complete with older features.
9. Working with a reputable builder – what is the best advice the Nederpelts could give
One of the main incentives of building a home is the fact that you can create a style that suits your needs. This is especially important when you consider that no two families are the same.
A key to building your dream home is working with a reputable builder. Builder’s are directly responsible for bringing your dreams to life. With this in mind, you want to trust them with your vision.
“If our friends or family asked us who to build with if they were going to build a home, we would recommend Plunkett Homes. It’s been an overall very positive experience and we’ve ended up with a beautiful home. I think they’ve done what they said they would do every step of the way,” Nikita said.
As for their advice for those starting their own building journey, the Nederpelts stressed the importance of always asking questions in order to understand the fundamentals and the reasons behind decisions.
“Don’t be afraid to lean on all the experts around you and ask questions and clarify things so then you’re aware of things as they’re happening through the process,” Travis said.
“The advice I would give is don’t feel constrained by the plan. It was great to have the floor plan to give us some parameters and to show us what could work on a particular block, but it was fine to make tweaks,” Nikita said.
The cons of building instead of buying
While building a home turned out to be an incredibly rewarding process for the Nederpelt family, they did have some fears in the beginning. For Nikita, these fears centred around “having to make decisions based on a plan and not being able to see it in real life.”
For Travis, he was “nervous about the fact that I’m not in the building industry so I just thought we were going to miss something or wouldn’t understand anything about the plans.”
Building your dream home with Plunkett
Home ownership is one of life’s great milestones. To get the most out of this rewarding process, people are increasingly opting to build their own home. As opposed to established homes, newly built residences offer individuals a wealth of opportunities.
This statement rings true for the Nederpelt family. Rather than buying a home, they opted to build their dream home from the ground up with Plunkett Homes. While they had some reservations in the beginning, the process was seamless and ultimately, very rewarding.
Where there was once vacant land now stands a home that has been customised to the needs of each member of the Nederpelt family. Providing them with the foundation needed to enjoy everything life has to offer, today, tomorrow and well into the future.
