The closest you can get to having exactly what you want in a new house is to commission an architect to design one for you. But as you carefully pick and chose what you like, you still need to factor in what other people like. If you're not at least somewhat attuned to the market, your dream house can end up costing much more than you expect. Having to drop the price substantially to attract buyers when you eventually sell it means those fly-away roof lines were not just an expensive tour de force of engineering, they also ate up a good chunk of your equity.
"Unusual" in houses is not just a look, it also applies to a floor plan. For example, you may hate to cook, but having a closet-sized kitchen and a cavernous master suite--I once rented a house with this arrangement and I hated it--is not the choice that most buyers would make. They may want a sizeable master bedroom, but most people want a sizeable kitchen as well.
Separating the master suite from the other bedrooms may provide more privacy, but most buyers, especially those with young children, want the bedrooms close together, observed Los Angeles real estate broker Enzo Ricciardelli, who has handled the sale of many custom houses.
Planning for the eventual sale of a dream house is not, however, how most people approach such a project. Nonetheless, "the resale issue must be addressed early on," said Norman Smith, an architect in Washington DC, a community where people can move on a moment's notice and resale is a big issue with most buyers. "It must also be periodically readdressed because most people find as they get into the process of designing a custom house they want to add more, pump it up and make their house more idiosyncratic and individualized. But this may make it harder to sell.
"I tell my clients 'someone out there will appreciate this, but you won't get Joe Smith off the street to buy it right away.' I try to make them aware of the cost of their money if they can't sell their house right away and to weigh the cost of their life style and aesthetic against financial gain."
In many cases, Smith said, the "something different" that the client is after can be achieved with a more traditional floor plan and room sizes and very unusual and individualized treatment of surfaces--walls, floors, cabinetry and countertops. "This can give a lot more bang for the buck than clients realize. Even more importantly from a resale perspective, they can be easily removed and replaced by a future buyer."
Incorporating a strategy similar to Smith's, Orinda, California architect Richard Bartlett said that when a client wants something truly unusual, "I make it a special part of the house that could easily be remodeled by the next owners. If it's done really well, the next buyers may like it," he added.
"Sometimes, though, when a client asks for something unusual, you find you can deliver it in a more conventional and less costly way if you dig enough and ask enough questions," Bartlett said.
Another pitfall in custom housing that can affect resale, noted Chicago architect Carl Hunter, is trendy details that eventually become dated, and in some cases ridiculous.
Ten years ago when Hunter worked in Los Angeles, "owners wanted as tall an entrance door as you could have. They wanted a 14 to 16-foot high door or panels above the doors to make them appear that high.
"These doors opened onto an entry hall that could have a ceiling that was the same height as the doors, but the entry foyer was often as small as 6 by 8-feet. Today it looks like a Hollywood set stuck onto a conventional living room with 8-foot ceilings. Even then it looked silly."
A common trend today that may look dated tomorrow is large 2-story rooms, both Bartlett and Hunter said. To have lasting appeal, a 2-story room must be more than just a big box of air. Furnishings can give character to the lower portion of the space; to add it to the upper half you need light from clearstory windows or skylights and exposed beams or trusses, they said.
Another problem with two story spaces is that they are tricky to light at night, Hunter added.
Clients can be fixated on a certain look for their custom house, but achieving it with less expensive, synthetic materials because of budget constraints can cause problems later if the synthetic substitutes don't age gracefully, Hunter said. Even if they do, some look odd when used in large amounts. He urges his clients to use less expensive materials in a more authentic way, for example, brick instead of cultured stone that mimics real stone or more expensive real stone in small amounts.
Another resale issue with very unusual custom houses that is rarely addressed during the design and construction stage is the ability of future buyers to get financing, said John Colby, an architect, developer of custom home subdivisions, and bank board member in Great Falls, Virginia.
Even if you have buyers willing to pay your price when you eventually sell, the amount of financing they are able to get depends on how much a lending institution thinks your property is worth. Most banks do this by sending out an appraiser to take a look, Colby said.
After inspecting your house, the appraiser will compare it to similar ones sold recently and come up with a dollar amount of what he thinks your house is worth. The problem comes when "your house is so unusual there's nothing to compare it to," Colby said. "In that case the appraiser is likely to fall back on the quantifiable such as lot size, number of bedrooms and total square footage. You can't assume that he will be able to evaluate exotic architecture, unusual detailing and expensive craftsmanship. And on the basis of the appraiser's report, the bank may conclude that your house is worth only $500,000, not $650,000 and approve a loan amount accordingly. If your buyer can't come up with the other $150,000, he can't buy your house," Colby said.
By��Katherine Salant
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