Whether you’re buying a home for the first time or caring for a home that you’ve owned for years, you’ll have a lot of obligations to take care of. Being a homeowner isn’t easy, and it comes with a certain amount of not only financial but emotional and practical investment. Additionally, a home isn’t something that you own for a short amount of time. In order to recoup their investments (among other things), most homeowners own houses for at least five years before selling them. This means at least five years of owning and most likely living in your home before you move on.
All your home needs are ultimately important. But what are the home needs that you need to focus on most? All of us are working with a limited budget, and it can be difficult to get ahead while at the same time doing everything that you need to do for your home. With that being said, we’re exploring everything that you need to focus on when buying and owning a home. The more active a homeowner you are, the easier it will be for you to responsibly care for your property, from the day you buy to the day you sell.
1. Buying A New House
When it comes to all your home needs, you have to start prioritizing early. This means being organized and diligent when buying a home, especially if you’ve never done so before. First time home buyers can sometimes become overwhelmed and bogged down by the process. Sometimes, they miss things that they should have picked up on when first looking at a home. This can result in you investing in a property without realizing that there is a ‘catch’, or for that matter missing out on the opportunity to purchase your perfect house.
As you look for a house, especially if it’s your first home, work with a real estate agent. Realtors can narrow down your selection for you, and put you in touch with sellers who are selling homes that fit your needs perfectly. Another thing you need to consider is negotiating if necessary. You may at first be uncomfortable with the idea of sending in an offer that is below the asking price. However, you don’t necessarily have to pay the asking price for a house that fulfills all your home needs. The seller can always turn you down; but you won’t know until your try! Furthermore, make sure that you have a house properly inspected before you sell it, and make a list of things that you need the home to have repaired before you buy if the repairs needed are significant.
2. Securing A Good Contractor
At times, a house that you buy pre-built may not all suit all your home needs. Additionally, you may decide that buying a house outright is not the best idea for you in the first place, and you’d be better off building your dream house from scratch. Either way, you would need to at some point work with a contractor. Perhaps the house you bought years ago no longer matches up with your home needs, but you don’t quite want to sell just yet. In that case, you may want to work with a contractor in order to expand or improve your house. If you’re building your ideal house, on the other hand, a contractor can help map out your plans and guide you down the path of creating your dream home.
Of course, you might not always work with a contractor in order to make big improvements or build your ideal house. Over the years, your home will accumulate damage, and most of or all your home needs will shift towards maintenance. You’ll want to prioritize the most crucial and safety-relevant issues. That is, those involving safety. For that reason, you should keep a close eye on your roof in particular, and contact a roof contractor if you think it’s sagging or leaking. In some cases, it can be better to have your roof replaced rather than investing in repairs over and over through the years. Keep in mind that when working with contractors, you’ll also need to purchase supplies for contractors. Ultimately, keeping up these expenses will ensure that your home is safe and in good condition.
3. Installing The Best Designs
Although these safety issues do come at the top of all your home needs, you’ll also want to make sure that your house looks as good as possible. Ensuring that your home looks its best (up to date, open, clean) will not only give a good impression to guests and visitors. It will also add to your home’s value if you should ever put it on the market again. Additionally, it will simply contribute to your experience as you live in your house and enjoy it as a homeowner. This will mean installing the best possible designs in your house, especially in popular common areas like kitchens.
Consider working with an interior designer if you’re not sure where to start. An interior designer can help you choose designs that will not easily age or look dated within a few years, and will offer you the best possible return on your investment. For example, they can guide you in finding kitchen countertops that are not only aesthetically appealing but practically effective. After you have selected your designs, we advise getting in touch with good contractors. While you would potentially handle all your home needs on your own, you could end up with a subpar product that will take away from your home’s value rather than add to it.
4. Investing In Home Security
Depending on where you live, all your home needs may very well quickly involve installing home security systems. However, anyone can require home security systems under the right circumstances. A home security system serves two purposes. If a crime does occur on your property, a home security system can help determine what exactly occurred and who committed the crime. By installing security systems and cameras, you can ensure that you have the possible chance of having any criminal activity that occurs on your property resolved.
Additionally, a mobile security system installed on your property can simply deter criminals, preventing crimes from happening in the first place. When considering a robbery, perpetrators will typically ‘case’ a property first. This means that they will check to make sure that a property doesn’t have security systems installed. If they notice a security system, they will typically move on more easily, and never hit your home, to begin with. Talk to a professional security system company to ensure that you’re making the right choices involving these systems.
5. Upgrading Your Fire Protection
When it comes to all your home needs, you may not prioritize fire protection as much as you should. Frankly, most of us are not as conscious of these issues as we should be, which is why fires so easily get out of hand. Yes, you will be typically be required by law to have a smoke detector installed on your ceiling. However, these smoke detectors can often be faulty or out of date. You may assume that your smoke detector is working, when in fact it could be broken and ineffective.
This is one reason why more and more people are actually installing sprinkler systems as well. These sprinkler systems can act as a backup of sorts, both alerting you to the fire in a very visceral way and suppressing the flames. A sprinkler will essentially release water upon the detection of smoke. While this can be jarring and in some cases cause water damage (if not tended to quickly enough) a responsible homeowner can manage a fire sprinkler system. Get in touch with a fire protection sprinkler company in order to discuss your various options.
6. Purchasing A Safe
Once you have all your home needs resolved on a basic level, you should consider what you want to do with the important assets in your home as well. You may have belongings that you think are safe, especially if you install a home security system as we recommend. However, you can never be certain about what will happen, and it’s better to be safe than sorry, especially if you have valuable jewelry in your house. Jewelry pieces like statement rings are often targeted by thieves first, as they can easily be pawned off. Once you have a safe in your home, you’ll be able to rest easy knowing that your pieces are easily accessible for you, but protected against any potential thieves.
You may also want to consider getting a gun safe. A gun safe can be similar, or at times more intense, than standard safes. Typically, it’s recommended that gun owners keep their weapons stored in a safe when they are not being used. Not only does this protect the guns from thievery; it also ensures that people who should not be handling the guns are unable to access them. Parents with children, in particular, should take this to heart. While you may have concealed carry insurance, everyone will be physically safer if you keep your guns in a safe.
7. Adding A Unique Room
While you’ll want to make sure that all your home needs are taken care of on a practical level, you may also want to consider adding a unique room to your house. A unique room will allow you to differentiate your house from others and cater to your own wants and needs. Additionally, if you make good choices, you can add a unique room that would potentially add value to your house in the long term. More and more often, homeowners are adding these unique rooms in order to create the homes of their dreams.
What you do with your unique room is really up to you, and of course up to what your house can accommodate. Some people make their kitchens the most unique rooms in their houses, with gourmet additions and special appliances. Others make big spa rooms in their homes, where they can host parties and even have cosmetic professionals visit and apply treatments at home. A laser body sculptor could potentially be hosted in this room, allowing you and your family to get the most out of cosmetic treatments. Simple but unique additions can ultimately make a big difference!
8. Taking Proper Precautions
Once you’ve handled all your home needs, you need to think long and hard about the value of your home and protecting it. This will involve of course having your home insured. But you cannot truly insure and protect your home and its assets to the fullest extent possible if you do not first have a professional valuation of tangible assets taken. Depending on the assets that you’re having assessed, you may have to work with multiple people or companies.
In general, however, it’s not too difficult to have your home professionally appraised. Ask for referrals about home appraisal companies, and discuss your goals and what you want to focus on with the appraiser in advance. Prepare your house to look its very best before the appraiser arrives, and make sure that you have all of your documents in order to prove your home’s overall value. Knowing your home’s value, even if you don’t plan on selling in the near future, can make a big difference for you financially.
Try not to overly stress yourself about the value of your home; however, you should still make it a priority. You can ultimately have the house of your dreams if you only make sure that you’re taking the proper precautions, and caring for it as you should. Get in touch with vendors and companies who can help you make your home its best, and take their advice! Owning a home is a major responsibility, but it offers major rewards as well.