You are planning carefully for your retirement. Have you considered involving the architect for your retirement house in your deliberations? It appears that many people simply believe that what they wish for will be affordable and they will have these things in their retirement home.
Architectural planning for your Retirement House
Most people have a considerable wish list of the features and size that they want in their retirement house, but these are things that they may not necessarily need. This fantasy occupies their dreams of what they will ultimately have in their retirement residence. If you find yourself getting ready for retirement and you are a very wealthy person, and you Know that you will be able to afford all of the desires on your wish list, great! Indulge yourself; you deserve it.
If, on the other hand your funds are Not limitless and you start to wonder if you can afford all of the things that you have been dreaming about, do yourself a huge favor and consult a residential architect. See a licensed architect that has a specialty in designing custom homes for people who find themselves in similar circumstances to yours. Rand Soellner Architect is just such an architect —> Contact Rand Soellner .
.
Cost of Your Retirement House and Human Nature
Why would you want to consult an architect who specializes in residential design? Well, for one thing, he will know what features on your wish list will cost more or less than others. He will ask you what you intend to spend for the construction of your house. Most people have an unrealistically low idea of what it will cost to build their dream house. This is human nature. Everyone is surprised when they actually see the prices that builders propose to construct their dreams. It is usually at that point that people finally begin to get serious about cutting some of the more expensive wishes from their list. It is painful to wait until this point, because your house will already have been designed and cutting things off of a completed design it not necessarily easy to do.
Cost of your Retirement House and your Wish List
So what’s to be done? Listen to your architect Now, before you even have him start the design for your retirement house. Why? Because he can review your wish list and in less than 5 minutes tell you which features and sizes are going to cost more than others. He or she will also tell you, if you want to hear it, what you might want to consider doing to simplify your retirement house to give you 90% of the feel of your wish list for a Lot less construction cost. And that is worth talking about, don’t you think?
.
Your Retirement House Planning Team
If you want the counsel of trained people, you may wish to consider assembling a group of skilled advisers to help you plan for your retirement house, both in terms of design and in terms of finances. You may want your CPA on this special group, and of course, your architect. Any builder really is not appropriate at this time, as there will not be a design on which they can base any costs and they will be reluctant to give any sort of numbers until they have something (like a completed set of construction documents) on which to base such costs, including input from their subcontractors. You and your spouse, of course, would be on this team, and perhaps any other advisers that you deem appropriate.
Possibly a real estate agent through whom you are considering acquiring property on which to build your dream house. If you over invest in the land, you may be shooting yourself in the foot regarding the available funds remaining for the house, which is one of the things your architect can tell you.
.
You & your spouse.
Architect for your retirement house.
Certified Public Accountant.
Real Estate Agent for the retirement land.
Pension/ Insurance Fund Counselors.
.
Your accountant will, of course, give you input into how much your nest egg is likely to be and what costs will impact you and yours for the rest of your life. You may also have your own spreadsheets to help you forecast your financial situation each year into the future for the rest of your life. When you see this, you begin to understand how to better plan for the costs of retirement house ownership. When you balance these facts, this will likely impact your decision as to how much you want to allocate for your retirement land. And that number is what you give to your real estate agent when he or she is searching for your retirement property. You will want them to also provide you with costs regarding taxes and homeowners association dues and fees. Some neighborhood associations do not cost much and do not do much.
Others are more aggressive in what they provide for the community, with associated increased yearly costs. All of these factors should be taken into account for your retirement land and house.
.
What NOT to do when you Buy Your Retirement Land
Rand Soellner has client come to him all excited that they have already purchased their land. They explain that they did this about 2 years ago and that since then, they have been lavishing all sorts of financial investments into the land, like extensive clearing, building of docks, roads, walls, planting of orchards, rock gardens, flower beds, bushes, more trees, fire pits, possibly even a starter garage with an apartment over it. All sounds good so far, huh? Sure, until you get to the part when you look at how much money is left to build the main attraction: the actual retirement house.
.
It is at this point that many retirees realize that they have made a huge mistake: What could that possibly be? Rand Soellner asks them what they believe their retirement house itself will cost to build. That is when he hears numbers from them that are often way below the marketplace price for which contractors would be willing to build their house. So what is the problem? The retirees have overspent their up-front money on their preliminary site improvements. Don’t do that (unless you have unlimited funds)! Wait until you have talked with your residential architect and get a better idea in what ballpark your house cost might be located.
.
There seems to be some psychology that people feel they need to “get started” on their retirement land right away, forking over lots of cash to build preliminary things or perform preliminary work that they think they will have to do anyway in the future, so why not do it now and start to enjoy their land. Unfortunately, all they are doing is depleting their resources now so that they will have less later to build what they really want: their retirement house. All of those thousands of dollars squandered on needless clearing, plantings and construction of cheap, possibly even temporary structures, simply pokes a hole in the boat of funds for the main future house and doing so might result in the sinking of the dream if the financial holes poked are too many and of too great a size.
.
What to do Regarding your Land, Funds and Design
Better to wait to invest in land improvements until you have the counsel of your residential architect and the other members of your retirement team. Your architect can tell you what makes sense and what would actually need to be done as part of the future house improvements. For instance, that apartment over a garage may have been placed in a location that makes it hard to connect to the future house, or even usurps the best location for the house! Architects spend decades preparing to practice their profession and decades more obtaining detailed experience. Put that to work for you, rather than just “winging it.” Do not let your hard-earned life’s savings burn a hole in your pocket. Spend it wisely, and only on things that really matter to the ultimate goal of having your main house constructed.
.
Ask Rand Soellner for his counsel: click here —> Home Architects .
.
Bottom line: PLAN for your retirement house by engaging a residential architect and other professionals who will provide you with wise counsel and the ultimate design that you can hopefully afford, and that will have enough of your wish list to make you happy in your retirement home.
.
You may even want to begin to compare your wish list with some existing designs of Rand Soellner’s to see what might start to come close to your wish list, then have Soellner customize that design from there, accommodating your desires for your dream house. Start here: (click here)——> Home Design Projects . Or you can have Soellner design your house from scratch.
.
.
.
tags: architectural planning for your retirement house, custom, atlanta, chicago, cashiers, highlands, las vegas, destin, new york, charlotte, boulder, aspen