Tim Akinnusi of Nedbank discusses the option to buy property that already exists, versus building your own home.
The decision to buy an existing property or plan is really up to the individual. Some clients would rather buy an existing property because it doesn't come with the added stress of having to build their own. But what we have to settle with is the fact that they'll be going into somebody else's dream home. On the other side, when building your own home, you can get exactly what you want except there's some other considerations to make.
When choosing to build your own home, it's important that you understand a couple of things to ensure that the journey at the end of the day is a happy one. Things such as time to invest in a building process, and making sure that you are part and parcel of that process to ensure that you get exactly what you want and it's built the right way. You also need to make sure that you have the right builders on site, and to sign a good building contract to make sure that legally, you have some recourse against bad building practices.
Thirdly, you want to make sure that you have a right architect who is going to build a house that is both practical and spacious enough to transform over time. Lastly, you want to make sure that you have spare funds to cater for changes in the building process as your needs might change along the journey.
