New Residential Construction Must-Haves/Nice to Haves

Master closet connects to laundry which also has a hallway door

Are people still building new homes in this high interest rate environment?

Tornado shelter made with cinder blocks and rebar, filled with concrete and a steel door. It can be done as a closet off a bedroom. Negligible cost to do it when you are planning/building. Or the ones made to go under a garage floor with a sliding steel door.
Expensive as hell to put in a shelter of any type as an afterthought.
That is my biggest regret from building ours 20 years ago.

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Are people still building new homes in this high interest rate environment?

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Nope. All new residential construction has shut down.

Probably the best thing to do since rates are over 7%.

Wire in a way to feed at least some of your panel with a generator.

Already some great ideas that I haven't thought about yet.

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Nice fully wooded lake lot with back decks and screened porches facing north east

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I assume this is for warmer conditions. If you live in a cooler climate, reversing this could make sense.

-Storage space. You can never have enough. Any dead space you might have available, try finding a way to make it into a closet or niche.

-Dual heads with separate controls in the master shower. Nothing will bring a marriage closer than showering together regularly.

-air fryer built in next to microwave. However you lay out your kitchen, have an air fryer figured into your cabinet layout

-Outlets in your eaves. This is usually a small oversight in preconstruction. Your electrician will ask you at rough-ins if you want it. Without it on your plans initially, it'll be an extra. But it's something you will want.

-Zone climate control. This is something everyone is doing lately. I've even seen a mini split just for the master suite. It's a bit more cost, but it's worth it.

-Blank sleeves. You never know what the future holds. It's smart to have empty conduit ran to certain locations to just a blank cover in the wall. Even tho today everything is trending wireless, who knows what tomorrow will bring. Having designated spots on your wall for future electronics with a blank cover over a gang box will save you literally thousands of dollars. (running wire, sheetrock repair, paint, etc.)

-Don't be afraid to upgrade your electrical panel. Most people who are building a custom home is trying to cut any cost they can. Typically, people try to save at the onset by cramming everything they have in the smallest electrical panel they can. You can get most all your electrical needs in a 200 amp panel. However, it will leave you with no room to grow and expand later on. If you're building from the ground up, plan for the future. People ALWAYS want to upgrade. Make sure you have the room to do so.

-If possible, require all door casing, base and case, and cabinets (the actual boxes of the cabinets) be of real wood or plywood (finger joint and cabinet grade plywood). Everything has been transitioning to MDF, which is nothing but glorified cardboard. Be sure that any proposal given by anyone supplying a wood product is giving you a wood product and not cardboard.

There's a lot more I could suggest, but if you're using a reputable GC, he should already have these items dialed in.

If you're going owner builder, good luck. Every subcontractor will tell you how the product they use is "equal" to another that's been used for decades without issue. That will be your biggest fight. Making sure subs aren't using substandard materials that will last throughout their warranty then break the day after it expires.

Things we did right:
Big arse garage, outlets under eaves and both sides of porch connected to switch in foyer for Christmas lights, solid core doors, gas hookups everywhere, cat 5 cable and between stud blocks behind all TVs, Tons of decking in attic, pulley system to get crap out of attic, 12’ Ceilings, bigger outdoor space than you think you want and tons of concrete, big pantry with an outlet for coffee, toaster oven, LVP floors, media closet for surround sound, nvr for cameras, router, printer, etc, separate makeup vanity for all my wife’s stuff so her crap isn’t all over the double sink area, outlets behind toilets for bidet, radiant decking on roof, perforated soffits all the way around house and ridge vents, hot water hose by boat for washing it and ice chest is probably the best “extra” thing we did.

Things we did wrong:
Only did a few solid core doors, wish I would’ve done them on all bathroom, bedroom doors, Mont Blanc quartzite sucks, should’ve done good ole granite, can lights in bedrooms instead of light kits on fans, whole home generator, side entry door next to garage door, subsurface drainage and sprinkler system when building, another ice maker besides the shitty one in the refrigerator combo, heaters in bathrooms (my cheap arse contractor snuck this by me), in winter we have Amazon space heaters in the bathrooms