If your home is always full of people, having a summer house in the countryside could be a haven for all of your family and friends. You can use it in a variety of ways, depending on your needs and preferences.
For example, it can serve as a valuable investment, since you can rent it out and receive a constant additional income. Investing in a private house will pay off less than in a decade. You can even buy an old summer house and repair or modernize it, but this option would be worth it rather for experienced in building and its management people. If you are one of them, buy building materials and turn an unfinished house into a real masterpiece of architecture. A finished summer house can be sold out again to the higher bidder or rented out.
Summer houses that are located at the outskirts of a huge city are particularly popular among property investors. Buying a summer house is not new, but an undoubtedly profitable type of investment that can not only preserve but also increase your capital. The high profitability is explained by the relatively high demand for housing in the suburbs. Residents of large cities are often not satisfied with their surroundings and the lack of personal space. That’s why suburban getaways for weekends will keep being popular and permanent residence in the suburbs too. After all, not only retirees move outside the city, but also young families.
To build or not to build
When looking to invest in a summer house, there are several options to consider, including exploring land for sale in Townsville. If you have building experience, one viable option is to take on the project of building a summer house with your own hands. This allows for customization and a hands-on approach in creating the perfect retreat that suits your preferences and needs.
This will, of course, save you a lot of costs. Otherwise, you can hire a construction company and have the house built by your design. However, you should take into account that the contractor you are working with should get along well with house connections because their separate integration would extremely increase the total price of the building.
Alternatively, you can buy a prefabricated summer house kit. Such build-yourself kits are easier to bring together. This is more advantageous compared to a time-consuming building from scratch in several phases. An additional advantage of prefabricated kits is that the manufacturer gives a guarantee for fixing any problems resolved within and after the construction.
Choosing material: wood or brick
When planning an investment property, you need to analyze which material would be more advantageous and profitable: brick – durable, solid, but expensive and time-consuming to build; or wood – warm, with a beautiful rustic look, quick to build, and costs less.
A summer house made out of wood is definitely better to rent out since wood is one of the materials most associated with holidays, fun and relaxation.
Apart from its appealing look, wood is a natural insulator and thermoregulator. It can regulate the temperature and humidity and, thus, improve the indoor climate of your house. In addition, wood is a renewable and sustainable material. That is why the manufacturers of wooden summer houses leave significantly less CO2 emissions compared to the ones that use other materials.
Moreover, a wooden summer house can be built in a few months, and there is a good demand for it in the market. No wonder, many people are interested in such environmentally friendly and inexpensive real estate.
Planning the design, decoration and outbuildings
Even if your plan is building a summer house yourself or letting the contractors build it by your design, you should probably throw a glance at the online portfolios of professional manufacturers to get some inspiration and design ideas.
No matter whether you build or buy a house, you should prefer a practical and interesting design with high functionality. These features of a modern summer house many potential buyers and renters will find beneficial.
Additional buildings can also increase the comfort and price of your summer house. For example, a summer house with a terrace or pavilion can become a popular place to grill with the family. A sauna can become a meetup point for your family and friends every weekend, which can become a nice tradition. A garage or carport is also a must-have for a summer house, since no matter whether you will stay there for a weekend or the whole summer you should take care of your car. If you plan to have guests often, a double garage or carport would become a perfect solution.
Making adjustments and taking care of the building
You should note that along with its numerous advantages, wood, being a porous, organic material, is susceptible to insects and fungi. In addition, wood changes, it can shrink and swell, depending on the humidity and the season. Natural swelling of the wood during the winter months can largely be avoided by treating it with a moisture-resistant stain or sealant and by constructing and insulating the house correctly. The use of wood preservatives against wood-destroying insects and antiseptic impregnation of the wood against fungi during the construction should not be neglected as well.
Moreover, you should be ready to make some adjustments over time, for example, there will appear gaps above your doors and windows in about a year. This is normal for wooden houses, since hot weather dries out moisture from the logs, causing the wood to shrink and develop gaps between the logs. Settlement of wooden houses is an inevitable process, but if you handle wood properly during construction, the complicated adjustments should rarely be necessary.
Thus, the windows and doors should be sealed from the outside and inside and the gaps should be sealed with flexible insulation material, such as wood wool. Repeat this every 5 years to compensate for the changes caused by the settlement of the wood.
As you see, like with any other type of construction, there are many aspects to consider when building or buying a summer house. But the purchase will definitely pay off, no matter whether you are going to use it as a holiday house for weekend getaways, rent it out or sell it.
