Maybe it’s time to design your dream home. But what should be on your checklist to ensure your next family home lasts the distance?
You know the feeling. Whether you have toddlers or teens in tow, your family home just isn’t right for your current and future needs.
Perhaps you’re tiring of the same four walls in your home or suffering cabin fever with your growing children? Is the pandemic prompting you to crave a different local community and a larger home convenient to schools and your children’s further education now and going into the future?
Maybe it’s time to design your dream home.
But what should be on your checklist to ensure your next family home lasts the distance?
Here at Stockland, we’ve drawn on our experience helping Australian families find their best-fit homes since 1952. Our core values centre on creating sustainable communities where people live, work and play. We’re doing this through our principles of regenerative, circular, inclusive, accessible, healthy and connected living.
The state of upgrading
Increasingly, Queensland is ticking a lot of the boxes for families looking to upgrade from interstate as well as from within the state.
Queensland had a net gain of 30,000 people in 2020, far outpacing every other Australian state and territory, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The Sunshine State enjoys a stable economy, affordable housing, modern infrastructure, a world-class education system and a top-notch health service, according to the Queensland Government. Another drawcard is most of the state gets an average of eight to nine hours of sunshine each day throughout the year.
So let’s shed some light on our top seven tips for people looking to upgrade to a family home in Queensland.
Tip 1: A bedroom for each of your children and more than one bathroom
A child sees their own bedroom as a place of refuge from sibling rivalries and offers the perfect setting to deep-thinking study time. Having a quiet bedroom also helps them get sufficient sleep, says this study of 300,000 kids across the globe.
And babies, particularly those older than four months, benefit from their own room, research shows. Keeping them in your room past that age for the night means they’ll sleep for shorter stretches and get less slumber overall.
As well, having more than one bathroom in your dream home looks like a luxury, but it saves a lot of jostling and impatient foot-tapping for mirror time or worse.
Tip 2: An open-plan kitchen that’s a central focus of the home
If you’ve ever lived in a house with a galley kitchen and minimal free bench space, you’ll fully appreciate a centrally positioned open-plan kitchen. They offer superb airflow and light, are easy for all family members to access and mean fewer nooks and crannies for dirt and clutter to collect.
Picture yourself doing your kitchen time while keeping an eye on your juniors working on their schoolwork or just hanging out in the living areas.
Tip 3: Loads of storage throughout the home
You’re more likely to be able to find sufficient storage in a family home in Queensland. The state is one of the leaders in the country, with average new-build homes having 237sqm of floor space. Maximise your storage space with built-in-robes, a manchester cupboard, walk-in pantry, ample kitchen cupboards, under stair room, and roof spaces, etc. That’s apart from lock-up garage space – look for a minimum of two car spaces.
Tip 4: A decent-sized block with a backyard and nooks inside and out for quiet time/space plus a home theatre room
With a quarter-acre block no longer the standard for family homes, ‘getting by’ with just 100sqm, even 50sqm, with no tree cover, is not unusual these days in cities. But the trend towards disappearing backyards creates a major strain on families. For starters, less vegetation reduces natural climate control, so you rely more on expensive-to-run air conditioning for basic comfort levels in summer.
Being able to enjoy the vista from your living areas to a good-sized yard makes it easier to check on your kids playing outdoors. Or maybe you pine for a small vegie plot or having enough room for casual family gatherings around a backyard firepit.
Indoor nooks are important, too, for passive recreation or uniting the family in your own comfy home theatre room.
Tip 5: A modern home that won’t have you DIY renovating/extending because it’s flexible enough to cater to your changing needs
Trying to retrofit your existing home to your changing needs can really eat into your savings. Half of all renovations cost between $40,000 and $300,000 in Australia, says the Housing Industry Association.
Stockland offers contemporary designs, including open-plan living, so you can reconfigure rooms to adapt to your family’s changing lifestyle. That’s handy if your children are still living with you well into their adulthood.
Tip 6: A great district - a community of like-minded people of the same demographic and values
Each family has unique needs, which is why across Stockland's diverse range of Queensland communities, there is something for all family types. They’re in areas as diverse as Brisbane, Ipswich, the Ripley Valley, Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast and Townsville.
Chances are you’ll find your tribe among them.
Tip 7: Great community amenities – parks, open spaces, playgrounds, shops, cultural venues, a superb choice of schools within the district
A sense of community evolves when places are nearby for human connection – parks, playgrounds, green spaces, shopping areas, cultural and entertainment venues and schools. Each of Stockland’s residential communities includes those essentials as well as state-of-the-art community hubs. Some of our residential developments are even close to TAFEs and universities, too, so your children won’t have to move away for higher studies.
Stockland can help make your dream design home in Queensland come true. Call us for more details.