Expert Advice: How to Buy a Property Off-Plan – Is It a Risk or an Opportunity?

Buying a new home is a big decision. It seems even bigger, however, when the desired home is not yet complete and the purchase is made during the design or construction phase – how do you buy a home you can't see with your own eyes? For many home buyers, so-called buying from paper creates hesitation: the process feels abstract, somewhat frightening and difficult to imagine. Liven real estate developer's creative director Alina Kester explains why buying a home from paper is not actually a risk, but rather an opportunity to design your home according to your own wishes, and how to use this opportunity wisely.

According to Alina Kester, creative director of real estate developer Liven AS, the biggest fear about buying from paper is that the decision has to be made as if blindfolded: "Actually, the situation is the opposite. If a home is already fully built, then all decisions have been made for you – walls up, tiles on the wall, outlets in place. When buying from paper, however, you have the opportunity to arrange these things according to your daily life, before anything is finished."

The earlier you decide, the more you can have a say

Buyers who join in the creation of their new home early get the opportunity to have a say in its development. Together with an interior architect, you can think through the layout, choose finishes and materials, wall colors and bathroom tiles, and review where all the outlets and lights are located. According to Alina Kester, many of these decisions have already been made for later buyers, and often they cannot be changed afterwards.

"An early buyer has the most freedom. The future homeowner can decide whether a wall could be a bit elsewhere, whether the kitchen could open differently, or what location for the bedroom door would be most comfortable for daily movement," Kester explained. "After construction begins, changing these things becomes either difficult, expensive, or simply impossible. That's why I recommend making important decisions as early as possible – when it's still easy to make corrections to the drawing."

A smart home buyer needs imagination

The biggest obstacle to buying from paper is the feeling that it's hard to understand a drawing. According to Alina Kester, a simple exercise that she recommends every home buyer do helps here:

"I recommend imagining yourself moving around in these rooms daily. Think through how you go to the kitchen in the morning, which light switch you turn on first, where the dining table goes and where the family gathers in the evening. Measure your current dining table and compare it to the one on the drawing. When you start reading the drawing through your real life, it immediately becomes more understandable – you see where there's space to move comfortably and where a bottleneck might develop."

Idea: Measure your furniture and transfer the measurements to the drawing – this way you can see how to arrange things in your new home.

Before starting to make choices, it's worth sitting down and thinking about what is important for your family in life both now and in the future. Alina Kester recommends making a list and writing down both the worries and joys of your current home as well as plans for the future. Problems might include lack of space in the hallway, kitchen or storage, or household appliances that don't currently fit in the household. If there are small children in the family, their space needs will change completely in just a few years. The home chosen by the family today must work even when life changes in the meantime. 

"An architectural drawing shows the walls and doors of rooms, but it doesn't show, for example, what the light is like. It's definitely worth asking about that separately. Light changes the feeling of home more than you might initially think. The same apartment can feel completely different if the evening sun shines into the living room, or for example, if the windows face north. Either is not bad – it's simply important to know what awaits you and to plan the rooms accordingly. For a morning person, for example, an east-facing window would suit the bedroom, and in the living room you could enjoy the evening sun with west-facing windows. A north-facing room generally stays cooler and darker – this is not a downside if you plan a home office there, where you wouldn't want direct sunlight on the screen anyway," Kester explained.

Once all the family's needs have been mapped out, according to Alina Kester, the next step is to decide which rooms could be larger and which can remain smaller. No home is infinitely large and every square meter must be used intelligently. The number of square meters alone says nothing – what matters is where they are placed. If the family loves cooking together and entertaining guests, it's worth giving more space to the kitchen and dining area, even if it means a slightly smaller bedroom. If someone works from home, you need a place where you can close the door. A large room that no one uses is wasted space – it's better to direct the square meters to where life really happens.

Recommendation: Rate each room based on how important it is in your family's life, and divide the square meters accordingly. 

"If the drawing shows two roughly equally-sized rooms, but you know that one of them will be a children's room for two and the other a rarely used guest room, then it's worth asking if the wall could be moved a bit. On paper, this is an easy change," shared Kester. "The size of a room should be judged not by the square meter number, but by what needs to fit inside it. The number itself doesn't tell you if the room is sufficient. Think about what goes into that room – a bed, a wardrobe, a desk, a child's play corner – and see if these fit so that there's also space to move around comfortably. If the kitchen is the heart of your home, its length should be at least three and a half or four meters to accommodate guests; a separate children's room works with roughly ten square meters; a study can be even smaller. A small but well-planned room can work better than a large one where furniture just won't fit properly."

The most important advantage of buying a home from paper concerns things that cannot be changed later, above all electricity, water and light. This is where the real value of making an early decision lies. Water and electrical systems must be thought through before the walls are closed. After tiling, according to Alina Kester, moving an outlet is essentially impossible. If the location of outlets and lights are reviewed and approved on the drawing, it will save a lot of headaches and extension cords in the future. Most outlets are needed, for example, next to the bed for charging a phone, on the kitchen counter for a coffee maker, and next to the mirror for using a hair dryer.

Idea: Walk through your daily routines mentally and mark all necessary outlets on the drawing. 

"Before the home is handed over, an official inspection takes place where buyers have the opportunity to check all details with their own eyes. This should not be taken lightly, because any errors found during the inspection are corrected before ownership is transferred, and problems discovered later remain the responsibility of the new owner. During the inspection, be attentive and calm – enter the rooms as if you were about to start living there. Open and close doors, inspect surfaces, touch with your hands. Note everything that catches your eye. This is your opportunity to get things in order before you bring moving boxes in," said Kester.

A freshly completed home also comes with instruction manuals and warranties, which give new owners peace of mind in their first years in the new home that help is at hand if problems arise. According to Alina Kester, buying a home from paper is not at all a leap into the unknown, but a rare opportunity to get a truly personal home – if you dare to voice your wishes early and think through your decisions carefully.