Love Where You Live: Why Richmond Couples Are Choosing Custom Over Resale
You know the story. Maybe you've lived it.
You spend months searching for a home together. You tour dozens of houses, each one a study in compromise. This one has the kitchen you want but the yard is too small. That one has space for a home office but the bathrooms are straight out of 1987. The one you both loved? Gone before you could schedule a second showing, snatched up by a cash buyer who waived the inspection.
Eventually, you find something that's... fine. Not perfect, but fine. You tell yourselves you'll renovate the kitchen eventually. You'll finish the basement someday. You'll learn to live with the bizarre floor plan because at least you finally have a house.
This is the reality of buying resale in Richmond right now. And increasingly, couples are asking themselves: Is this really the best we can do?
For many, the answer is no. And that's why more Richmond couples than ever are choosing to build custom.
The Richmond Resale Reality
Let's be honest about what couples face in Richmond's existing home market.
Inventory is painfully low. With only about 1.8 months of housing supply, Richmond remains deep in seller's market territory. Homes that hit the market—especially in desirable neighborhoods—receive multiple offers within days. Couples who need to agree on a major purchase are at a disadvantage when decisions must be made in hours, not weeks.
Prices have climbed relentlessly. Median home prices in the Richmond metro have increased roughly 50% since 2020. That "starter home" you imagined buying together? It might not exist at a price point that makes sense anymore.
The good stuff goes fast. Updated homes with modern layouts and move-in-ready finishes are the first to sell—often above asking price, often to buyers willing to waive contingencies. What's left tends to be the housing stock that needs work.
Most existing homes require compromise. Richmond has beautiful historic neighborhoods and charming mid-century communities. But charm often comes with trade-offs: small closets, single bathrooms, galley kitchens, outdated electrical, inadequate insulation, and floor plans designed for how families lived fifty years ago.
This is the market couples are navigating together. And it's exhausting.
The Hidden Cost of "Good Enough"
When you buy an existing home, you're buying someone else's decisions. Their layout. Their finishes. Their vision of how a home should function.
Sometimes those decisions work for you. Often, they don't.
The renovation math rarely adds up the way you expect. That dated kitchen you planned to "eventually" remodel? Contractors are booked out for months, material costs have soared, and the $30,000 project you budgeted has become $60,000. Meanwhile, you're living with a kitchen you don't love, telling yourself it's temporary—while temporary stretches into years.
Layouts are expensive to change. Moving walls, relocating plumbing, reconfiguring rooms—these aren't cosmetic updates. They're major construction projects that cost tens of thousands of dollars and disrupt your life for weeks or months. Most couples learn to live with awkward floor plans rather than undertake the hassle and expense of fixing them.
You inherit the previous owner's problems. The roof that "has a few more years left." The HVAC system that's "still working fine." The windows that are "original but solid." These optimistic seller descriptions have a way of becoming your expensive reality within the first few years of ownership.
Compromise compounds over time. That third bedroom you're using as an office because there's no dedicated workspace? It works until you need a guest room and a home office. The single bathroom upstairs? Manageable for two, chaotic if your family grows. Existing homes force you to adapt your life to the house. Custom homes adapt the house to your life.
Building Together: A Different Kind of Milestone
Here's what nobody tells you about building a custom home as a couple: it's one of the most meaningful things you'll do together.
Yes, more meaningful than picking out furniture. More meaningful than deciding on a paint color. Building a home from the ground up is a creative act—a process of imagining a future together and then making it real, one decision at a time.
You learn how your partner thinks. What matters to them. What they're willing to compromise on and what's non-negotiable. You discover that your spouse has surprisingly strong opinions about mudroom bench heights or the direction the refrigerator door should swing. These aren't arguments; they're revelations. You learn things about each other you never would have discovered any other way.
You practice the skills that make relationships work. Communication. Compromise. Joint decision-making. Celebrating small wins. Working toward a shared goal. Building a custom home is like a graduate seminar in partnership.
You create something that's genuinely yours. Not a house you're making do with. Not someone else's vision you're trying to adapt. A home you designed together, for the life you want to live together. There's pride in that. There's meaning in that.
The memories become part of the house. Couples who build custom remember the decisions they made together—the afternoon they picked out kitchen cabinets, the disagreement about floor stain that led to discovering the perfect compromise, the first time they walked through the framed structure and saw their future taking shape. These shared experiences become woven into the home itself.
We've watched couples go through this process hundreds of times. And while every couple is different, the pattern is consistent: they come out the other side with a home they love and a deeper appreciation for each other.
What Custom Actually Gives You
Beyond the relationship benefits, building custom solves the practical problems that make resale so frustrating.
A Floor Plan That Fits Your Life
You work from home three days a week. Your partner is a morning person who's up at 5:30 AM. You love to cook together. You need a guest room for visiting parents but don't want it right next to your bedroom.
An existing home forces you to accommodate these realities as best you can. A custom home designs around them from the start.
Want the primary suite on the main floor? Done. Need two home offices instead of one? No problem. Prefer an open kitchen that flows into the living space rather than a separate formal dining room you'll never use? It's your call.
Everything New, Nothing Inherited
No wondering when the water heater will fail. No discovering that the "updated" bathroom was a DIY job with questionable plumbing. No lead paint, asbestos concerns, or electrical panels that make your insurance agent nervous.
When you build new, everything is new. Modern building codes. Current energy efficiency standards. Warranties on major systems. You start fresh, with decades of useful life ahead of every component.
Your Finishes, Your Style
The freedom to choose your own cabinets, countertops, flooring, fixtures, and finishes—without paying renovation premiums on top of your home purchase—is one of the most underappreciated benefits of building custom.
In a resale home, you're either accepting the previous owner's choices or budgeting for expensive updates. In a custom home, you're selecting exactly what you want from day one. The kitchen of your dreams isn't a "someday" project; it's what you move into.
Energy Efficiency and Modern Comfort
Homes built to today's standards are dramatically more efficient than older construction. Better insulation, tighter building envelopes, high-performance windows, and modern HVAC systems translate to lower utility bills, more consistent temperatures, and reduced environmental impact.
Central Virginia summers are hot. Central Virginia winters are unpredictable. A home built with modern efficiency standards handles both more gracefully—and more affordably—than a home built thirty or fifty years ago.
"But Isn't Building More Expensive?"
This is the question we hear most often. And the honest answer is: it depends on what you're comparing.
If you're comparing a custom home to a distressed fixer-upper that needs $100,000 in work, yes, the custom home has a higher price tag. But if you're comparing a custom home to a move-in-ready resale in a comparable neighborhood—and factoring in the updates you'd inevitably want to make—the math often looks different.
Consider what resale actually costs:
Purchase price (often above asking in this market)
Closing costs and inspections
Immediate repairs (the things you couldn't negotiate or didn't discover)
Near-term updates (that bathroom you can't live with, the carpet that has to go)
Long-term renovations (the kitchen remodel, the basement finish)
Higher utility costs in a less efficient home
Maintenance on aging systems (the HVAC that has "a few years left")
When you total it up, a custom home often represents better value—and you get exactly what you want from day one instead of getting there incrementally over ten years of disruption and expense.
Our floor plans start at $289,990 (not including land and site work). For many Richmond couples, that's competitive with—or better than—the true all-in cost of buying and updating a resale home.
A Timeline That Might Surprise You
Another misconception: building takes forever.
The typical Keel Custom Homes project takes 11-14 months from initial consultation to move-in. That includes design, permitting, and construction. Is that longer than buying an existing home? Yes. But it's not as dramatic a difference as you might think—especially when you factor in how long it takes most couples to find and successfully close on a resale home in this market.
If you start the process this winter, you could realistically be moving into your custom home by late 2026 or early 2027. And you'd be moving into a home designed for you, not a compromise you're learning to live with.
Richmond: A Region Worth Building In
Photo by Derrick Brooks on Unsplash
If you're going to build a custom home somewhere, Central Virginia is an excellent choice.
Room to spread out. Unlike Northern Virginia or the D.C. suburbs, Richmond offers space. Land is available—in established communities and on individual lots—at prices that make custom building accessible.
Strong appreciation. Richmond's housing market has been one of the hottest in the country, and fundamentals suggest continued strength. A custom home in this region is an investment in an appreciating market.
Quality of life. The James River, the restaurant scene, the access to both mountains and beaches, the four seasons, the manageable cost of living—there's a reason people are relocating here from more expensive metros. Building custom means putting down roots in a region that rewards long-term commitment.
A builder community that knows the area. At Keel Custom Homes, we've built in Chesterfield, Henrico, Hanover, Powhatan, Goochland, and the city of Richmond. We understand local permitting, local contractors, and local conditions. That expertise makes the process smoother and the outcome better.
Making the Decision Together
Deciding to build a custom home is a big conversation. Here are some questions to explore together:
What's not working about our current living situation? Be specific. Is it space? Location? Layout? Quality? Understanding the problem helps you evaluate whether custom building is the solution.
What have we compromised on in past homes? And what would it mean to not have to compromise this time?
How long do we plan to stay? Building custom makes the most sense when you're creating a home for the long term—a place to grow into, not out of.
What would we do with a home designed around our life? Dream a little. If you could have exactly what you wanted, what would that look like?
Are we ready to make decisions together? Building a home requires hundreds of joint decisions. If you're excited by that prospect, you're probably ready.
A Valentine's Day Thought
There's a reason we publish this piece during Valentine's week. Building a home together is an act of love.
Not the greeting card kind of love—the real kind. The kind that shows up in daily choices, in negotiated compromises, in the patience to work through disagreements and the excitement of shared victories. The kind that builds something lasting.
The couples who build with us often tell us that the home is wonderful, but the experience of creating it together was the real gift. They have a house, yes. But they also have a story—their story—embedded in every room.
That's worth more than settling for "good enough."
Start Your Story
If you're ready to stop compromising and start building—together—we'd love to help.
At Keel Custom Homes, we've guided hundreds of couples through the custom home process. We know how to facilitate the conversations, navigate the decisions, and create a home that works for both of you.
Explore our floor plans and communities or reach out to schedule a consultation. Bring your partner. Bring your wish lists. Bring your questions.
Let's build something you'll both love.
Happy Valentine's Day from Keel Custom Homes. Here's to love, partnership, and a home that's truly yours.
— The Keel Custom Homes Team