What you need to know about living on acreage

An acreage home means you don’t have to choose between indoor amenity and outdoor space. If you're looking for the best of both worlds, an acreage home offers both spacious indoor living and private and peaceful space to play.

But is acreage living all fun and games? What are the pros and cons of acreage living? We’ll outline the main benefits and disadvantages to help you decide whether living on acreage is right for you.

What is acreage? 

Also known as a ‘country home’ or a ‘homestead’, an acreage home is a larger house built on land that is close to or bigger than one acre. 

In the metric system, an acre equates to 4,047 square meters. How big is that? Think of nine basketball courts or 16 tennis courts! And, of course, that’s just one acre. Many acreage homes are built on land covering many acres in size.

 

The Lansdowne home design with Rural façade, on display in Bungendore.

What to consider when building a home on acreage

By definition, an acreage home will be located outside a city centre, meaning that you will enjoy country vistas from your house as well as a sense of relaxed community life with neighbours nearby but not right outside your window. Of course, that location can also mean increased travel, whether to work or school.

In terms of the house itself, the main consideration is whether you like the idea of a larger home, as most acreage homes take advantage of the extra land space available. There’s also important practicalities like checking water, power and sewer connections. 

Acreage home designs are all about space and flow. You can consider a wide-frontage house design with an impressive façade to welcome you home and impress your sense of style on everyone who visits. 

You’ll be looking through expansive windows that allow plenty of natural light into the home and enhance the sense of indoor-outdoor life. Alfresco living and entertaining areas will be a feature, with options to expand these to suit you and your family once you’ve settled in. 

Acreage homes are usually single-storey, thanks to the ability to spread out a larger home all on the one-level, making them ideal for multi-generational living. The extra space available allows for flexible floorplans, wide hallways, grand entrance ways and more spacious rooms. 

Let’s look more closely at the pros and cons of acreage living.

The Ellsley acreage home design with Farmhouse façade. Visit our Ellsley display home at HomeWorld Thornton.

What are the benefits of living on acreage? 

The main benefits of locating your lifestyle to an acreage home are:

• Space to move, live and play: Whether you’re keen on more bedrooms or larger living spaces, an acreage home will have you covered. Depending on your family’s needs and wants, there will be options for a larger kitchen, perhaps completed by a butler’s pantry, or enviable options such as a cinema room.
• A natural outlook: Forget looking out onto your neighbour or fencing! An acreage home allows you to enjoy big windows with views onto both your own garden and greener pastures beyond, as well as taking advantage of Australia’s big skies.
• Peace and privacy: Your country-style acreage will mean you can live your life with less noise from traffic and neighbours. And, you can enjoy entertaining and watching your kids play outdoors without any worry of disturbing others nearby.
• Indoor-outdoor living: Larger, light-filled and more open-plan rooms combined with plenty of space outdoors means that you can take indoor-outdoor living to a whole new level. Enjoy alfresco dining and undercover outdoor entertaining spaces, as well as having plenty of room for the option of a pool or private tennis court.
• Room to change and grow: An acreage home gives you enormous scope to flex your set-up for different stages of your life, including accommodating a growing family. 

What are the cons of acreage living?

While there are so many advantages to living on acreage, it’s important to consider any downsides:

• Increased travel: While your extra space will be wonderful while you’re at home, the location of most acreage homes means you’ll be travelling further to work (unless, of course, you’re able to work from home), for children to school (hopefully there’ll be a great school bus stop nearby) and for leisure activities (though, of course, you’ll have more of these available right at home).
• More maintenance: Larger land means more mowing (unless your acreage property is more bush-block style), weed-management and other gardening. A larger home can also mean more cleaning and maintenance. You might also have infrastructure like water tanks, pumps and sheds that will need looking after. The benefits of this maintenance, of course, is continued pride in your home and garden.

 

The spacious family room in our Lansdowne 31 display home in Bungendore.

Where does Rawson Homes build acreage properties? 

Rawson Homes is an experienced and high-quality builder of acreage homes in Australia. We build new homes on currently vacant land, as well as the option to knockdown an existing house and rebuild with your dream home. 

Keen to find out more? If you like what you’ve been reading and want to further explore the delights of acreage homes, please check out our acreage house designs and/or book a time to visit our brand new acreage display home, the Lansdowne, located in Bungendore, just 20 minutes from central Queanbeyan and around 30 minutes from northern Canberra.

FAQs

What is the best dog breed for acreage property? 

This is exactly the sort of question you can enjoy answering while considering what it would be like to be living on acreage! While it’s possible to have a dog in smaller homes on smaller blocks, with the additional indoor and outdoor space afforded by an acreage property, you can consider larger and more energetic dog breeds, including heelers and shepherds. 

How do you add value when building on acreage?

There are two aspects to adding value when living on acreage. The first is to consider you and your family, by choosing a design that’s ideal for your lifestyle and then enhancing your outdoor space so you can indulge in your passions, whether that’s entertaining, having pets, enjoying a pool, or owning horses. Then, there’s consideration of resale value, in which case you might like to develop the garden’s aesthetics and ensure the house and property remain well maintained.

Can I knockdown and rebuild and replace with an acreage home design?

If you have a wide lot (or are looking at an acreage) but are concerned that the existing house is past its prime or simply not suitable for you and your family, a knockdown rebuild option could be the perfect solution. By demolishing the existing house and building afresh, you can enjoy the land as well as a brand new acreage home.