Susie Skog knows Lake Norman Real Estate Inside Out

We all define luxury real estate in different ways, but if theres one constant expectation that affluent homeowners have, its that your residence should cater to your lifestyle. Whether youre a young professional looking for a house where you can start a family or a retiree purchasing an expansive property where generations can come together, there are specific characteristics that youll need to consider in order to find the perfect dwelling. Here are a few helpful tips to keep in mind when searching for a property that meets your lifestyle.

Consider Your Passions
Whatever it is that youre passionate about, your home should be a gateway to pursuing this activity. If its cooking and entertaining, you need a professional-grade kitchen with lots of space for hosting. Or perhaps youre a wellness enthusiast who likes to take good care of yourself, in which case you need a state-of-the-art fitness and wellness area. There are endless features to be found in luxury homes these days, but its necessary to identify the ones that are most important to you.

Location, Location, and yes, Location
Okay, this one will come as no surprise, but its significance cannot be overstated when it comes to lifestyle. Do you want to be downtown where youll be close to all the fine dining and high-end shopping or are you more likely to seek open spaces with hiking and biking trails? Our immediate environment has a profound effect on our lives and the location of your home will play a major role in how you spend your time.

Adequate Accommodations
If youre planning to start a family in the near future or enjoy having house guests, then it might be wise to purchase a home with an extra bedroom or two. For those who regularly host friends and relatives, you may even want to have an in-law suite or separate guest house.

Productive Environment
You also want your residence to be a place that fosters productivity. That could mean having a home office where you can escape from distractions or simply an open layout with lots of natural light that makes you feel energized. Everyone has different habits and rituals, so take the time to pinpoint what makes you productive and prioritize those features.

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Take these factors into consideration when it’s time to decorate your living space!

Proportion & Scale

Before buying furniture, always take measurements and try to visualize how it will fill the space its intended for.

Color Scheme

Take the time to look for inspiration and choose colors that match the mood youre looking to create.

Traffic & Flow

When arranging furniture and decor, consider how youll move about each room and the way in which these items direct traffic.

Balance

The goal is for a room to have a consistent impact or weight, rather than having lots of decor on one side and wide open space on the other.

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So, you have a souped-up smart home thats supposed to make everything in your life more efficient and stress-free. The one catch that many luxury homeowners are now experiencing, however, is that these cutting-edge devices could be compromising their privacy and security. From cyber-attacks to unwanted data collection, these concerns are understandable, but with a few easy steps you can ensure that your smart home is safe from any potential threats.

Create a Separate Network
Its always a good idea to have a separate wi-fi network for your smart devices to run on, which can usually be done without having to purchase an additional router. This way theyre kept entirely separate from your regular home network, which youre probably using for sensitive activities, like online banking, storing personal information or sending work-related emails.

Review Privacy Settings
Most of us dont usually take the time to read the painstakingly long terms and agreements that can sometimes give consent for a company to collect personal information. If youre not going to read it, you should at least do some research on the devices that you own to get a better sense of what the manufacturer or service provider is collecting. You may even learn theres a way to change the default privacy settings and prevent your data from being collected altogether.

Change Default Passwords
When you get a new smart product, be sure to change the default password, otherwise you might as well not even have one. While it can be tempting to use the same old password for every account, thats really not a great idea if you take your digital safety seriously. Get creative with your login information and always keep it written down somewhere rather than storing it on your computer or smartphone.

Install the Latest Updates
In addition to introducing new functionalities, software updates usually include improved security features. This can be a result of the manufacturer finding a potential vulnerability that theyre worried hackers can take advantage of, so its certainly a good idea to have your devices set to automatically update.

Consider a VPN
If youre going to control your devices from a public wi-fi network while youre out of the house " and lets face it, thats very likely to happen at some point " you should be using a VPN, or virtual private network. For example, if youre using the wi-fi at an airport and want to check your smartphone to see whos ringing your doorbell, a VPN will encrypt your connection and ensure that its not being picked up by anyone else on the network.

Published with permission from RISMedia.

Published with permission from RISMedia.

Published with permission from RISMedia.