The truth is, your home probably wasn’t designed for you. It was designed for an “average” homeowner who might have looked a lot like you when the home was built. And whether your home was originally built in the 1950s, 1970s, or 2000s, there’s a pretty good chance it was built to match all the other homes in your neighborhood in one way or another. Look around any housing development built in the past 70 years and you’ll see cookie-cutter exteriors, duplicate floor plans and little excitement. And despite updates to materials, finishes and customizable features, homes built as recently as yesterday still suffer from the same problems.

But why? The truth is developers don’t build houses to improve lives, solve problems or create communities. They build them to make money. More homes built quickly using cheap materials and easily duplicated floor plans mean the only differentiating factor from one builder to another is cost.

Home buyers, understandably, are responding with negative assessments of the process. HSH.com surveyed more than 2,000 adults who recently purchased new construction in a housing development and found 80 percent were not happy, uncovering construction problems and experiencing delays in getting the home finished. The new homeowners also found their new houses didn’t have enough storage and that their monthly utility costs had increased beyond what they expected. Some hired a contrac-tor on their own to finish work they consid-ered low quality or perform needed repairs or replacements.

Their lives weren’t made better. They stayed exactly the same. Let’s work together so that surprises don’t turn into potential problems in the future.