Buy a Home With a Pool, or Build Your Own? Here's My Honest (and Personal) Take

If you've talked to me for more than five minutes about buying a home in the Phoenix metro area and pools have come up, you've probably heard my advice: if you know you want a pool, buy a home that already has one. It's almost always the more practical, more affordable route. And I still believe that's the right advice for most people.

But I'll let you in on something — I didn't follow my own advice when it came to my own home.

When I broke my own rule

Years ago, my family found a home that checked almost every box we wanted. The location, the layout, the lot, the feel of the neighborhood, it was everything we were looking for. The one thing it didn't have was a pool.

I sat with that for a bit, because I knew what I always told my clients. But the home had so much of what we wanted that we decided to buy it anyway and build the pool ourselves.

And honestly? It worked out. Because we built it from scratch, we got to make it exactly the way we wanted, deeper than most standard pools, along with a few other features that mattered to us that we simply wouldn't have found in a home that already had a pool installed. We've now lived in this home for more than 10 years, and we use that pool almost every single day during the summer. My family has gotten a tremendous amount of enjoyment out of it, and for us, it's been more than worth what we put into it.

So here's the honest truth: sometimes breaking your own rule is the right call. But I want to walk you through why I still generally tell most buyers to go the other direction, and help you figure out which path makes sense for you.

Why buying a home with an existing pool usually makes more sense

Cost. Building a pool in the Phoenix metro area is a significant investment, and in most cases, you won't recoup the full cost at resale. Buying a home that already has a pool built into the purchase price is almost always more cost-effective than paying to build one after the fact.

Time. A pool build can take months, sometimes longer depending on permitting, weather, and your contractor's schedule. If you want to be swimming next summer, buying a home that already has a pool gets you there immediately.

Less stress and fewer unknowns. Construction projects come with surprises. Buying an existing pool means what you see is what you get, you can have it inspected before you close, and there's no guessing about how the finished product will turn out.

It's already landscaped around. Pools that have been in place for a while usually come with mature landscaping, decking, and a backyard that's already designed around the water feature, rather than a backyard you'll need to redesign from scratch.

Why building your own might still be worth considering

You get exactly what you want. This was our biggest reason. We wanted specific depth, specific features, and a layout that fit how our family actually planned to use it. Buying an existing pool means you're working with someone else's choices.

You found the right home otherwise. If a home checks every other box, the lot, the location, the layout, the schools, it may genuinely make more sense to build the one feature it's missing rather than keep searching for a unicorn that has everything, including the exact pool you want.

You plan to stay long-term. This matters more than people realize. Building a pool is a bigger financial risk if you're not sure how long you'll be in the home. We've lived in ours for over 10 years, and the daily enjoyment we've gotten out of it made the decision worth it for our family. If you're planning to move again in a couple of years, that math looks very different.

You want to design the backyard as a whole. Building from scratch gives you the chance to design your entire outdoor space together, rather than working around an existing footprint.

My honest bottom line

If you know you want a pool and you're not particularly picky about the rest of the home, buy one that already has it. It's simpler, faster, and financially it usually makes more sense.

But if you find a home that has everything else you want, and the only thing missing is the pool, don't automatically rule it out. My own family is proof that sometimes it's worth going against the "obvious" advice, especially if you're planning to stay long enough to actually enjoy what you build.

Every family's situation is different, and there's no single right answer here. If you're weighing this decision yourself, I'm happy to talk through the pros, cons, and numbers for your specific situation, pool included or not.