Building a home can be exciting, daunting, and seem expensive all at once. But despite any cons it might have, buyers from all over still rush to build their dream home. Why does this option seem to be highly preferred than settling for an older, maybe cheaper home?
A major perk to customizing your house is that you can make your home unique to your family. You have a blank slate where you are your family are the first to make memories in your home that you will get to cherish forever. Your newly built house can be perfectly tailored to your needs, making it a place you can truly call home.
The luxury benefits speak for themselves:
Less Costly Maintenance
One of the biggest complaints of building a brand-new home is the upfront costs that come along with it. And it’s true that sometimes that new-home price tag looks daunting and much less appealing than the 20-year old home you’re considering as well. But looks can be deceiving, and even though a new home might seem more costly at first, it is often cheaper in the short and long run.
Older homes usually require a lot more upkeep and repairs than a new home would. From leaky sinks or even big foundational problems, the cost of maintaining your home often costs more than spending more money upfront for a new home. In addition to that, new homes often come with at least a one-year warranty from the builder, giving you extra assurance that costs from maintenance will remain low.
Another cost to consider is that new homes will have more energy-efficient techniques, such as better windows and better appliances, than an older home, saving you tons of money in utility bills each month. With just that factor, the difference in price between an old and new home could be made up in a matter of a few years!
An often overlooked factor to a new home is the price tag itself. Many buyers see the high price and shy away immediately, when in reality, the price tag of a new home can be even more negotiable than an old home’s price. An older home usually comes with a homeowner who has attached a sentimental value to the home, making it harder for them to accept a lower price. And an older home usually has more competition than a new build would, giving a buyer less and less wiggle room with the price. Builders are simply trying to sell homes, and can absorb a $30,000 decrease much easier than a single seller of a home could. So in the case of new homes, buyers can have more bargaining power.
Up-To-Date Codes and Energy Efficient
As mentioned before, a new home is built with up-to-date codes and with energy-efficient products. These codes not only provide a safer environment for you and your family, but can save you hundreds, or even thousands of dollars in the long run with lower utility bills.
Building codes have been getting stricter and stricter throughout the past 50 years — and that’s a good thing for buyers! It means that newer homes are going greener and greener, saving the environment and your wallet. Kevin Morrow, a senior program manager from the National Association of Home Builders’ green building programs said, “A recent International Energy Conservation Code came out in 2009 [and] required roughly 17 percent more efficiency than the codes of three years prior. So, using that as sort of a gauge to how newer homes should perform from an efficiency standpoint compared to older homes, it’s pretty clear that just as homes meet code, they are going to be more efficient.”[1]
A major way homes have improved have been through the improvements made in sealing a home. From windows, to doors, to the insulation, homes are making it easier to maintain your home’s temperature, and therefore makes it less expensive for you when you don’t have to continuously run an air conditioner or heater.
Another major improvement in new homes are the fire codes. Older homes have fire alarms that rely on batteries and don’t have much else to prevent fires. Newer homes have fire retardant throughout the house, in things like the carpets and insulation, to make it harder for a fire to start and/or spread throughout the home. They also have fire alarms that are hard-wired to the house, meaning they run on electricity and only run on batteries as a backup if the power went out. Newer homes are just built to be even safer and better protected than homes built years ago, which doesn’t just save you money but gives you peace of mind.
Total Control
The obvious advantage to building a new home is the control and customization you will have over the whole process. Buying an older home often comes with buyers wanting to renovate some part of it to meet their needs. When building, a buyer has a say in almost every aspect of the home, so you could design your dream home right from the beginning.
Building a new home allows for flexibility and personalization that just isn’t possible in an older home. Even in tract housing, you have a say in many of the design elements, including finishes, paint colors, or even adding an extra bedroom to your home. And when you’re moving into a new subdivision, you usually have the option of choosing the exact lot you want to live on. The customization factor of a building a new home just has benefits that an older home couldn’t offer without having to remodel the majority of the house — and that just adds more time and labor into the mix.
Another major perk to customizing your house is that you can make your home unique to your family. You have a blank slate where you are your family are the first to make memories in your home that you will get to cherish forever. Your newly built house can be perfectly tailored to your needs, making it a place you can truly call home.
