Pondering a New House: New Construction or Existing?

Are you thinking buying a new home in a newly developed community? Are you tempted to the freshness and style of new construction? Are you set to make the move to a newly built home, but don’t know what questions to ask?

buying new construction is significantly many than purchasing a used home. It isn’t necessarily harder (in many ways it’s easier) however you do need to consider various factors and ask many questions.

With old construction, you need to bring in an engineer to inspect the house and look for defects. Many used house could have problems, and very often the repair will fall on the new homebuyer. From the seller’s perspective, their offering it at this price for the condition it’s in; while the condition is not perfect, you’re not paying for new construction.

In other words, they’re charging less for a used home because it needs repairs.

New construction, in comparison, should be delivered in excellent condition. While you will definitely need to do a walk-through inspection prior to closing, the process is much simpler. During construction, you may very often inspect the progress of work as it is being completed. If you see something that is an problem, you are able to quickly correct it during the construction phase as opposed to going back and fixing it at a later date. Since many repairs and existing houses are the result of the age-such as split foundations, sagging walls, leaky ceilings, and broken pipes, leaky faucets, broken tiles, old windows, lack of insulation, etc., you could have very little of these problems with a newly built house.

While you may surely hire an engineer to inspect a newly built home, they’re generally looking for defects that generally are not present in a new home. Further, since most new homes have a warranty, you have a level of protection you would not have with a old home.

Don’t be fooled by the cost of an old house. The purchase price is only one piece of the picture. The remodels and repairs necessary to get the home in the way you want can add tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to the price of that home. Additionally, you often need to come up with that money “out of pocket.” In contrast, the newly built home is in as ideal of condition as possible, which is built into the asking price, and could be paid for with your mortgage.

Let’s look at an example: a new construction in Commack NY that is over 3600 sq.ft. is just over $1 million. The house is in brand-new excellent condition and ready to move-in. A similar “used” home in the area of the same size may be $950,000. While it may appear that you “save” $75,000 on a old home, you’re buying a home that’s twenty years old, will last twenty years less, and already has twenty years of wear and tear. Since most houses have a useful life of 60-75 years, you’d be purchasing a house with less long term value.

With existing homes, you could need to remodel. The kitchen may need to be fixed, bathrooms updated, and other repairs made. The older house may not be the exact design you want. This may require structural changes to the house – which may warrant six months of renovations while you’re living in the house. These renovations may cost $50-$100,000 and will be money you will have to produce out of pocket. Had you bought the new house for slightly more, you would not need to come up with an additional $75,000 out of pocket, would not need to live free six months of construction, and would have a perfect ready to occupy a home on the day you close.

So does this mean new homes are perfect? No. However generally speaking, they are the better option. When talking about something this size and the scale of the new house, there will always be problems. It is far easier to deal with those issues with a creditable builder during the construction process than it is to deal with them on your own after you have bought the house and have no one to go to. Items such as a leaky faucet or cracked tile can easily be repaired or replaced by the builder at no additional cost whereas doing such repairs on your own with the used home requires time and cash on your end.

TIP: Be sure to work with a dependable builder in your area who you can turn to with questions and ideas. Try to produce as many ideas as possible at the very beginning of the process before construction; relocating walls after rooms have been built can be very expensive, whereas relocating them before construction is started will carry relatively low cost.

Craig Axelrod is one of the partners from Emmy Homes. Emmy is which is one of Long Island’s most trusted home builders. Emmy’s Commack real estate features luxury homes in Commack. Visit EmmyHomes.com for more details.