Buying a new home is always a tough decision. Families spend ages looking at homes, talking to real estate agents, doing home tours and inspecting every inch of their potential residence. You look at the neighborhood, the community, the kitchen, and bathroom size, and what, if any, work will need to be done. Maybe you’re already planning for the yard and have specific expectations for what you want.
There’s a lot of work and thought being put into buying a new home, and that’s before you actually sit down at the bank and negotiate a loan to buy it!
So, what to look for in a new home? Do you just take a look at the local “homes for sale” sign and call? Go online and look for real estate in the communities you envision yourself in? That’s actually not too far from the truth. Studies show that for 42 percent of people looking for new homes, the first step that they took was to look online at properties for sale. That same study said that 14 percent of buyers first contact a real estate agent who then searches for them, and presents the results for their viewing.
Many new home buyers, 41%, want newly built, modern homes. They prefer newly constructed homes over an existing one. This may be for tax reasons, as new homes have a significantly lower tax rate for the first 12 to 24 months than resale homes of the same value.
Or, it may be for safety and insurance sake. You see, most new homes come with an NHBC Buildmark warranty. This is an insurance backed policy which offers purchasers protections against all defects in the home due to the NHBC standards not being followed, at least for the first two years. And after those two years, the next eight years the warranty provides protections against damages arising from structural or drainage defects created in construction.
That’s a pretty big incentive to buy new, especially at the same price as a resale home.
There’s also the sentimental aspects of a new home versus an older, resale, home. The new one is yours, your family’s. You were the first to live in it, the first to make your mark on it. That holds some weight with many new home buyers and sometimes leads to individuals preferring to build a home with a home builder, rather than purchase an already existing home. They get to design and envision what they want.
Whatever your reasons for buying a new home, just make sure you do your research! It may be a long, tiring, process, but it’s certainly worth it!
