7 Benefits to Buying a New Home
For many, the decision to buy a home is filled with uncertainty, with questions arising that can’t easily be answered. When is the best time to buy? What kind of mortgage should I take on? Is it cheaper to just rent? Everyone deserves the right to have a happy home-buying experience–it’s a significant life achievement that should be fun and exciting! If you are interested in buying a house, you might be interested in something like conveyancing quotes online.
One of the biggest questions that come up is whether to buy a new home or a used home. New homes are beautiful and modern, but might cost more. Used homes might cost less but usually come attached with various “renovation” projects to either make the home feel like, well, home, or to simply keep it maintained. If you are really stretching your budget, maybe look at alternative ways to save money. One thing some people have tried is looking at cheap car insurance companies, as a possible replacement for their current providers. It may only save you a small amount, but it is a start and will likely accumulate into a respectable figure.
To help make sure your home-buying experience is indeed fun, exciting, and as stress-free as possible, we’ve put together these 7 benefits of buying new instead of used.
- All New, Under Warranty
Buying a used home can be a lot like buying a used car. The price tag might be more desirable, but it might have years and years of wear and tear on it. It might run well now, but how well did the previous driver take care of it? A few months in you might find yourself paying for new brakes, new transmission, or any number of engine parts.
The same thing goes for buying a used home. You might not know when you’ll have to replace the water heater, get a new stove, or fix that leak in the attic the realtor forgot to tell you about. It goes without saying then that buying new would minimize these concerns.
Not only that, but your new home will be under warranty, so even if something does go wrong, you’ll most likely be covered for repair or replacement.
- New Homes are Often Safer Homes
As building codes continue to develop, and technology improves at an incredible rate, new homes are becoming safer and safer. Gone are the days of asbestos, lead, and PCBs being used in construction, and buying a new home assures that you won’t have to worry about any of them. No longer will you have to think ‘is the attic safe or not‘ when you need to access some belongings you’ve stored up there, as you’ll have total peace of mind that your own home cannot harm you. They also have more efficient furnaces and air conditioners which will help prevent accidents or carbon monoxide leaks.
A difference in just 5 years could mean completely different technology used in the building of your home. For instance, all homes now require hard-wired smoke detectors, and many developers use fire-retardant carpeting and insulation, and garage door systems that feature infrared detectors, which would stop the door from closing when objects are in the way, are almost standard now.
While used homes aren’t exactly death traps-in-waiting, new homes have the advantage of avoiding many of the pitfalls that used homes might succumb to.
- New Homes are Often More Energy Efficient
To be fair, the up-front cost of a new home will usually be higher than that of a used home, depending on the location of each, but the long-term savings of having an energy efficient home cannot be ignored. A few years ago the Energy Information Association (EIA) found that even the difference between pre-2000 and post-2000 homes was a 21% increase in energy efficiency. Now that number’s up to about 30%, compared to homes built 10 years ago.
Energy efficient technology has infiltrated a number of different aspects of the home. While advances in heat and air technologies is a big part of it, even little things like better sealing around windows, better insulation, and more open, natural-light filled rooms contribute a great deal to lowering your monthly utility bills. In fact, new homes save on average 3500 kilowatt hours (kWh) per year. Depending on where you live, that could be between $400-$600 in savings per year, just from having upgraded equipment. And that’s compared to homes built 10 years ago–just imagine the savings compared to a house built 20-30 years ago!
- New Homes are Easier to Customize
Anyone who’s spent time house-hunting knows how hard it can be to find the perfect home. The living room might be just a little too big, the bathrooms a little too small, or the kitchen lacking much-needed countertop space. Not to mention the aesthetic choices of the previous homeowner–flowered wallpaper just might not be your style.
These days, many developers will let you help with the customization of your new home, depending on when you get involved in the building process, of course. You can make the living room a little smaller, the bathrooms a little bigger, or whatever else you might want changed before construction begins. Even complete floorplan overhauls are possible, depending on how flexible your developer is willing to be. It’s your chance to add a little personal touch to your home.
Even if you’re buying a new home that’s already been built, it’ll be much easier to personalize to your taste; in other words, no flowered wallpaper to remove.
- Less Maintenance
As mentioned earlier, a new home means new everything which means no wear-and-tear that will result in repairs and replacements a few months after you’ve moved in. It also means better, stronger, more durable building materials that will keep your house standing for much longer. Some new homes, for instance, use composite materials instead of wood for exterior trim, which won’t need to be replaced for many years.
The difference in just 5 years can mean great strides in construction technology and brand new homes are often much more ready to handle the typical stress a home might be subjected to.
- Buying Your New Home from a Developer
Buying from a housing developer opens up a whole list of benefits, as opposed to buying from a homeowner with emotional attachment to their house. Developers are much more likely to let you bargain with them for a price, while some homeowners think their own home is worth much more than it actually is. Developers are more likely to offer incentives to help close you on their sale–homeowners, understandably, might be more afraid to lose money on the sale of their home.
It’s important to note that not every developer will be in a position to offer such discounts. If they’re struggling to finish their development or are fighting foreclosures, they’ll be much less flexible about letting the price down for their new home. Check the housing market for the area you plan to move to before starting the purchasing process.
- Buying a New Home can Offer Peace of Mind
Lastly, the peace of mind that comes from buying a new home is worth a lot. In addition to all the benefits listed above, the time you’ll save by not having to fix the roof, paint your walls, or replace some broken appliance can be used on things that truly matter. Most used homes come with a list of things you’ll want to fix or change before the house finally feels like home. Instead, you can make a list of vacations or experiences you want to have, and remove the burden of having an old, pre-owned house.
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Hopefully these tips will help you in the home-buying process, and let you have the happy, exciting experience you are hoping for. Once you have chosen your new home, visit https://buildyoursmarthome.co to see how you can transform it into a smart home with the ultimate labour saving technology.
