Buying A Home
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Build or Buy?
DH and I have the opportunity to build a home as opposed to buying one where we live. We plan on staying here & settling and making this town our home. I'm not really sure of the procedure of building a house, so I thought I would get some opinions 
Would you build a house, or buy one already built, doesn't matter if it's new construction, re-sale, etc. We just want something, that when we move in, all we have to do to it is maintenance, and live. no re-doing carpet, fixing a/c etc, etc... we want move in ready!
Re: Build or Buy?
It's probably worth your time to look at re-sell homes in neighborhoods you're interested in potentially building. When we did this, we realized we could probably get more for our money (and our taste) to build. That's what we ended up doing.
Obviously, every situation is different. The 'answer' to this question varies greatly on the kind of home you want, what the prices in your specific location, and the market.
I just really suggest looking at a lot of options so you feel 100% confident that you made the best decision as possible for your family.
"The House We Built."
A journey of building the dream.
Have you figured the cost to build and compared to what is available to buy in your area?
Building is much the same as buying in that there is a huge range of quality avialable at each price point. Location is primary - then the layout and materials used.
We bought a resale. We wanted a particular area, and the comparable new houses are 2-3x more than what we paid. Instead we chose a fully renovated house in an established very desirable area.
Like pp said, it really depends on a lot of things, and is a personal preference.
We chose to buy a new construction because the incentives were so much better than anything we would have gotten buying a resale. Our builder is paying for all of our closing costs and prepaids and we get a washer and dryer as well as fridge and blinds for free!
Some of the best deals you will get on new construction are on the homes that are only a few weeks out from being completed that the builder has not sold yet. We got 9k off of the original listing price in additon to all the above incentives because our home was only about a month out from being move in ready.
This depends on a lot of things - where you live, where you are building, the plans for the builders to continue building. We have some areas that took off, others that i not. My friend built what was the last house on the block, but they obviously have room to build more next to them, but they have yet to do so.
We are building.
However, depending on your market, you will probably get more home, more yard and better upgraded materials/appliances with an EXISTING home as opposed to building a custom home.
Building a custom home allows for very little negotiating (except on land) as opposed to existing homes on the market (newly built or newer resale).
To buy an existing home of the same/similar size/quality/style as our custom build would have cost us 1/4-1/2 LESS ... however, we could not find such a home in a location that we wanted or that had the minimum requirements we wanted without having to do some alterations to the home.
We seriously debated over it - I would have liked to have been able to spend 1/4-1/2 less on an existing home (and be able to move in sooner) and then be able to have a vacation home/apartment somewhere. But in the end, we just couldn't find what we wanted.
So I would start first with looking at existing homes - at the very least that exercise will help you define what type of home you want/floor plan wise and if you are looking at new/er construction always find out who the builder is ... this way, if you decide to build you will be familiar with your local builders and their quality of construction.
We did exactly what a lot of the previous posters said. We looked at a lot of resale houses before deciding that we would get exactly what we want with a new construction for cheaper then what we would pay for a resale that needed work.
However, it might not be the same situation in a different market.
Good Luck!
I think it all depends on the price comparison to both your looking at. we were looking at already built homes and then talked to a builder that put an addition on our home who came into a very inexpensive lot and is building a very nice and affordable house on it and asked if we were interested....the price is reasonable bec. the lot was basically given to him...an older woman who just wanted to get rid of it. the lot is smaller than we were looking at BUT we can custom design the new construction where as with an already built, we know we'll have to change at least a little bit. It seemed too good to pass up and pretty much fell into our laps.
BUt if it was more expensive than the home that were already built we would waver on the decision...and really contemplate it.
Now we are just waiting on our buyers with their mortage commitment to really get excited should know in another week or 2.
good luck!