Lisa Johnson's House and Home - Articles on Home, Family, and Living

Lisa Johnson on Buying a New Home or House

Chapter 1: Why we decided to buy a new home versus a resale home

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October 1, 2003

The decision to buy a new home versus a resale home came to us not so much after a careful weighing of the differences, but it just "kinda grew on us".

It all started one day when a friend and I decided to browse some model homes at a new housing development near the condos where Steve and I lived. Afterwards, I told him about all the cool amenities, features and options.

About a couple months later, after driving around the Riverside County area, we spotted another new housing development under construction, and Steve decided to stop in and browse the models. From that point on, we discovered that browsing model homes was fun! We would spend weekend afternoons browsing model homes all over Southern California. We collected brochures from every development.

We had been living in the same condo for the past 12 years then. We were very much ready to move up into a real house. Visiting all those model homes and seeing all the amenities and options put us into the buying mood. Steve used a loan calculator on Yahoo to figure out the maximum payments we could afford using the interest rates at the time. We ended up with a number and used that to narrow down our choices.

Steve never was the type to make a lot of home improvements or do any "fixing up" on our condo. Some guys love to do that stuff, he didn't. He didn't want to buy a resale home and have to do a lot of work on it.

And the thing is that we wanted to find a home that was closest to our idea of the "dream house". When you buy a new construction home, and you are able to work with the sales rep before any of the homes have begun construction, you can actually tailor much of the home's amenities to your liking. That really appealed to us.

Price is always the biggest factor in which home you buy. In Southern California, the cost of real estate is extremely high. If there are certain requirements you want in a house, you may find severla resale homes that fit your requirements, but their selling prices are too high above your affordability. You may actually have better luck going with a new construction home, simply because you can choose to buy at whichever development fits your price, and still have an opportunity to tell the developer what you want.

Next:   Chapter 2 - Choosing the Housing Development

Suggested Links

·  Tips on Buying a Home

·  HUD Homebuying Guide

·  Homebuying Consumer Info Center

·  Real Estate ABC

·  Home Buying Guide.com