Today's new homes offer more benefits than ever before. I find that a large percentage of our Baby Boomer clients absolutely want to purchase a new home. Here's a quick list of the Top 10 reasons why so many home buyers prefer new homes to existing houses:
1) Design Your Dream Home Your Way: Why settle for someone else's choices when you can select your favorite cabinets, countertops, appliances, carpets and flooring? While you're at it, choose gorgeous bath and kitchen fixtures, lighting and other options that you love. Your new home will reflect you, not someone else's taste.
2) Choose a Floor plan and Room Layout that Meets Your Needs: Want a master bedroom on the first floor? It's yours. With massive his and hers walk-in closets? Done! Want high ceilings and a luxurious, resort-style master bath? Perhaps you'd like a sitting room with a fireplace in your owner's suite or French doors that open to your private patio or the pool? It's easy, when you build your master suite your way.
3) All New, Under Warranty: An existing home may have products that soon need replacing. Your new home -- and the products that comprise it -- are brand-new and under warranty. What's the cost to replace a roof, appliances, countertops or a water heater on an existing home? Those components of your new home feature the latest designs and building materials and should offer you years of comfort and enjoyment before needing replacement. Items like Granite countertops, Rinai Thankless water heaters, architectural shingle roofs may be standard in some new homes.
4) Energy and Cost Savings: Today's new homes are far more energy efficient than homes built just five years ago. Versus homes built ten or 20 years ago, it's game over, advantage new. Why settle for drafty, energy-wasting single-pane windows? Many new homes offer double or even triple-pane windows. Special window coatings and inert gases between the layers of glass are often available, saving you even more energy and money in both heating and cooling season.
5) Comfort and Indoor Air Quality: Today's new homes meet stringent energy standards and codes not in place in the past. They combine high-performance energy efficiency with state-of-the-art ventilation and air filtration. The result is year-round, draft-free comfort and higher indoor air quality.
6) Low Maintenance: New cars today are computer-designed and computer-equipped. That's why they perform much more reliably than a car that's 15 or 20 years old. Homes are the same. Today's new homes have open floor plans and high ceilings that reflect the way we live today. They're also made of cutting-edge building products that require less care and maintenance. Another plus? The latest building systems and components are designed and engineered to work together.
7) Community Amenities: Many new homes are built in lavish master-planned communities with resort-style community centers, pools and clubhouses. Many new home communities also feature hiking trails, protected open lands and some of the best new schools and shopping near (or even within) your new home community.
8) Advanced Technology and Design: It's possible to replace all of the single-pane windows in a resale home with today's high-performance windows. It's also possible to add insulation to an existing home. However, it's very expensive to replace dated appliances, cabinets and countertops in a used home -- and you still won't have the high ceilings you dream of on the first floor of an older two-story home. All are reasons to build your new home your way, to reflect the way you live today.
9) Safety: State-of-the-art circuit breakers. Electric garage door openers with infrared beams that stop if a tricycle or child is too near. High-efficiency furnaces and air conditioners that use the latest environmentally-friendly coolants. Cabinets, carpets and paints that use fewer volatile organic compounds, so that you and your family can breathe easier.
10) That New Home Feel: An existing home was someone else's dream, not yours. It reflects someone else's choices and someone else's family memories. You may love avocado-green appliances (and you may be willing to scrub stained countertops or grease-encrusted ovens and cook tops) but more and more people prefer that never lived-in feel.