Sunday, July 12, 2009

Real Estate Home Page-New Home or Resale Home?

In your home search, have you ever struggled with the dilemma of deciding whether to buy new or resale? You have a lot of company!

Next time, take your list of pros and cons and your decision will be a breeze...well, maybe not a breeze but, at least, a little more organized.

Of course, the no-brainer "pro" of buying new is...yes, everything's new...appliances, roof, heating and air conditioning...well, everything! Any one, or more, of these things could go bad the day after you buy a resale. If the warranty has expired, guess who pays the bill. Well, that's not always true. If you buy, or get the seller to buy, a home warranty (it usually covers 1 year) it could pay or help pay for repairs or replacement during the covered period.

New homes typically come with a 1 to 10 year home warranty paid for by the builder. New homes also come with cooking stoves, dishwashers and microwaves. But, in additon to these, resale homes will usually have window blinds and sometimes a refrigerator, washer, dryer and mature landscaping.

Because new homes are usually financed out of a pool of money not available to the resale home owner, the builder usually can offer more incentives for the new home. Incentives might include upgraded appliances or floors, low rate financing and downpayment assistance , to name a few.

Finally, the biggest difference between buying resale or new is that you have the option of buying a presale home...building from ground up, where you select everything from paint colors, to light fixtures to where you want your outside water faucets. Or, you can buy a new house that is already built...known as a "spec home" (speculative home) or "market home". The advantage is that you can see, touch and walk around in this home. You know exactly what you are getting and you can close in 30 to 45 days as opposed to 6-10 months for building from the ground up.

Sooo...there you go...get out there and buy a home! If you'd like to see what's in the Triangle of North Carolina, check out this website: http://www.triangleestatesrealty.com/

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