Photo by CC user Jaksmata on Wikimedia Commons
Real estate professionals like Blake Rubin can tell you that there is a case to be made for building your own home, but that there are also many reasons why you might decide to buy a home that is already built. Your decision needs to take account of the financial issues associated with each option – in general, a new home will cost more per square foot than an already-built home. However, there are many other things to take into account. Here are just a few things to consider as you decide if you should hire custom home builders in pennsylvania or buy a home.
Do you have a very specific idea of the “perfect home” for you?
In some cases, you may have very particular requirements for your home. Perhaps you have a multigenerational household and need to have several self-contained living areas, or 2 kitchens. Perhaps you need a home with wheelchair access and non-standard door frames. Or you consider it to be a deal-breaker if a home doesn’t have 4 bedrooms each with their own bathrooms. In any of these cases, you will likely have difficulty finding an already-built home that meets your list of must-haves. It may be possible, however to find a home that could be adapted to come closer to what you are looking for. In this case, you would need to balance the fact that a new home will likely be more expensive to build, against renovation costs on an existing home.
Are you willing to wait for your neighborhood to develop?
A great advantage of an already built-home is that you can take account of the neighborhood it is in. With a new build, especially if you are purchasing an early phase home, you are likely to have open holes and construction crews as neighbors for years to come. You may have to wait several years for the character of the neighborhood to emerge, and if it is not to your liking there is no option but to move. If it is important to you to have a sense of the neighborhood, a new build is probably not your best choice.
Is your timing flexible?
Although there are never guarantees when it comes to real estate, you can be reasonably sure that when you buy an existing home you will be able to count on moving into your home on the closing date. When you purchase a new build, there is considerably more uncertainty involved – delays related to weather, labor disputes, financing issues, or any number of other causes could mean that your possession date comes and goes and your house is not yet livable. For some people, this may not pose a problem but for others this situation can be very difficult to manage. If the stress of worrying for months about the construction process or the possibility that the house will not be finished is more than you want to take on, then an existing home is the way to go.
As you can see, there are advantages to purchasing a home that is already built, but these need to be weighed against the possibility that your home may not have all the features you want. In the end, it will depend on a personal decision about how far you want to compromise.