Many homebuilders allow buyers to help design the property, which helps create a living space tailored to the consumer’s tastes. New-home buyers, for example, can often choose colouring, choose their preferred flooring or pick the kitchen they love.
Building codes have mandated higher energy-efficiency standards since they began to address the issue in the late 1970s.
Newly constructed homes use energy more efficiently in two ways. First, they tend to have a tighter-sealed building envelope, or the enclosed part of a structure, that helps prevent conditioned air — cool air in the summer, warm air in the winter — from escaping. Features that create this envelope include higher-efficiency insulation, doors and windows.
The more energy-efficient mechanics of the house also help reduce utility bills for new-home buyers. New homes often include green systems and appliances — such as high-efficiency stoves, refrigerators, washing machines, water heaters, furnaces or air conditioning units — that homes built years ago might not.
Owners of existing homes can always retrofit their property or buy higher-efficiency appliances, but doing so can be expensive.
The features of new homes should also hold up better than those of existing homes, which may have experienced years of wear and tear.
At the same time, today’s new homes are engineered specifically to minimize maintenance requirements. For example, using composite products for a home’s exterior trim instead of wood, which could rot or need repainting.
Warranties such as NHBC can offer guarantees for structural problems for 10 years and builders often agree to take care of the necessary repair work in a new home for the first year.
So if your roof starts leaking or the heater breaks during the warranty period, you will not pick up the bill for the repairs.
New homes often include fire-safety features that may not be in properties built years ago.
In addition, all new homes are required to include hard-wired smoke detectors. These devices can provide better protection than battery-operated smoke detectors.
Buyers can often squeeze more concessions out of a home building company than an individual seller. That’s because individual sellers often have an emotional attachment to their property that can blind them to its true value.
At the same time, builders often have greater financial wherewithal to absorb a loss on a sale than individuals.
New-home buyers can often take advantage of mortgage-financing or stamp duty perks available through their builder.
