Happy New Year!

This is my first post for 2017!!!! This will be a very exciting year for us. We closed chapter 2016 on a very positive note. We closed on the town house on December 30!!!! My husband was able to sign some of the closing documents before we left for South Carolina. The day of closing the settlement company simply faxed over three additional documents for us to sign and send back.  Since the house is now sold that is one less thing we have to worry about (because this is one of the loan contingencies). I can focus my attention on the fun stuff!!! I drove pass the lot when we returned from vacation. I didn’t expect much to be done during the holidays but it did look like the excavation is complete. Our second Weekly Construction Meeting was today. Check out the construction updates here.

The Background

A few months ago my husband and I were talking about potentially moving from the townhome that he owns to a single family home.  At this point we had been married for two years and own two properties. I have a condo that is currently being leased. We have also been talking about starting a family. The townhouse seems like it was getting smaller by the day so we knew with a child we would need more space.  After months of asking when are we going to move he mumbled under his breath “maybe next year”?  I assume he just said that to stop the constant questioning, but for me that was approval to start my home search J.  Since he finally gave me a definitive answer I did lay off a bit. During my free time I would search the web looking at new communities and resale homes.  The differences in new construction versus resale homes were pretty clear.  Knowing that we were more than a year out from moving I knew the resale homes that I saw for sale today would not be there a year from now.  Here is what I found:

Newer homes were priced slightly higher but some included more square footage and open floor plans.

Resale homes lots were a lot bigger and the homes were further apart compared to new construction. But this also depends on the neighborhood of the new construction. Also with new construction you have to consider the lot premiums; the bigger the lot the more expensive the lot premium. With resale you don’t have to worry about lot premiums.

New construction homes often are in new communities and neighbors are younger with similar goals (starting/raising families).

New community developments were further out often off two lane country roads (in the part of the county where we were looking).