Buying new homes verses resale homes
By on Feb 14, 2008
Fresh paint, brand new tiles, the kitchen of your choice; these are just a few of the things that new home buyers can expect when buying a brand new home.
According to BILD CEO Stephen Dupuis, the biggest advantage of buying a new home instead of a resale home is the design.
“Latest design is number one,” Dupuis said. “If you look at new homes today, technology’s evolved. You can put in more and bigger windows because they’re actually more energy efficient. From a design stand point you get higher ceilings these days, the open concept, the home office, the great room that families are looking for.”
The next things that people look for when buying a new home is that it’s energy efficient and safe, especially when it comes to fires.
Dupuis says that hard wired smoke detectors in new homes are important because they are wired into the home electrical system.
With regards to better efficiency, the code has been updated to include more things.
“It’s high efficient furnaces; the windows are more energy efficient, heat recovery ventilators are becoming more and more standard and there is a higher level of insulation under the new code,” Dupuis said. “Generally with any new home even at the base level it’s far more energy efficient than it was 10 or 20 years ago.”
He also said that low maintenance is a big advantage when buying a new home. People don’t want to spend too much time maintaining their home so brick is a popular choice. Now exterior materials are available that last the life of the house and they don’t need to be replaced.
The number one thing people look for when buying a new home according to Dupuis is that the home is brand new.
“It’s the brand new feeling that home buyers are after,” he said. “Nobody’s ever lived there before, all the components are new, so everything is fully warranted, so that includes the house itself and the parts that come with the house.”
Dupuis compared it to buying a new car. Everyone wants a new car, buying a used one is the compromise.
There are different components to a warranty for a new home. There is a one year warranty on workmanship and materials, two years on the major systems in the house such as plumbing, and seven years on major structural defects.
Even waiting for a new home isn’t very long. Closing dates at the earliest happen within a year so people don’t have to wait for them very long.
In 2007 alone there were 62,875 new home starts in cities in Ontario with a population over 10,000 people so there is no shortage of new homes.
