House Buying Question

[Hoober]

Originally posted by: 1YellowPeril
I didn't think of using a realtor for buying a new house in a planned community. If prices are negotiable, wouldn't the developer be more flexible if it doesn't have to pay the realtor's commission?

As for the upgrades--that's a good point that if I do it up front, then the price would be rolled into the mortgage. I guess I could put a bigger down payment. AstIsis did mention that his improvements were cheaper when done later on, but he probably just addedd lots of ibises and scarab beetles and stuff.
But there is also the hassle factor of having work done when we're living in the house.

Arrgh--so many trade offs.

I would recommend getting a buyer agent. They can help you out in so many ways that you never even considered. The seller pays them, too, so you don't have to really worry about that. We got a buyer agent that was a friend of the family when we bought our house last fall and I'm very glad we did. It was quickly evident that we were in over our heads and he was able to sort us out fairly quickly.

 

[CPA]

Originally posted by: 1YellowPeril
I didn't think of using a realtor for buying a new house in a planned community. If prices are negotiable, wouldn't the developer be more flexible if it doesn't have to pay the realtor's commission?

As for the upgrades--that's a good point that if I do it up front, then the price would be rolled into the mortgage. I guess I could put a bigger down payment. AstIsis did mention that his improvements were cheaper when done later on, but he probably just addedd lots of ibises and scarab beetles and stuff.
But there is also the hassle factor of having work done when we're living in the house.

Arrgh--so many trade offs.

Maybe. Some builders will take the 3%, or portion of it, off the price of the house, other's won't. Other's will use it as part of your downpayment, if you finance through them. But you won't know unless you ask.

Negotiating a new house with a national builder is tougher than a used home or a custom home, unless you get in during close-out or initial development.

 

[AstIsis]

Originally posted by: 1YellowPeril
I didn't think of using a realtor for buying a new house in a planned community. If prices are negotiable, wouldn't the developer be more flexible if it doesn't have to pay the realtor's commission?

As for the upgrades--that's a good point that if I do it up front, then the price would be rolled into the mortgage. I guess I could put a bigger down payment. AstIsis did mention that his improvements were cheaper when done later on, but he probably just addedd lots of ibises and scarab beetles and stuff.
But there is also the hassle factor of having work done when we're living in the house.

Arrgh--so many trade offs.

I am a "her" and I actually have had a lot of work done since moving in. Since my house was finished, I have opted to change a few of the internal walls not to mention the flooring, cabinets and molding.

(hehe....egyptian architecture is beautiful, but my house is Victorian despite the nick )

As for the builder being more flexible without the realtor, nope..not a problem. The realtor knows what to ask for/look for that the builder might just "neglect" to tell you. My realtor was paid by my mortgage broker and not my builder so she worked exclusively for my best interests and not the builders.

Yes, I had a realtor, a mortgage broker and a builder...it got interesting at times. Oh, also, do not go with the mortgage broker the builder suggests. They tend to work for the builder and against you. I did find a mortgage broker invaluble though. He was able to research all the best interest rates/companies and really came through for me. (Much better then my bank was able to offer!)

 

[Parrotheader]

Originally posted by: Fausto1

Originally posted by: bunker
Bought a house in Atlatnta (suburbs) two years ago, 2 story. Heating and cooling is a bitch and I will never own another two story home if I can help it.

There is almost always a good 4-6 degree difference between upstairs and down. Now, this can be fixed with a rather expensive second furnace/ac/thermostat, but I don't have that kind of cash floating around.

There are still quite a few one-story / ranch style homes down here. There's a developement right down the street from me that's doing nothing but ranches.

I'll add to this that the build quality of the newer development homes around town are generally below that of existing homes. I can't speak for other areas, but here in Atlanta they throw up new homes as fast as they can and it shows. I don't think I'll ever buy a new home unless I know the builder personally.

It's the same way here in Birmingham. While I have seen some very high quality new construction in a few of the newer neighborhoods, some of them are so shoddily put together it's scary (and usually it's a function of the price of the house as you'd expect.) There are plenty of exceptions to be found though if you look around enough. My family's full of civil engineers (including my dad) so I made sure he tagged along when we found homes we were particularly interested in. While in most cases, quailty differences were readily obvious even to an untrained eye, he was able to point out things we never would have noticed. Future (and even already occurring) foundation problems were a HUGE problem at a lot of neighborhoods we looked at. We were originally looking at patio style homes due to affordability, but lucked into a good deal on a full-sized two story w/full basement in a more upscale neighborhood built in '89. We love it.

The heating and a/c costs can be a pain, but I personally love having a two story. I grew up in a one story house so to me it's like having 2 separate mini-homes (3 if you count the basement .) We spend most of our time on the 1st floor, but during the late evening hours begin to migrate to the bedrooms and office upstairs so the upstairs doesn't have to be as cool during the early part of the evening - but I usually keep it fairly cool anyway. The 1st floor doesn't take near as much to keep cool, however, which is nice. In fact, the 1st floor doesn't usually require much temperature adjustment at all year-round since it's sandwhiched between two other floors. Plus, we have a lot of fully grown trees in our yard (another advantage of having an older home with bigger lots) so we get a lot of shade.

Just make sure you have ceiling fans in all your upstairs rooms (this is usually standard on most homes in the southeast.) I throttle the upstairs A/C back significantly while we're gone during the day, but a few of the ceiling fans upstairs generally stay on all day to keep the air circulating so it doesn't become TOO stifling and impossible for the A/C to compensate for when we get home later.