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Have you considered Richardson? It's close to Plano, safe and you can still find older updated houses in your price range. We just closed on a 2000+ sqft home that was completely updated for under 250K.
Awesome! We will definitely look into them. Thank you.
That does bring up another question though, sorry if it seems dumb:
What are the actual practical implications of buying a home from a better builder? The ones we looked at by DR Horton looked like more than sufficient quality to us. Do you just run into more problems years down the road with the house when going with DR Horton than with say, Horizon?
Definitely qualify issues. In our neighborhood Grand homes have more issues including 3 homes that had to have the brick completely removed and reinstalled about 6 years later.
The realtors that live in and serve Murphy won't include Grand homes in the comps because they are not considered comprable even though somebody paid the same amount. Fancy niches and tons of arches do not equal good material and workmanship
Another question: some of these builders are charging what seems to be quite a bit to replace carpet in the base level with wood floors. Is it possible to just tell the builder to leave the floors as concrete, and I'll get my own guy to put flooring in? I don't know if that would save us any money.
They will not leave it raw concrete. If you are doing basic tile and carpet, you will not save much or any money.
If you are doing hand scrapped wood floors, they really must be done at the time it's built due to adjusting the height of the base boards.
Awesome! We will definitely look into them. Thank you.
That does bring up another question though, sorry if it seems dumb:
What are the actual practical implications of buying a home from a better builder? The ones we looked at by DR Horton looked like more than sufficient quality to us. Do you just run into more problems years down the road with the house when going with DR Horton than with say, Horizon?
If you ever sell the house in the future, you might get more people interested in it because it's a quality builder. For instance, peruse Realtor.com and notice when agents do or do not name the builder in the listing. I can guarantee you that if the house was built by Highland, Drees, or Darling, the listing agent will usually include that information in the summary because people that do their research know those are quality builders.
Most of the more respected builders also deal with any warranty issues much better. We have an 11 year old Highland and a few years ago one of our windows had a broken seal. Highland was very quick to follow-up on my warranty issue and it was really easy. Just think, if you have to fight with a builder when building the house, how do you think the warranty process is going to be?
They will not leave it raw concrete. If you are doing basic tile and carpet, you will not save much or any money.
If you are doing hand scrapped wood floors, they really must be done at the time it's built due to adjusting the height of the base boards.
A good wood floor installer will adjust baseboards.
We only had wood in the entry, study, kitchen & breakfast.
Added wood later in the family, living & dining rooms and master bedroom.
All the baseboards were adjusted and you would never know that the house was not built with the entire first floor with wood.
Look at a more central location. If your job could change at the drop of a hat, and sounds like it could. You are going to be doing a hella commute.
Also, resale on the homes that far out will not appreciate like a home closer in to a more central location. If the market tanks, the homes that far out will be the first to take a major hit. Dallas is lucky in that we are very diverse industry wise. Still, the market can go stagnant or economy tank big time. The losers on the homefront that are going to see the largest number of foreclosures and dropping market value will be those far flung communities that were built on a prarie in recent years.
Look at real estate values and trends in the various areas. There is a reason the ones in central locations are going up and getting in bidding wars. The people that live there are happy and do not want to move. Others are tired of the drive from way out, empty nesters are moving in closer to downtown for various reasons.
Richardson and central Plano would be a good place to start and be on top of the game with a good realtor that will let you know if a fellow agent has a house coming on the market so you can be the first one on it.
They will not leave it raw concrete. If you are doing basic tile and carpet, you will not save much or any money.
If you are doing hand scrapped wood floors, they really must be done at the time it's built due to adjusting the height of the base boards.
I would never do scrapped later. Good scrapped need to put in during build. They are thick. Other hard wood you can do later no problem and probably save money. I did. I rolled up the base carpet and donated it to salvation army for tax write off and had the contractor come in day I closed.
Look at a more central location. If your job could change at the drop of a hat, and sounds like it could. You are going to be doing a hella commute.
Also, resale on the homes that far out will not appreciate like a home closer in to a more central location. If the market tanks, the homes that far out will be the first to take a major hit. Dallas is lucky in that we are very diverse industry wise. Still, the market can go stagnant or economy tank big time. The losers on the homefront that are going to see the largest number of foreclosures and dropping market value will be those far flung communities that were built on a prarie in recent years.
Look at real estate values and trends in the various areas. There is a reason the ones in central locations are going up and getting in bidding wars. The people that live there are happy and do not want to move. Others are tired of the drive from way out, empty nesters are moving in closer to downtown for various reasons.
Richardson and central Plano would be a good place to start and be on top of the game with a good realtor that will let you know if a fellow agent has a house coming on the market so you can be the first one on it.
These are all good points. My wife's heart is set on getting a new construction house that's "perfect" though, and she's not one to change her mind on things like this. She'd rather her commute take twice as long if she's happy with the house. I'll take her to see some houses in more central locations, and perhaps that will change her mind.
Another issue for us with an existing house is that we have yet to find one on Zillow in our price range that we really loved, but many of these new construction houses would be perfect for us with the right customizations. There were a couple existing homes we thought were alright, but if we were to do the upgrades we wanted, the price would end up being far out of our budget. And I won't lie, we both really would prefer a newer house. Everything is a trade-off, I guess. I really don't anticipate ever having to work again in an office so the commute for me may never be an issue, but you never know. Richardson is not any better of a commute for my wife than out in the boonies north of 380 (and perhaps could be worse), so we'd like to limit our search to existing homes to the Plano/Frisco/McKinney/Colony area. Geographically, the areas around 35-E between Denton and Lewisville wouldn't be bad either, but we don't know much about that area, and it seems like it might be really crowded and congested (both of which we really don't like - we like peace and quiet)
We are frugal so always have money to spare. If we ended up buying a new construction house and three years down the road wanted to move back to Plano or something it wouldn't spell financial disaster or anything, right? And at that point we would have built up some equity so it would be easier to afford pricier homes.
There are just so many things to consider when buying a new home that it's almost overwhelming!
Last edited by Kepler452b; 01-14-2016 at 02:10 PM..
These are all good points. My wife's heart is set on getting a new construction house that's "perfect" though, and she's not one to change her mind on things like this. She'd rather her commute take twice as long if she's happy with the house. I'll take her to see some houses in more central locations, and perhaps that will change her mind.
Another issue for us with an existing house is that we have yet to find one on Zillow in our price range that we really loved, but many of these new construction houses would be perfect for us with the right customizations. There were a couple existing homes we thought were alright, but if we were to do the upgrades we wanted, the price would end up being far out of our budget. And I won't lie, we both really would prefer a newer house. Everything is a trade-off, I guess. I really don't anticipate ever having to work again in an office so the commute for me may never be an issue, but you never know. Richardson is not any better of a commute for my wife than out in the boonies north of 380 (and perhaps could be worse), so we'd like to limit our search to existing homes to the Plano/Frisco/McKinney/Colony area. Geographically, the areas around 35-E between Denton and Lewisville wouldn't be bad either, but we don't know much about that area, and it seems like it might be really crowded and congested (both of which we really don't like - we like peace and quiet)
We are frugal so always have money to spare. If we ended up buying a new construction house and three years down the road wanted to move back to Plano or something it wouldn't spell financial disaster or anything, right? And at that point we would have built up some equity so it would be easier to afford pricier homes.
There are just so many things to consider when buying a new home that it's almost overwhelming!
1. The new house is not going to be "perfect". Would you like the horror stories from our house #2 that was brand new that we had built? This was a $200k house in 1997, not exactly entry level. Could not get rid of that thing fast enough.
2. Zillow does not work for the Dallas market. Try realtor dot com. Then, get ahold of a good realtor. Lewisville and the far northern sector of Carrollton, get a good realtor and avoid being near the landfill and train tracks. The future is never a known and anything can change, even jobs.
3. Depends on if the market takes a tank. Right now everything is going up and up. If one hiccup hits, it will be the newer lower homes in the 200's from mid grade builders and lower grade builders that are going to take a hit if they are very far from the actual commercial area with jobs and mass transit as well as the top medical care facilities. Staying in the tried and true, market history has proven is the safest bet when it comes to real estate, and nothing is safe in real estate.
1. The new house is not going to be "perfect". Would you like the horror stories from our house #2 that was brand new that we had built? This was a $200k house in 1997, not exactly entry level. Could not get rid of that thing fast enough.
2. Zillow does not work for the Dallas market. Try realtor dot com. Then, get ahold of a good realtor. Lewisville and the far northern sector of Carrollton, get a good realtor and avoid being near the landfill and train tracks. The future is never a known and anything can change, even jobs.
3. Depends on if the market takes a tank. Right now everything is going up and up. If one hiccup hits, it will be the newer lower homes in the 200's from mid grade builders and lower grade builders that are going to take a hit if they are very far from the actual commercial area with jobs and mass transit as well as the top medical care facilities. Staying in the tried and true, market history has proven is the safest bet when it comes to real estate, and nothing is safe in real estate.
You need a realtor!
Hi Beaching, thanks for the advice. We actually do have a realtor friend and they also told us we should probably consider new construction since it's going to be very difficult to find the home we want for the right price in established neighborhoods. Richardson and Garland has some homes that would work for us but that's not a great location for us. You're right though that we need to just sit down and actually get a realtor - we just are trying to do our homework first.
I'll look into realtor.com as well. My wife and I went through all the existing homes between $200k and $250k in Plano on realtor.com and didn't really care for any of them (and most of them were marked as "pending" anyway). If we could find a decent place in a central location we'd jump on it, but we aren't having too much luck. We need at least 1800 squarefeet for under $250k if it's an existing home (this is assuming we are spending $10-20k on updates we want to do), but it seems slim pickings in Plano. Little Elm has a lot of homes that would work for us, however, and that location is not bad (the part of Little Elm just west of Frisco at least).
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