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As someone who grew up in a city where almost all the architecture dates pre-1950, I never thought much about how old a home was. We considered the neighborhoods with split-levels and brick ranches to be "new", and this was in the 1980's and 1990's!
Our first home in the Triangle was built in 1908 and our current home was built in 1987. We consider our current home "new". We are possibly eyeballing a split level or brick ranch for our next home, as we realized that this was one way to slide into the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school district, pick up some decent square footage, be on the free bus line, and be a short drive away from the shopping districts in Durham and Chapel Hill. Many of these homes have been updated and have gleaming hardwood floors and attractive, modern lines. The neighborhoods are mature enough to have many hardwood trees.
Anyway, my question is this- what is the attraction for so many to buy brand new homes in new subdivisions when there are so many attractive homes in already established neighborhoods? The newer subdivisions often seem to be bereft of trees and even, occasionally, grass. The cost per square foot seems quite high for a brand new home, and often, there are resales in the same newer neighborhoods at a much better value. I'm not judging- I'm just trying to understand the attraction. Personally, I find many of the newer architectural styles to be such a mishmash of so many different eras that I can't tell what's going on with these homes. I also find so much wasted space in the newer homes- two story foyers and living rooms, etc.
I'm also curious how a family of four can fill up 3500 or 4000 square feet. These newer homes are behemoths! We have a 1550 square foot house and have a child, and while we'd probably like to have about 2000 square feet, we manage with what we have and wouldn't know what to do with 3500 square feet. Families are so much smaller than they were in the early 20th century, and yet our need for space has grown exponentially. What do people do with all this space?
Location: Between a nook-a-ler reactor and a dump, North Cackalacky
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Our two previous homes were built in 1908 and 1925 and were awesome - the quality, construction, details. I didn't enjoy the constant maintenance.........
We are buying brand new construction here, and it pained us to do so. We simply could not afford a decent older home in Raleigh; and even decent homes built in the latter part of the 20th century would sell so quick we couldn't grab one.
New construction, IMHO, is very weird. In most every development the homes are square or slightly rectangular boxes w/ pitched facades. From anywhere but the front they are just dull boxes.
Or they tend to be overstyled, mixing Greek with Colonial or other styles, and they look goofy.
As far as size, I don't get it either. Since almost every builder is male, and possibly half of the buyers are male, I can only guess it's a "Mine's bigger than yours" thing.
We were looking for something very specific so that limited us. We wanted 3000 sq ft and 1/2 acre minimum for around 400K, also convenient acess to 540. We looked at many older homes in beautiful established neighborhoods but they were priced comparably to newer homes that had the features we wanted. We would have had to put a lot of money into an older home to upgrade it so we ended up finding the lot we wanted and had our home built by a custom builder. I agree that many of the older homes are really nice though.
The only appeal I can think of with brand new construction is from a maintenance standpoint. A new house won't need a new roof next year or a new HVAC system or appliances or ...
That being said, my husband and I chose an older home (20 years old) on a heavily wooded lot. The newer houses just felt cheaper and flimsier somehow. Plus, we never saw a new house on a lot that we liked. Because our house is older, we will need to do a bit of work on it in the next 5 years (the roof is near the end of its life), but we think it's worth it.
As for all of the extra space? I don't get it either. I think large families certainly use all of that extra space, but I don't understand how a family of 4 might need more than a 3000 square foot house. To me that just sounds like the architect did not design the space affectively.
IdaClaire. From my experience showing homes, some people are drawn to new because they can pick out what they want from paint to flooring to fixtures etc and it will be done for them. That is very appealing for some. They don't have to worry about having walls painted, flooring changed, things updated etc.
Some say because it is clean and never been lived in. People also like the fact that they assured the latest features that homes have to offer these days. I have heard people say that they feel that newer neighborhoods draw young families.
These reasons, mainly not having to move into someones else's home and redo it to make it their own, is very alluring and some are willing to sacrifice alot just for it to be new. Don't misunderstand, there is some nice new construction out there to be bought that I have seen.
I grew up in a 1100 ft2 house with parents and three sisters - 3BR, 1 Bath. Now I'm married with two teenagers in a 3700 ft2 house. This is what we do with the extra space:
-No fighting over using the bathroom
-A dining room that is big enough that we can have our hutch and seat 6 people in the same room
-A dedicated space for the computer that isn't part of another room
-A spare bedroom for guests so that we don't have to run one of the kids out of their room when we have company spending the night
-A room that my wife can use for her hobbies and not have to put everything away in the evening in case someone comes by
Do we "need" all this space - No. But that can be said about alot of things. From the cars we drive to the food we eat and the clothes we where. I'm glad you're happy with your lifestyle as I am happy with mine.
Well, my husband and I prefer new construction mainly because we can get exactly what we want in terms of layout, features, etc. We are not fixer upper types and would need to hire someone to do any kind of work in our house (we couldn't even do crown moulding or tile installation on our own!) As other examples, my husband is very particular about the kitchen layout and I'm particular in that I want a downstairs study and and an upstairs washer/dryer. With new construction, we could get these things and pick out all other sorts of details. We did that with our current townhouse and love every detail of it. It's also a delayed maintenance issue like someone else mentioned. We knew things would hold up throughout our stay in our townhome, whereas with existing homes, you never know what problems could be hiding.
I grew up in a 1100 ft2 house with parents and three sisters - 3BR, 1 Bath. Now I'm married with two teenagers in a 3700 ft2 house. This is what we do with the extra space:
-No fighting over using the bathroom
-A dining room that is big enough that we can have our hutch and seat 6 people in the same room
-A dedicated space for the computer that isn't part of another room
-A spare bedroom for guests so that we don't have to run one of the kids out of their room when we have company spending the night
-A room that my wife can use for her hobbies and not have to put everything away in the evening in case someone comes by
Do we "need" all this space - No. But that can be said about alot of things. From the cars we drive to the food we eat and the clothes we where. I'm glad you're happy with your lifestyle as I am happy with mine.
Well said. We're in a similar situation. 4 people in a 3700 square foot house. We have a downstairs guest suite for company (which is nice since our family is all out of town), a home office (my husband works from home) and a room (and bathroom) for each child. The children also have a playroom which I like because it keeps their toys out of the family room (which is great because we have an open floor plan). We also may have another child or so so we have room to grow.
As far as new goes, we chose new last year when we were looking because we prefer recessed lighting to flourescent in the kitchen, like chrome, open floor plans, stainless appliances, solid surface countertops etc. It's just our taste. We love mature landscaping, and maybe in 20 years we will have it, but we couldn't afford an updated home the size we were looking for in a neighborhood with mature landscaping. We considered buying something older and updating, but it's such a hassle plus it can price you out of your neighborhood if you're not careful. That being said, we didn't see a huge price difference between new and old so we bought new.
I think most everything was covered by the previous posters. But in our case, we want a very specific feature that requires specific construction, insulation and wiring (wine storage) that would entail a major tear-down of existing structure. Additionally, there are things like super insulation, flooring in the attic, oversized shower etc. that are much easier to do during the construction phase rather than after-the-fact. And in many cases, cost is a big factor; an existing house with mature trees and landscaping with things like wide baseboards and large crown moulding just costs more.
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