NEW CONSTRUCTION REGRETS || TIPS FOR NEW BUILD HOMES

Hey Guys! This video is our New Construction Regrets and tips for buying a new build homes. Things that we wish we knew before starting our New Home Build. If you want to see more about our new build let me know in the comments! (We have LOTS to say LOL). I also just want to say that we would 100 PERCENT do this process again. These are just some problems we personally ran into that we wanted to share so hopefully we can help people avoid these issues.) Thanks so much for tuning in :)

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[onatecris]

I just built my house too and word of advice don’t regret anything. Once you move into your beautiful new house you’ll feel so proud and happy that it’s yours! There will always be something you wish you had after a few years because it’s your first house and you start to grow into and out of it and that’s normal but don’t regret anything...we can’t do all the upgrades or we would have a house way more expensive. A new home is a new slate that you get to start decorating and adding things to. So don’t feel bad you didn’t do it all from construction point.

[DenverRealtorBestie]

I'm a realtor in Denver, CO who specializes in new construction. I see staged homes all the time, but my favorite is getting to walk the journey with the homeowner to see how they change a house into a home. Great tips. You made a good point about "everything included". You will definitely end up spending thousands of dollars at the design center if you are not intentional about your wants vs needs. One thing I love about new construction is the peace of mind that comes with having a home warranty. Your thoughts are a testament to why it's important to have a realtor with you to help be your bulldog in the fight.

[MttNet]

Great video and tips. My wife I built a home about 10 years ago (actually a partial spec home that we got great incentives on and tweaked a couple things), unfortunately had to move a few months later and sold. Right now we're building a new home again, this time choosing everything. A couple tips purely from my perspective.

1) There is no right choice. Everyone is different and your wants and desires aren't wrong. There's a million ways to do things and you'll hear people say do X, don't do Y, spent money on this, but not on that etc. Some of it is generally good advice, in particular about getting value, but beyond that it's just personal preference. Figure out what --you-- want before doing this, look at homes, watch home improvement shows, tour a bunch of models. Get a strong idea in what you like, allow yourself to adapt and change, settle on what's best for you and then go for that.

2) Figure out if you want to put money into the base price vs upgrades. Referring to #1, neither is right or wrong. If you think you won't be happy unless you get a lot of specific upgrades, then that's fine, if you think you're fine with simple upgrades so want to put money into the square footage, location, etc, that's fine too. Though when doing upgrades often you'll hit a point where it just makes more sense to either go all in, or hold them way back. Like that shower you illustrated. Either you stay stock and spend the money later, or you go all in and get all the upgrades so you don't have to re-spend money re-doing half of it later that might require you to re-do other work. Your base price will be usually the square footage, the lot, and the location... if you know you'll want a lot of upgrades and that's more important than one or more of those then come in at a much lower base price and give yourself the room to upgrade a lot. If that's what you want that will be a MUCH more fun experience than if you come in at the very top of your budget before upgrades but wanted a lot of upgrades and have to constantly not get what you really want. Everything is a trade off, set yourself to get more of what you actually want.

My wife and I went minimal upgrades and maximum square footage 10 years ago. This time we went smaller square footage (bigger than then, but smaller than what we could get in our current situation) and are maximizing upgrades (but only upgrades that compare favorably with the cost to do it later if we wanted, passing on the ones that aren't a good value). The upgrade process was so much fun since we now have a much stronger idea of what we want out of a house and we got to choose it all! We could have gone larger square footage but quality can be better than quantity depending on the situation. No right answer just what you want.

3) Probably the MOST IMPORTANT advice I could possible give... If you care about value and especially about getting upgrades, COMPARE upgrades between builders. Having done this before when my wife and I were new to buying/building a home, though we looked at quite a bit we were still pretty clueless. Now knowing more, especially what we wanted... we literally looked online at 100+ different models from pretty much every builder. Then we contacted at least 5+ builders. You can get an internal style upgrade sheet from most of them. This gives you the vast majority of upgrades (including appliances usually) and their costs. It's not the easiest thing to read if you aren't used to spreadsheet style things, but it's ABSOLUTELY worth getting and taking the time to understand (they include internal option codes etc, so mostly for internal use to translate what you ask for to the final sheet you confirm with your spec'd options). Then compare the costs for the same or similar things between builders. Along side this ABSOLUTELY compare the standard included features. This usually is a combination of some sort of included features list along side the option sheet that have $0 cost or standard/included labeled options. You will be absolutely surprised to find how much more value certain builders and even specific communities (sometimes community A has much better standards than B, sometimes with a higher cost for the same model but lower than adding those same upgrades elsewhere) offer compared to others. Even things like appliances can be a pretty big cost different, in one case the same 48" refrigerator we looked at was about $6, 700 a tone builder and about $11, 000 in another. Likewise in one community/model we spec'd cabinet upgrades of $12, 000, the same features and upgrades in the other, over $30, 000. Even things like bathroom fixtures were roughly $500 in one and over $2, 000 in another for comparable choices. So look at standards, get the upgrade sheets and compare those too. Also compare lot premiums. In one community at 14, 000 square foot lot was $30, 000 and another $4, 000.

Also as it turned out after working with various builders, the one with the great included standards and very well priced upgrades happened to be the absolute easiest to work with and the least pressuring.

[BrokeDadProductions]

All great tips. Another weird issue we experienced was attempting to upgrade from their builder grade carpet to the design center’s wood laminate. We got an estimate from a flooring company, that was much cheaper than the builder, however the sale couldn’t close without flooring so we ended up having the tract builder install their cheaper carpet and tile then before we moved in had the flooring dealer take it all out and install the wood. It was painful to watch the carpet get torn out. But we saved about $4, 000. And beware $1, 000 in light fixtures is not a lot of money.

[BoogieTX]

First off, GREAT VIDEO... You guys made some awesome points but the best advice I ever got from a millionaire real estate agent was no home is a forever home. As long as the house is structurally sound and is in a great neighborhood you can always sell later. 1 owner homes sell so fast in well desired neighborhoods but I love how y’all broke it down to people who have no clue what’s going on. We are in Texas and went with historymaker homes(they are AWESOME) and did it with no realtor but we spent over a year researching videos and going to homes. We even took tape measures and levelers to our walk through lol. You do spend a lot of money but always look at it as an investment and never get too attached to where you feel like you made too many mistakes building. As long as you make smart decisions while you are in the home(as far as upgrades etc) you guys will be fine... great vid! PS, glad you guys chose a open concept because it looks like that will be the real estate market for at least the next 15 years

[fennerolivia]

My husband and I are building our first home and this will be our very first house - this was so helpful, thank you!

[northerncalifornialiving]

the best best advice is to be one of the first phases/groups of buyers. They give more incentives. If you are buying in their last phase, expect fewer incentives.

[tobysmith]

Great advice! Working with an experienced real estate agent can also help you tremendously. I knew the builder as soon as you said everything included! A great agent will the ins and outs of different builders. I hope you love your new home!

[vmg]

I'm glad I watched this before we went to the design studio. Our builder only let us pick certain finishes and no structural upgrades, but we had a 3 hour appointment and used every bit of that time to make sure we were happy with what we chose.

[misbahsaleen]

You guys have given so much insight. Much appreciated. Congratulations for your new house. Hope your home be bless with lots of happiness.

[designherway]

Just came across your video…We experienced the same thing when we built 2 years ago. All of your tips are spot on. I wish I would’ve had these before we went through the process but overall pleased with the outcome.

[lydias]

I agree with a lot of this. We are building our first home (but not first time buyers) and I've learned in life you need to be assertive. You can be assertive but nice at the same time. It's OK to tell the builder you need to think about something, or please give me a few mins to pick out the color, eetc. When we went to the design studio a few weeks ago they thought we would have all our flooring picked out in advance. We were so undecided. It took us 20 mins and even though the lady was a bit impatient but nice about it, I told her I just needed some time to look in the studio at the samples. They aren't going to give up commission over you needing an extra 10 mins, and if they do then it's not a good builder. I would also recommend yoi hire a realtor, they will stick up for you and look over all your paperwork to make sure you are protected.

[pradalove]

Agree 1000% with everything! We moved into our new build home in September 2020 and the process was exactly like yall explained it. Great video with very good info!

[jessica_rabbit]

Thank you so much for making this video! We are just starting our framing this week so we're still early in the stages of building still and this video was really helpful. Hearing #1 especially, made me so glad we picked a custom homebuilder. We loved them right off the bat, and they are always supportive of me changing my mind and calling them a week later saying I changed my mind about this, or that. I am not a person that can make decisions when rushed, so I really appreciate that my builder tells me to take my time deciding. We almost went with a high-production builder just for a floorplan we really loved, but looking back I'm so glad we didn't ❤

[vinceg]

Good video. We are on our 3 new build in 5 1/2 years. First one, rookie mistakes, but we didn't over do for the neighborhood. 2nd one was the jackpot. We got 15 thousand in upgrades, huge lot, 8k toward closing cost and made a ton of money selling it. Our current build only thing that was important was to have the extended structured patio. My advice to anyone is if you can upgrade little by little you will save a ton of money even if after market is same price because you won't be paying interest on money you could have paid cash for. Now, if you are going to wait and then use a credit card or finance, then you might as well do during the build since interest rates are so low.

[tracie]

This is so extremely helpful! I really don’t like how the sales department makes people feel rushed! Definitely stand your ground!

[kevinmartin]

I’m waiting on my build to finish now and you two are on point with the information. I fortunately avoided a lot of these pitfalls but this would’ve definitely helped had I have watched it prior to beginning the process. The biggest thing that I would add is to get a realtor before you walk into any models. My realtor actually agreed to give me a percentage of what she gets from the builder so I will get a check from her around 10k to use at my discretion right after I close which will be helpful for things that I may need.

[harshamin]

I'm currently buying new construction home and I can relate every single words you said about how they rushed you throughout the process...I have my final walkthrough coming next month and I am gonna make it memorable for sure..

[dwill]

My regrets:
1) not picking the elevation I wanted. (Hard finding contractors for small projects) and you have two weeks of deciding from when you go under contract. Didn’t know
2) not getting electrical outlets where I needed them. Hard getting an electrician to cut the dry wall and run the wire. Real pain.
3) seeing the color home on a 3D model. The color they showed in the catalog was a lot different than what I expected.
4) tub in the bathroom. I don’t like baths but people I sell to May.

[taepopswright]

We came in on the last lot to, which was a huge long lot $18000, one the most expensive out there but got it for 10000. We didn't go with any upgrades. I'll do my own flooring later because the hardwoods weren't the right colors and spray my cabinets later to. Lol things are going speedy fast still. Nothing has changed. Great vid. We close on our current home which is a 1950 old home next week and the day after we go sign for our new ready to build home which is the last house of that phase. I will be videoing because of you're advice and we are taking a friend who is a construction worker so he can let me know if my upgrades I want him to do are doable🤗.