Pros & Cons Of Building A New Home

Building a new home is exciting. You have a vision and you watch it come to life. At the same time, things don't always go smoothly in the new construction world. There are delays and unforeseen costs. If you're considering building your own home, you'll want to carefully weigh the pros and cons before you begin. Your home is a sizable investment and worthy of careful consideration.

South Central Services has insulated hundreds of new construction homes in and around Greencastle, Pennsylvania. While our team acts as a subcontractor on these projects, we are well-versed in building science as a whole.

By the end of this article, you will know the good, bad, and ugly of new construction. You'll be better equipped to make decisions for your future and your home.

Pros Of Building A New Construction Home

First, we'll talk about the good things in new construction. There are several benefits to building a home, including:

1. Design control
2. Newness
3. Minimal maintenance
4. Opportunity for better quality

Let’s examine each of these in more detail.

1. You Can Design Anything You Want (Within Reason).

When you're buying an existing home, the floor plan is already set. You may not find a kitchen with enough counter space, or you may dislike the layout of the bathroom. Maybe you're tired of worn-out carpets and old ceiling fans.

Building new gives you the opportunity to design exactly what you're looking for. You can have a larger kitchen. You can make sure the bathroom door doesn't hit the sink when it opens. You can install a different style of lighting and opt for hardwood floors.

Depending on how you build, you could either choose from a set floor plan or work to create a custom home. Custom homes will be pricier, but they do allow for more input in the design process.

Your designs will have to conform to the restrictions of building science, but in many ways, the sky is the limit with custom homes.

2. Your Home Will Have Never Been Lived In.

This benefit may appear to be common sense, but it's worth reflecting on. Some people love the character of older homes and appreciate the history of other families living within its walls. And some well-loved houses come with documented quirks. However, it is more common to inherit surprises when purchasing a pre-owned home.

When you build new, all of that is off the table. You won't have the character or charm that older homes can offer, but you also won't discover any half-baked solutions to real problems. Instead, your house will be a blank slate that you turn into a home. You may have the opportunity to lovingly hand it off to a new owner in the distant future.

3. You Should Have Minimal Maintenance And A Long Service Life.

In addition to never having been lived in, a new home also has brand-new appliances that have never been used. Since the appliances are brand new, they should not have many maintenance issues. You should have a long service life if your home is well-built. It could be 20 years before you have to consider a replacement!

4. You Can Build To A Higher Quality Standard.

It is difficult to know the quality of a pre-owned home. Inspections can reveal a number of problems with construction, but there will always be surprises. Even a home built to the highest of standards may suffer in the modern era because standards evolved.

It is also important to know that a new construction home isn't automatically built with a high-quality standard. A brief search on the internet for new construction inspections can show poor workmanship in homes from the last 5 to 10 years.

The real benefit of building new is your opportunity to build better. You can enforce a higher quality standard based on the choices you make. If you want a home that will last for generations, you can build one.

Building right the first time is easier and ultimately less costly than trying to correct problems after a home has been built. Any homeowner who discovers an expensive repair will be the first to testify to this.

Our team gets frequent calls about homes built in the last 2 years that have failures in their insulation. That shouldn't happen! And by building better in the first place, you can avoid making a call like that someday.

Cons Of Building A New Construction Home

Despite all the wonderful things about building a new home, there are several drawbacks. Understanding what you're getting into with new construction projects is vital. The cons to building new include:

1. Risk of an unqualified builder
2. Unmanaged expectations
3. High upfront costs
4. Unforeseen costs
5. Decision fatigue and regret

Let's walk through each of these in more detail to prepare you for moving forward.

1. Your Experience & Outcome Depend On Hiring The Right Contractor.

Not every home builder makes homes of good quality. Go onto your local Facebook community page, and it shouldn't take long to find a collection of homeowners complaining about the quality of their new construction homes. Just because a home is new doesn't mean that it is good. It shouldn't be this way, but that is the reality of new construction right now.

If you hire a good contractor, you'll have a better experience. A good contractor can help to manage expectations and walk you through the likely outcomes of your decisions.

Hiring the wrong builder will lead to a miserable build experience and problems in the home for years to come.

2. You Have To Manage Your Expectations.

A good contractor can help to manage expectations. However, even good builders sometimes miss the mark in this area. Realistically, the burden of managing expectations will fall on you. What does it mean to manage your expectations?

Delays are going to happen. A short weather delay can turn into a long scheduling delay. If you go into construction expecting everything to go smoothly, you'll be sorely disappointed and ill-prepared.

You may be fortunate to have excessive money budgeted for your home. But in all likelihood, you will face budget constraints. You will have to make compromises you didn't want to make.

The home you dream of will arrive later than you wanted and may not meet your aesthetic goals on the day you move in.

3. Building A New Home Is Expensive.

In the current housing market, everything is expensive. Renting, buying, and building are all pricey. Even so, building your own home is always going to be the priciest option.

There are so many costs associated with building a house. Land, excavation, hookups to utilities–and those are examples before building even begins.

The costs associated with buying and building are everchanging. These costs are driven by real estate prices and the cost of building materials.

4. You'll Likely Incur Unforeseen Costs.

Building is already expensive, but there will be unforeseen costs as well. Delays are one of the main culprits of surprise costs. Uncommon weather patterns can delay construction endlessly. Even a short weather delay can turn into a longer scheduling issue.

This winter in southern Pennsylvania has been unusually cold, windy, and snowy. The previous spring was very rainy. This weather is out of the ordinary for our area, but it has caused construction delays in projects all around us. And since there is an order to construction, arranging the project calendars of countless subcontractors causes inevitable delays.

In addition to delays, there are unforeseen problems in construction. A simple example is excavation. The cost can quickly increase depending on what the excavators find in the ground. If your foundation goes into rocky soil, the excavation cost will exceed its projected price.

5. You'll Make A Lot Of Decisions, And You Might Regret Some Of Them.

When you build a new home, you have a lot of decisions to make. These decisions are big and small. It is always best to make a good decision and stick to it. Any changes to your decisions can cause more delays and drive up costs.

But how can you make a good decision the first time? What makes the decision right for your house?

You must learn to prioritize because you will likely face budget constraints. Prioritizing also ties into managing your expectations. Your budget may not let you have everything you want, so what do you need?

It's sometimes hard to think of the "guts" of your house. The plumbing, HVAC, insulation, and electrical are all invisible. It's tempting to cut back on the things you can't see. But ultimately, those "guts" are what make your house function. And when these things fail, living in your dream home can turn into a nightmare.

We always recommend asking yourself this question: "Do I want my home to be comfortable and affordable to live in?"

If your answer is yes, you need to prioritize those "guts" of the home. Those elements decide if your home is cozy despite the weather being below freezing. They determine if you pay a reasonable price to cool your home in the summer. And depending on the construction of your home, those elements are difficult and expensive to access and fix.

If your answer is no, you need to picture a reality where you could be paying high energy bills. We’ve seen people in new homes paying as much as $600 a month, only for their home to still be uncomfortable. If you're okay with that, you can spend the bulk of your budget on what you can see.

These comparisons may sound harsh, but we know homeowners who live this reality. People who have recently bought a new construction home or had a custom home built in the last 2 years. They call us with their functional problems, and the fix is incredibly expensive and invasive. In some cases, there isn't even a fix.

Example: Choose Different Kitchen Countertops

We want you to be able to build your dream home. But as subcontractors, we want you to prioritize the things that really matter. We've talked to too many people who regret their choices.

A simple example is your kitchen countertops. Anything that isn't granite is often looked down upon. But you could save several thousand dollars by opting for Formica countertops. Put that money towards your HVAC system, or your insulation.

In a few years, you could do a kitchen renovation to achieve that visual aesthetic you always wanted. And yes, that will come with an additional cost, but replacing your kitchen counters is significantly less invasive than insulating your walls or replacing the ductwork in your home.

The Bottom Line About Building Your Own Home

Whether you're choosing a house plan or creating a custom home, building new is exciting. There is so much potential for creativity and personalization. You also have the opportunity to build with higher quality than the current standard in building.

However, building a new home comes with plenty of challenges. It is vital to manage your expectations about the build process. You must also make countless decisions about your home's design, style, and functionality. If these decisions aren't made with the right priorities, you may end up regretting your choices after your home is built.

We recommend prioritizing the things you can't see for your home's overall health and performance. With the right choices and attitude, the result should be a home you can love for many years to come.

Now that you know the benefits and drawback of building a new home, your next step is to:

• Compare the best insulations for new construction
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