Buying new construction home process: Tips you can't afford to miss.

just picture it a new home spotless in every way you will be the first one to live in it what am i talking about new construction homes yes they have to be the most perfect thing ever right well looks can be deceiving stick with me today and i'm going to give you tips that you need to know before you start the process of buying new instructions let's do it hey again jonathan mccoy here with keller williams realty chattahoochee north and i'm a realtor here in duluth georgia and the metro atlanta area today we are talking about new construction ah new construction pristine home that you have dreamed about i really don't know anyone who hasn't thought about buying a brand new home seems easy right go into a neighborhood that's has new construction walk through the model sit down with the agent on site figure out if you want to build one that's already built or build yours from the ground up seems easy right well whether you are buying brand new that's just been built or one that you're building yourself i'm gonna share with you today tips that will help you and save you headaches and lots of money first tip if you are looking to use a buyer's agent when buying new construction which i think you should and i think this video will help you realize that you should then you need to let your agent know that you are going to new construction which sites you are going to and more than likely they will probably need to be with you why you ask well builders right now seem to be making this push towards trying to push out buyers agents what they're doing is they're stating that if you come to their home sites without your agent then they will cut off paying your agent at closing which lots of times mean people make the decision to not take an agent with them now as a buyer you could pay your own agent to help you out with the process but the good thing about being a buyer most of the time is the seller usually pays your agent so tip number one let your agent know if you are thinking about new construction and if you're going to see new construction homes lots of times the agent can just get on the phone talk to the agent that's on site and find out if you can go on your own or if they need to be with you on to the second tip and that is when you get there typically where the agent is at the on-site agent for new homes they're sitting in the model home you'll go through the model and think wow this must be what these homes must be like well sorry to say but the model home usually has a ton of upgrades with it typically they have standards that go into homes they build and they should have a list there of everything that's included with the build and then everything that is an upgrade you'll probably be shocked on what's standard and what's an upgrade it's very important not to assume that anything is included from the garage door opener to blinds everything needs to be put out in front of you to know if it's included or it's not i learned this the hard way with my very first construction i had buyers that bought a home i just sort of assumed that if it has a garage door nowadays that it would come with a garage door opener well it didn't and on the day of the final walk through notice it didn't have a garage door opener asked the builder and they said that that was an upgrade what did i do well i wind up giving them a nice gift card that they could go buy their own garage door opener and have it installed learn that lesson the hard way so all that to say is what you think might be included in your new construction home may not be included so you want to get into all the details when buying new construction next tip you've got to figure out whether you want to buy a spec home or build your own home now a spec home is a brand new home hasn't been lived in that the builder is already put up usually there's five six seven different types of home that they're building in a subdivision and they like to have one of each model and floor plan out for you to take a walk through now these homes sometimes have some upgrades in them and sometimes don't and already have a price applied to them when you go to make an offer you don't have to offer that price however usually with new builds they're usually pretty much sticklers on their price just kind of depends on how much they've been selling with a spec home if you're looking to make any upgrades every once in a while you can find a builder that's willing to do a few things but you're usually going to charge you for taking out what's already in there and putting in what's new for instance if you don't like the carpet or you would rather have hardwoods than carpet then they'll charge you to take out that carpet and put in the new hardwoods and then there's a lot of builders that just won't do any of that the spec home is as is and you're either going to buy that one or have to go and build one next thing is if you see that you have a subdivision you like builder you like and you want to build with them find out what type of warranties they are offering some of them offer a one and two year warranty for items in the home or systems but a good thing to find out is if they offer a 10-year warranty for structural this is important because i've seen homes with stoops and front porches actually sinking within five years six years of building the home having a 10-year structural will cover you if there is any settlement in the foundation that's enough that needs to be fixed next tip is if you're buying new find out if they have any specials going on meaning sometimes they'll offer five thousand dollars in upgrades or maybe they'll offer five thousand dollars in seller paid closing costs if you're using their lender now if you decide to use the lender of the builder you need to find out everything about how much they're charging in terms of closing costs is the lender charging origination fees and what are their lender's fees what i've seen and they try to be tricky is they say oh we're going to offer you 5 000 in seller paid closing costs if you use our lender but then the lender charges you maybe five thousand dollars more in origination fees and lenders fees than if you brought in a different lender so you should compare lenders with the builder's lender versus your own to see which one would be better to go with all right let's say you decide to build your own home you find a lot first of all lots have something called lot premium sometimes so not all lots are created equally sometimes when you're buying a lot you might have a lot premium and this lot premium is based on how good the lot is maybe it's overlooking a golf course maybe just has more acreage these lot premiums can cost 10 000 15 20 000 and more to the cost of the home once you start building they will ask you to come in for a design meeting the design meeting is where you get to pick out all the fun things about your house paint colors siding granite type all those things now this time can be a little stressful because you also will pick out your upgrades during this time and upgrades can be tough to choose from so make sure you stay within your budget is a very important tip but also with these upgrades and design meeting come some things that aren't always i would say straightforward what i mean by that is i had a client just recently that decided to get a granite and they tell you when you get a granted that the color varies can vary when they're pulling it out of the ground because granite can change well my clients went from looking at this that you see here which is a white granite with some you know black and gray in it to this which is kind of a black green it with some white gray in it these are very different colors but they said that this is the same granite it just changed you need to find out from your builder if that happens will they tell you in advance we were fortunate enough that talked with the builder back and forth and got them to change out the granite however this can't happen and some builders might just say that's tough it's the same granite so really gotta look into granite another thing that happened with some buyers of mine is they got an upgraded tub well in the picture which they could have done is just showing the tub but they also showed fixtures with it now my clients thought that they were buying the tub and the fixtures well that wasn't the case they were just buying the tub itself and the fixtures were different than what were in the picture my problem with this was that the picture showed the tub and the fixtures all they had to do is just put a tub in with no fixtures in and that problem would have been solved however that's not what the builder decided to do so if you're getting pictures of things in your design appointments ask about all the details that you see in it another thing to note about your design appointment is when you're picking out paint colors or trim for the outside is you'll get some color plates that you'll go through to kind of see they don't always look the same when it comes to light inside versus outside and even if they do look the same once they put it in sometimes it still looks a little different my suggestion is find out if there are any homes that have the same colors that you're looking at and then go take a look at them whether it be paint inside or it be paint on the outside that way you can actually get a more accurate view of what the color will look like all right so you're building they'll start putting in your foundation they'll start putting up the structure itself with the framing one thing that's good to have done before they put drywall up is doing something called a pre-drywall inspection now one thing i've learned from builders is they don't like inspectors coming in now the county or city will come in and inspect construction sites and they have to meet certain standards however i've had an inspector come in and find plenty of things that the county or city inspector should have found that they didn't i always suggest having inspection done and that includes new construction when it comes to a pre-drywall inspection this is where they can see behind the walls so you can kind of see how plumbing's run and you can see how electrical is done along with the structures that are behind the walls the woods to make sure the supports are done correctly now i've run into builders that don't allow pre-drywall inspections i can go with that and that's fine always raises a few red flags for me because why wouldn't they allow that right getting to the end of the process of building you have an inspection that you'll do for once the drywall is up the inspector goes in and inspects just like they would do if you're buying a resale house versus a new home now the good thing about new construction is vast majority of the time if something is found you give it to them the builder is usually going to fix that item however sometimes there can be a discussion whether something is to code or not and then sometimes you'll need to get your inspector on the phone with the builder and they can talk to each other note that sometimes during inspections there's a few items that won't be in and they do it last minute with builds builders put in last minute lots of time some of the appliances such as your oven and stove and range or the dishwasher if you've got a refrigerator with them sometimes a refrigerator so sometimes the inspector won't be able to test these items and if that happens i suggest you make sure that they are running during your first or final walk through with the builder on the house right you get to the point of your first walk through what this is is you get to go through and look at all the cosmetic things inspectors don't care about cosmetic they're just making sure the structure is correct that the electrical outlets are working properly and that all the safety stuff is done but there's gonna be places where they don't paint well and that's usually the thing you find in first inspection there's just paint in places it shouldn't be there's paint not done properly sometimes you'll find trim pieces that are broken i've found windows cracked before so what you're going to do is you're going to go through the entire home take your time during this process they'll give you blue painters tape and basically you just start putting tape on everywhere that is not done properly open up drawers open up cabinets all of those things make sure everything looks good and then you come to your final walkthrough now this will be either the day of closing or the day before you'll go through with the builder to make sure all the things you noted on the first walk through is done for the final walk through you would think that because you put blue tape on all the spots that things are done correctly well you would think wrong it should be done but there are so many times where things are missed i actually suggest that you take pictures of all the different rooms with all the different pieces of tape you can then go through those pictures and see where you could put tape and make sure those places are fixed now another tip is you go through the final inspection and let's say things are not done let's say it's a big item that's not done and the builder doesn't have time to fix it before you're closing this can be where things get a little touchy here because the biggest thing that you can hold over a builder if stuff is not done correctly is not the close but sometimes let's say you just sold your home and are about to buy this new home you have nowhere to go or know where to put your stuff so the builder says don't worry about it we'll get this fixed after you close well sometimes the builders get it fixed and sometimes they take a while i've had people had to battle builders for over a year to get things done right with their home so big suggestion here is if things are not done right and it's in the contract that says these need to be done and they're not the biggest thing you can do is not go to closing now talk with your agent about this and consult an attorney if you need to because depending on what the contract states determines whether you can hold out on closing or not if it's just paint in one spot that's not done right then you should probably go to closing and just get that painted but if you know broken windows a yard that's all dead and not growing then you've got maybe a little more saying to it so depends on what the contract says now that's all with building if you're talking about buying a spec home it's a little simpler because everything's pretty much done get your inspection done do your first and final walk through same thing still holds though is things need to be done tape plate put in places if they don't do what they're supposed to do then once again what you can do is hold out for closing but again it just depends on what items are done or not done last tip i would leave you with is talk to neighbors in the neighborhood if you know homes have been built in here for a bit and people are living there see what their experience was with the builder um and if they've had an easy time of them coming back in to fix items that broke within the first year or not so talk with people in the neighborhood they're usually pretty good about saying whether they liked or not specifically if they didn't have a good experience they're ready to share that i hope you enjoyed this video and it was helpful when it comes to tips for buying new construction once again i'm john mccoy i post videos like this along with videos about home ownership living in duluth georgia and metro atlanta and more so think about subscribing hit the notification bell i post every thursday and i will see you next time

Channel: Living in Atlanta Ga

Views: 24,573

Keywords: buying new construction home process, buying new construction home, tips for buying a new home, new construction homes lawrenceville ga, new construction, new construction homes near me, duluth georgia, duluth ga, atlanta's real mccoy, jonathan mccoy, jonathan mccoy realtor, atlanta real estate, atlanta homes, duluth ga homes, questions to ask when buying new construction home, building new house checklist, real estate, new home construction, new construction homes

Id: eiG4jO-nGD8

Length: 16min 25sec (985 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 22 2020