Building a new home does not provide the same convenience as buying an existing home. Since you are building a home from scratch, building a home can take a lot longer than it would if you had to buy an existing home.
It takes an average of five - seven months to build a new home, not counting the planning and approval steps. This means that you are likely to have a housing arrangement gap between selling your old home and building a new one. (but hey that's part of the adventure.)
The biggest advantage of building a house is that as long as it fits your price range, you can get what you want.
Since you are building a home from scratch, you can customize it by creating a layout, choosing a floor, choosing colors, and customizing features to suit your needs. If the idea of being the first one to cook in your kitchen or shower in your bathroom is on your bucket list, then building a new home is for you.
Before deciding whether building a house is better for you than buying a house, there are several factors to consider.
The biggest drawbacks to building a home tend to be higher out of pocket, upfront costs and longer lead times, both of which can increase during the home construction process. But if you focus solely on cost, building a home can be a little cheaper overall because in this real estate market (as of December 2021) in Cowlitz and Lewis county it will cost less to build a brand new home than buy one (comparing apples to apples).
There's a lot of pressure when buying an existing home in a sellers market. You may fall in love with a house for sale only to find out that so have 10 other people and your offer is way less than others. Consequently, you lose the purchase. However, if you are confident that you can build a house and make housing arrangements while you build, then you may just want to build exactly what you want and not worry about losing your dream home in a bidding war.
There are other factors to consider whether you want to buy an existing home or build a new one so let's talk about it. Click here to schedule an in-person meeting with one of our members or give us a call to talk over the phone at (360) 940-3151.