I have five tips to share for any homebuyer looking to buy a new construction home in our Atlanta metro market.
Selling your home? Get a home valuation.
Buying a home? Search the local MLS.
Any homebuyer looking to buy a new construction home in our Atlanta metro market should follow these five specific tips:
1. Not every home will be on the MLS. Builders don’t always put their properties on the MLS the way a normal seller would in a traditional home sale. Many times, they’ll have an on-site sales agent and their own in-house sales staff. With that, they’ll use other channels to market their property.
2. New construction homes can be sold before they’re even built. Many times, a new construction builder will put together all of their financing and create a sales process and a construction process and start marketing and selling their home before it’s even built. In other words, they’re selling dirt on a plot of land and the buyer will be looking at plans and specs and be buying based off of that.
3. First buyers typically get the best discounts. When you’re one of the first to visit a new construction neighborhood where nobody else has purchased yet, you’ll typically get the discount. These discounts might be more incentive-based or upgrade-based instead of a direct price reduction, though. In addition to the best discount, you’ll also get the best appreciation. You’re starting at the bottom, and price increases typically happen in a staggered fashion, so you’ll have the most appreciation and the most equity.
4. Builders don’t have any attachment to the property. For them, unlike traditional sellers, it’s strictly a numbers game. They’re looking at spreadsheets instead of sentiment. They want to make sure you qualify for the home, and they price that home based on the available inventory. This means you may have little room in terms of negotiation.
5. If you get a discount, it will probably be in the form of some sort of upgrade. New home builders typically don’t reduce their prices. Why? If they reduce the price of your home and it closes, everybody is happy except the new homebuyers behind you. Now that your sale is public record, appraisers will use that lower price point to evaluate the rest of the neighborhood. Builders want to bring the value of a neighborhood up, not down. If you do get an upgrade discount, it will probably come at the end of the sale because the builder is sitting on more inventory that they want to sell. If properties are moving, though, you shouldn’t expect to get a discount.
If you have any more questions about buying new construction or you have any other real estate needs, don’t hesitate to reach out to me. I’d be glad to help you.
