Buying vs Building a House in New York

When you want to move into a new home, you need to ask yourself a question: building or buying? And, to be honest, the decision can be fairly challenging, as both have advantages to them. As such, at the end of the day, it mostly comes down to personal preference, one way or the other. However, it can also depend on your situation, mainly with regard to time and finances.

Either way, the decision can be fairly difficult, so being well-informed is vital for making the right choice. Some planning and research are required, and there are a lot of things to consider. In order to help you decide, we’ve put together a comparison between buying vs building a house in New York.

The cost of buying vs building a house in New York

Generally speaking, one of the main differences between buying vs building a house is the price. The average price of buying a home in New York is around $300,000, as long as you’re not looking at New York City. On the other hand, the price of building a home in New York is can be as high as $600,000 depending on certain factors. The materials used and the professionals you hire can affect the price quite a bit. Additionally, the longer it takes to build the home, and the bigger it is, the more it will cost you. So, all in all, buying a house is typically much cheaper than building. However, regardless of your choice, you should know how to protect your roof properly in the long run. The roof is a vital part of any home, after all, and you should take proper care of it.

Moving into the home

One very important thing to keep in mind when considering buying vs building a house in New York is moving into your new home. By this, we mean that it takes longer to move in if you decide to build because you need to wait for the building process to be built. If you buy a home, you can move into it as soon as you close on it. On the other hand, building a home takes 7 months on average, assuming nothing goes wrong. So, either you have to wait in your old home or rent a place to stay until the process is done. Either way, experts from Usantini recommend that you be careful when hiring your movers. It’s very easy to damage a property when moving in, which is the last thing you want right after waiting on your home to be fully built.

The customizability of the new home

When it comes to customizing your new home, building wins outright, no matter how you look at it. After all, you can decide on the type of house to build and decide every little bit of the home’s design when building a home. Of course, if you opt for buying a home you can always decide to renovate it before moving in. However, if you really want a dream home, you can’t beat building it from the ground up. Additionally, you can make sure everything is up to code much easier if you decide to build your new home. Buying a home, especially if it’s older, the home can have quite a few problems. These problems often need renovations to fix as well, so knowing how to save money on renovations can be helpful in this situation. Either way, when it comes to customizability, building your home is the best way to make sure everything suits your vision.

Convenience between buying vs building a house

We can’t deny that buying a home is, overall, much more convenient than building one. Building a home requires much more paperwork than buying a home, and that’s saying something. Buying a home still takes a lot of paperwork, but it’s significantly less than building one. In addition, when building a home, you need to think about potential zoning issues and design work as well. So, while building a home is typically considered to be worth it, it also comes with a lot of inconvenience and stress. As such, if you decide to build your new home, do proper research into local New York zoning laws. Also, make sure you have all of the required permits before you start building. And either way, think about adding a deck to your home. A deck can make your home more valuable, which can help if you ever decide to sell it.

Bills and HOA fees

Overall, you can save a lot on bills and HOA fees by building your home instead of buying it. This is because homes today are built using energy-saving materials, which helps lower your bills. Additionally, because you’re building your own home, you likely won’t be part of a homeowner’s association. Effectively, this means that you get to avoid all of the potential HOA fees associated with owning a home. So, while building a home can be initially much more expensive, the home makes up for it in the long run. Lower bills tend to stack up, and HOA fees can get somewhat ridiculous around New York. Especially in larger cities, HOA fees tend to get very expensive, so avoiding them is a very larger bonus overall. Remember to consider this before coming to a final decision between buying vs building a house, and think about everything carefully.

Buying vs building a house in New York – conclusion

All in all, both buying and building a house have benefits and drawbacks. Building a home is a larger initial investment which saves money in the long run, which is a very big advantage. Buying a home, however, means that you can move into it much more quickly. And, of course, you can renovate anything you don’t like around the home you end up buying. So, at the end of the day, it comes down to personal preference and your current situation. We hope that this comparison between buying vs building a house in New York helps you decide, and we wish you a wonderful rest of your day.