What are the differences between buying and building a house? What are the pros and cons of building a home vs buying a home? What is the cost of building a home?
These are all questions you may think of when deciding whether or not to build or buy a home. We recently were quoted in an Architectural Digest article, Is It Cheaper to Build or Buy a House? where we dove into answering those exact questions. We wanted to take the opportunity to share more information on the topic over here on The Architect’s Notebook.
What are the maintenance benefits of building a home?
As a client, building a home means that you know and can influence every decision that is made during the building process. If ongoing maintenance costs or labor are a concern, your architect can help to guide material selections towards long-lasting, low-maintenance materials. Building a new home also means that you can better predict when parts of the home will need maintenance – for example, roofing, siding, and mechanical systems all come with warranties that should give you an indication of when they may need to be updated or replaced in the future. I like to think of it as similar to buying a new car – as the sole owner, you control when and how required maintenance is done and can have some peace of mind that nothing has been missed.
How can building a new home benefit energy efficiency?
Energy efficiency is a big factor – the reality is that new homes are simply built to a higher energy standard. The energy code in New York state has become much more stringent in even just the past 10 years, and as sustainability continues to become a higher priority for both architects and homeowners, the energy code will continue to evolve. We are also seeing more clients interested in homes that exceed energy code standards, an exciting development in the field. The upfront cost of these homes can be high – but often it is well worth the savings down the road. If you are interested in certifications – LEED, Passive House, Net Zero Homes – it is often advisable to consider new construction, rather than retrofitting an existing structure, but we would encourage you to discuss your options with an architect experienced with building in your climate zone.
Pros and cons of building a home
The biggest benefit of building a home is the ability to customize a design to suit your needs, tastes and lifestyle. We work extremely closely with each of our clients to understand their daily routines, likes, dislikes and plans for the future. This process allows us to design spaces that are specialized to each client, while keeping in mind their budget. The result is that our clients know that every part of the home will work for them. We take care not to waste any space and the home is designed exactly how they want it to be. In our experience, the other big positive to building over buying is ensuring that the home is well-integrated into its site. Your architect should spend time studying the site contours, existing vegetation, and, perhaps most critically, the path of the sun. Doing so can allow a new home to preserve existing resources, make use of ground conditions in the design concept, bring natural light into each space, and even take advantage of passive solar heating and cooling. Designing a home specific to its site is one of the biggest value adds that an architect can bring to your project.
On the flip side, one of the biggest reasons that clients choose to buy instead of build is timeline. It is undeniable that building a new home will take time, especially one that needs to be custom designed. Depending on the scale of the project, our design process takes about 5 to 9 months. Bidding and permitting can take as little as a month, but can also take as long as 6 months if your property requires any special approvals. The time it takes to build a new home in the Hudson Valley will also depend on scale – some projects are complete in as few as 10 month, most take about 12 to 14, and some can take multiple years to build. In short, designing and building a new home requires planning ahead – which can be frustrating for clients who want to move quickly.
Pros and cons of buying a home?
The benefit of buying a home is that, barring any renovation needs, you can typically move in fairly quickly. We also see clients choose to buy instead of build because the process feels familiar, or because they don’t have the time to invest in the home design process. A large part of our firm’s mission has been to demystify the design process for potential clients and to make the process feel accessible. Even though you may not have designed a home before, it’s worth remembering that your architect certainly has – and that they should be with you every step of the way.
As architects, we would say that the biggest con of buying a home is that inevitably there will be something that you will want to change. Sometimes the changes are small, like updating appliances, but sometimes the changes are more extensive. When building a home, you know every decision that was made during the building process, resulting in fewer surprises down the road. A surprise in an older home that was well-built is one thing, but a surprise in a newly built home that doesn’t meet high standards can cause unexpected headaches.
When considering buying a home that you intend to renovate, timeline considerations should be taken into account. While renovations typically have shorter build timelines, they need a good amount of attention during design to successfully bring together the old and the new. The big downside of a renovation can also be cost – unfortunately, there are often many unknowns in a renovation project until demolition begins. This sometimes can result in unforeseen costs – we often advise clients to keep a larger amount of their budget in contingency during a renovation than during a new build for exactly this reason.
Other things to know?
Finally, as architects we have a great amount of appreciation for custom homes. Our clients will often tell us that they see themselves reflected in our work. Building a new home can also be an accomplishment in and of itself – perhaps it’s something a client has always dreamed of doing, or perhaps it signals a level of achievement and success.
Ultimately, the decision to build or buy is an extremely personal one. If you love design, are interested in a collaborative process, and want to have a home that exactly suits your needs and those of its site, we would encourage you to hire an architect and design a custom home. If you have a tight timeline, don’t have the time or energy to invest in designing a home, or are more flexible in style, materials, finishes and features, it may be worth buying a home instead of building one. In either case, it’s important to consider both short and long term factors and to carefully evaluate what your priorities are in having a new home.
In a recent video, our amazing Cat Hill client shares some stories about the process that lead to Cat Hill being her home:
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