New Build vs. Existing - Which is Better in the Fort Worth Area? | Fort Worth Texas Real Estate

Which one is better, a brand new construction home or a resale home in the Fort Worth area? Which one is better for you? I'm going to break that down, the good, the bad, the ugly, and I'm going to get into the market, what's happening here locally from last year to this year. And if you stay until the end, I'm going to tell you the deals that I just negotiated this month here in the Fort Worth area. You're not going to believe it. So don't go anywhere. So if you're new to the channel, go ahead and subscribe and click the bell for notifications so you can be made aware the next time we put a new video up on the channel. Hi, I am Elizabeth Oliva. This is the Fort Worth Home Tours and we get calls and texts from people just like you every single day looking to make a move to the Dallas Fort Worth area. So whether you're moving in eight days, eight weeks or eight months or eight years, give me a call, send me a text, shoot me an email or book a Zoom. I would love to connect with you and figure out how I can help you make a smooth move to the Dallas Fort Worth area and negotiate on your behalf like I'm going to talk about in this video. So as I was saying, which one is new construction or an existing home in the Fort Worth area? Well, there are pros and cons for both good, bad and the ugly for both. So let's get into it. Pro for new construction, modern conveniences, modern design features and customization, brand new homes are brand new homes. So they've got all the latest and greatest of everything. That is absolutely true. So if you're looking for that, your new construction home is the one for you. And a lot of people do like the fact that it's brand new, that no one has lived in it before. And that's what I mainly show on my channel is new construction. I enjoy the process of helping somebody with a new construction home. I enjoy the land development side of it and all of that. But I also work with people on the resale side, if they're looking for an existing home. But new construction, yeah, there's going to be modern features and customizations, energy efficient appliances, HVAC, things like that. So you won't have the immediate repair costs that you would have with a resale home. Warranties, builders are going to have warranties. Here's another thing that you need to remember about new construction. Most warranties are a 1-2-10, you might get a 1-2-6, and in some cases a 2-10. What does that mean? A 1-2-10 means the first year, it's bumper to bumper, whatever happens in the home. Second, two years for mechanical and electrical and things like that. 10 years on the structural, the foundation. Okay, some of the builders have gone to a six-year foundation warranty. There is a builder in the area that does a 2-10, which is two years on bumper to bumper and two years on mechanical and electrical, and then they do the 10-year on the foundation warranty. And that is Perry Homes, one of my favorite builders. They build a beautiful home here in the area. So definitely your warranties are plus when you're looking at the new construction side. You have less maintenance. When you build, when you buy a new construction home, it's brand new, so you're going to have less things happening that would happen with a resale home, less repair issues. Going into a resale home, of course you're going to get an inspection. On either one of these, you should get an inspection. But especially on an existing home, you want to get an inspection so you know if there's anything that they need to call out and you do your due diligence. If you have a roof issue, if you have a foundation issue, you go into that contract and you go into that sale knowing exactly what you're getting into. Whether it may be repair and maintenance down the road, it might be a year down the road, it might be longer. But with a new construction home, the likelihood of having major issues like that are very, very, very slim. I'm not going to say they never happen, but you do have the warranties to help protect you in the first few years of the new construction home. You have new construction safety features and technologies. Almost all the new construction homes that I am touring and talking to, they have all the smart home features that you can imagine. They have the ring doorbell, they have everything pre-wired for security and for your sound systems. And when you build, you can actually go into the pre-construction meetings and talk about if there's any extra things that you want to add to the normal package. But just the normal package is just chock full of all kinds of technology these days, all the way down to your appliances. You can do everything, pretty much everything on your phone with a new construction home. Builder incentives. I'm going to talk about that, what's going on in the market. And I'm going to talk about the recent deals that I just closed and the deals my buyers got on those new construction homes. You're going to be blown away at what's happening. And I'm going to show you the numbers as to why that is happening in the market, why it's going on right now with builders. So the cons. Now, some people say maybe a higher initial cost, but again, I'm going to show you some of these incentives and show you that that may not be the case. Okay. Less negotiating room. I beg to differ on that. Some people say that you don't have as much negotiating room. Well, because of what's happening in the market, you may actually have more negotiating room. And it depends on the existing sales. It depends on the seller's motivation on the resale market. You could have a seller on the resale market that they need to get out of that home. They need to move somewhere else. And they are really willing to negotiate. And then you could have some that are like, you know what? I don't care if it sits on the market for a year. A builder's not going to do that. They do not want to sit on a home for a year. So actually, you may be in a better position with a builder. Location. Here's the thing about new builds versus existing. In a new build community, most of the time, the lot is going to be scraped of any mature trees. Pretty much always. Okay. They're going to pretty much scrape that land. They're going to develop it. They're going to excavate. They're going to grade and do all these things. Then they'll, a lot of times, they'll plant a, maybe they'll have a landscape package. So they'll plant a tree in the front and a tree in the back, or maybe just one in the front. They'll have the flowerbeds with some things in the flowerbeds, but you're not going to have those mature trees that you will have in a existing neighborhood. Definitely something to think about. You know, if you want that, that's one of the things that people don't necessarily think about. Less customization. What you see can be what you get in the builder market. You know, some builders, it is what it is. You don't get any choices. That could be true. But then there are some builders where you do get some choices. A lot of times builders, you've got to build the home as they want it built, or as they say it has to be built. And then you can make changes. I've had this happen where someone said, you know what, I want porcelain tile throughout the home. And in the bedrooms, there was carpet. And the builder said, we got to go with what we have because it's an inventory home. Once you move in, you can rip that out and you can put that porcelain tile. We'll even give you the tile contractor that we worked with and give you the exact tile so you can match it all up. They can do that. But a lot of times they have to sell the home the way they sell the home. And then you can make your changes afterwards. So, and that's going to cost you some extra money to do that. So you kind of have to look at that part. Okay, so existing homes, resale market, the neighborhoods, the mature trees, the established infrastructure, closer to downtown, closer usually to the, you know, center areas like that. New construction is going to be further out. Typically, you're not going to have a big master plan community close to the downtown area. It's going to be further out. And I can tell you probably the closest master plan communities we have here in Fort Worth are about 15-20 minutes from the downtown area. A lot of them are 30-45. So if you are wanting to be really close in that inner circle near downtown Fort Worth, it's going to be existing neighborhoods. Price is going to be higher. I can tell you that. And we, you know, maybe in this video, maybe another one, I can show you the difference in prices. I mean, like the TCU area versus let's say south on the Chisholm, big difference in price. If you're looking at the Tanglewood market, I haven't looked in a while, but I would be hard pressed to find anything below 700, probably six, seven, eight. All right. And whereas, you know, if you go south on the Chisholm, if you're south of town a little bit, you're going to find things in the three and four hundreds. So established, closer in. Master plan communities are going to be further out. So that's a pro for existing communities. The more character and variety, for sure. The older neighborhoods are not going to be as cookie cutter as you're going to find in a master plan community. Although Walsh, they have, goodness, trying to think how many builders now, six or eight different builders and seven different architectural styles that they have out there in that community. So they do, they try really hard to bring a lot of variety into their master plan community. Not all of them are like that. Some of them are very cookie cutter, but they do have, most of them have a, it's called a non-monotony policy, meaning you cannot build the same floor plan and the same elevation right next to each other. You can't even build the same. I mean, they go beyond that. Even you have to have a different floor plan and a different elevation. Cities have a monotony policy, see if I can say that right. So that could be the community and it could also be the city. But if you get into the older neighborhoods, you have a lot of character. Like the Fairmont neighborhood is a hundred plus year old homes. Tanglewood is beautiful, expansive properties, larger lots. You've got Rivercrest, you've got Westover Hills. Those are the old money of Fort Worth. And again, these are closer in, but they're a lot more expensive. So absolutely beautiful homes there, but you're going to pay a higher price for the character and the proximity to downtown. Landscaping again, you know, the mature trees, existing neighborhoods are going to have all of that. The trees, the aesthetic appeal, potential for instant equity. Some people say you get that with the existing homes. I think sometimes you get that with your master plan communities because builders are, especially with the inventory homes, they are going to price them. If they've got an inventory home sitting there, they're going to price that home lower than they started to sell it. So they're discounting that inventory home. And if you do the comps on that, a lot of times you're getting pretty much instant equity with a new construction home, especially in the beginning of a master plan community, because as they continue to build out, if you were there in the beginning, you paid less for your home than someone that's going to move in six months to a year or two years after you. Definitely. I can, I can show you examples of that all day long of the master plan community. So getting in early is definitely worth it. Treeline is one of those right now. I know all eight of those builders are discounting like crazy. The same homes they have out there at Treeline in their other communities are going to be a whole lot more expensive simply because they are trying to get that community off the ground. So even though some say existing neighborhoods have instant equity, I think it really depends. I think it really depends on the price and the on that one. Faster move in. Yes. If it's not a new construction inventory home. Yes. If you're going to build, yeah, that could be six, eight, 10, 12, some builders, 12 months down the road, but there are inventory homes and I'm going to show you the numbers. There are inventory homes that are sitting on the market that the builders want to sell. Okay. Existing neighborhoods, same thing. You, you do have homes that a lot of times people can sell and move out within 30 days. So yes, that's very true. And if you're, you may have somebody that can even move out sooner than that, or they may already be almost all the way moved out and they could, if you have a cash sale, if you have cash, they might be able to do it in three weeks. So yes, you could do that most likely on most every existing home sale. Okay. That is true. Drawbacks on existing homes. You could have repairs. You could have things that you don't realize. You could have a home inspection. You could get a roofer out. You could get a foundation person out. You can get a plumber. I'll do a hydrostatic testing. You could do all the due diligence possible and you can move in and you'd still have something happen. It happens all the time. Just be aware that that could happen to you with an existing home. You cannot guard against every little last thing happening. You could have immediate repairs needed in your first year that you did not expect. So that is a downside of existing homes. There are some people though who absolutely love taking care of an existing home. There are people who would love to move into the Fairmont district of Fort Worth, which is over 100 year old plus homes, beautiful turn of the century homes. And that's what they love to do. They love to fix these homes up. They love to tinker. They love to give them the TLC and take care of that. That's what they want. So if that's you, we've got the neighborhood for you. If you like that less energy efficient, you can replace the windows. You can replace things, but you know, at the end of the day, if it was built before a certain time, it's not going to be as energy efficient as a brand new construction home. They're just not made the same. So keep that in mind that you could run into energy efficient issues down the road. And here in Texas, they can get pretty hot and you want to make sure you have all the energy efficiency that you possibly could want. Because like I said, it gets hot. You know, there's always hidden issues that could come up with an existing home. Like I said, that you just didn't know was going to happen. But then again, I know people who absolutely love new construction. That's all they want. And then I have others who say, you know what, I want a home that's broken in a little bit. I mean, broken in, meaning maybe it's five years old, maybe it's three to five years old. And they can see if there's a little settling, they can see if there's a few things happening. Then I have people who want an older home, like an old ranch style, maybe a 70s, 60s, 70s that's been redone, mid-century. You know, they want that kind of a home because they love the character. Everybody has a different taste out there. Definitely. So, but you could run into those things. Definitely, for sure. Let's get into some stats. Okay. So I want to go, let's see if I can share my screen real quick. Okay. So if you can see my screen here, what we're looking at is some market trends. So we're looking at sales price, median sales price from last year. Okay. Let's say let's do one year. We have it on three. Let's do one. Okay. So we got June of last year in Tarrant County. So I'm doing Tarrant County that encompasses Fort Worth. This is a lot of cities, but you know what? Let's add Fort Worth on here. And that way you can see a comparison. Fort Worth. I'm actually going to add Aledo because that is where some of the master plan communities are. So we've got, oh, Aledo has a much higher, higher price. So we've got Tarrant County and Fort Worth are really close together. Okay. Fort Worth's in the red. So if we're looking at June, June, we had a median sales price in Tarrant County of $357,900 of last year. Okay. $346,347. Fort Worth $347,000. Tarrant County $358,000. Okay. Let's go over here to now. We've got $350,000 in Fort Worth, $352,000 in Tarrant. So a little bit, a little bit lower. Let's look back at that again. Actually $347,000 in Fort Worth. Fort Worth went up. Okay. Just a tad. Okay. So Aledo, we've got $545,000. Aledo went up $665,000. So 22% increase on Aledo price. And then we went down in Tarrant. We went up a little bit in Fort Worth. Interesting. And that's on all construction types. Let's look at new construction. Okay. Fort Worth and Tarrant, pretty much similar. Okay. So you've got June. You've got, June of last year, you have Fort Worth with a new construction, median price of $357,000. Okay. Aledo $545,000. A lot more. Okay. Fort Worth $366,000. So it did, it still went up. Okay. In new construction. So homes for sale. Let's look at this. New construction, homes for sale. We've got June. Okay. Tarrant, kind of flat. So Tarrant, we had $983,000. Fort Worth, $983,000 to a $108,700. New listings, kind of flat. Okay. Let's look at resale. Let's look at sales price on resale. Fort Worth's kind of been around the same. It went up a little bit, 0.4%. Aledo went up 10%. Tarrant's pretty much flat. Okay. Homes for sale went up about 17% in Tarrant County and about 14% Fort Worth. So June, it was, Tarrant had 5,200 for sale versus 61. So it went up. Okay. Let's look at new construction homes for sale. So they stayed, they stayed pretty flat. So a percentage price. Oh, wow. Look at that. It's an interesting, interesting one. Month's supply. So homes for sale, new construction in 300,000 or more. Okay. So it's come up, it's come up from June of last year. So June of last year, homes for sale were 576 in Fort Worth, 677 now. Okay. So number of homes have gone up. Number of homes for sale and new construction has gone up. They're making more deals. That's what that means. Let's look at resale. See if the inventory has gone up. I'm just going to focus on Fort Worth. So, oh yeah, look at that. So definitely 4,100 homes for sale in June of 2024, 4,700 this June. Days on market has, oh, from last June, 17 days on market, 21. So it went up a little bit more. So basically new construction homes, builders are still building. They have more inventory on the ground and they're willing to make more deals. So let me tell you about some of those deals. I actually took some notes and I'm going to show you and tell you some of those. Okay. So my recent deals on new construction this month, okay, had deal number one, $20,000 off the price. It was already slashed. Okay. So the builder had already discounted heavily off the price. I would say a good 50, 60,000 was already discounted. Okay. We got them to take off a $10,000 lot premium. Then they got a full appliance package, meaning refrigerator, washer, dryer, and blinds, and an epoxy flooring on the three car tandem garage. Pretty good deal, right? That's what I thought. Deal number two, 24% off of the original price. That's almost, that was almost $190,000 savings off of the original price. That was pretty amazing. Pretty quick close. They're extremely happy. I brought them their gift last Saturday, loving their home. Deal number three, 62,000, almost 62,000 in builder incentives. Okay. And then up to 15,000 of the closing costs paid by the lender. Lender tied incentive. Okay. Lender was involved. All right. And a full appliance package for them as well. So fridge, washer, dryer, and then they got a buy down on the rate. So get this, 2.99. Then the second year, 3.99. Third and final, permanent 4.99% interest rate. Right now, 2025 mid-year. That's really hard for existing home sellers to beat. It takes a lot of money to buy down a rate. Okay. It takes a lot of money to do that. So for an existing seller to do that, they've got to put in a lot of seller concessions. Some of them are going to need to do that to sell their home to, if they're near, if they're anywhere near a new construction community because of that. So just to let you know, these are some of the deals that are going on right now. Actually, I'm going to share the screen again. So this is happening right now with one of my builders. I just contracted with this builder and my clients were so happy. Their price point was under 410,000. Brand new construction home. And they're getting all these incentives. Okay. So the actual incentives, I can read off some of the things that these guys are doing. Bloomfield is doing available free upgrade package. So upgraded kitchen faucet, enlarged shower or primary bath, tile surrounds in the secondary bath, glass French doors, eight foot front door with choice of style. Okay. So if they got an eight foot front door, normally that would be a $500 upgrade. If they wanted the eight foot front door, see if I can say that, with glass and iron, that was around a $3,000 upgrade. And they're including it in one of these upgrade packages. Okay. Available free upgrade design features to be selected at your appointment. So painted shaker cabinets, pull out trash can. I love that option. Open railing designs, if you have stairs and you can do that. Three, like the pendant lighting in the kitchen, contemporary style finish package. So that is included, you know, so this, you got seven to 25,000 in additional design finishes or up to 100,000. So this is Bloomfield wide, depending on the community, but it's an insane deal that they're offering right now. And that's because they've got inventory homes on the ground and they have build deals they want to sell. All in all, my opinion is the new construction, unless you really want an established neighborhood, unless you really want the tall mature trees and you really want to be closer into downtown. If you really want that, you're going to need to be in the existing home. If you don't mind being a little further out, and I mean 20 minutes, maybe not that far, and having smaller trees, less mature trees, more of an open setting, then that's the new construction. And there's some insane deals going on with new construction. So don't worry about the rates right now that you see out there, you know, advertised on the news and the doom and gloom. You can still get a really great deal on a brand new construction home. And if you have a really motivated seller on an existing home, you can still get a really great deal on that one too. And I actually have one in a really great school district. So you need to contact me if you're interested. It's a great price point for this school district. So let me know, definitely contact me. And if you liked this video, and you liked the information that I shared, let me know in the comments and like the video that really helps me out. And if you'd like to see more of this kind of information, let me know that too, because I haven't done one of these in a while. And you know, it's I'm spitting out a bunch of facts and figures and and I do know the market. I do know it really well. And I am able to help you, I believe, to the best of my ability to find the best deal for you to get you the greatest incentives on new construction and even on a resale home. So I'm Elizabeth Oliva. This is the Fort Worth Home Tours. And until next time, and when you come into town, I hope to show you around.