Building a new home is an exciting experience, and finishing out a home with all of your own style and finishes couldn’t be more rewarding. There are a lot of decisions to make along the way though, and it’s important to make the best decisions to help get you one step closer to the home of your dreams.

Unfortunately, some homeowners get distracted by small, insignificant things and overlook important elements in the home building process. You can avoid these common regrets by making sure you take these factors into consideration when building a new home.

Storage

That open floor plan is lovely, and everything feels nice and spacious. Unfortunately, there’s no space for your pantry items, extra hand towels, or Halloween decorations. Don’t make the mistake of skimping on closet and storage space. A good motto to live by is you can never have enough storage space.

Skimping on Materials

Your mother always said that when you do a job, you need to do it right - the first time. She was right, and this applies to new home construction as well. Choose quality materials for your cabinets and flooring. They’re used more than any other part of your home, and you don’t want them to wear out before the wall paint dries.

Keeping Up With the Joneses

Everybody’s installing luxury baths, so you need to install a luxury bath too, right? Not if you don’t care about luxury bathrooms! Upgrade your home according to what you like. Don’t worry about what the neighbors are doing. Choose styles, appliances, and upgrades that match your preferences and that enhance your favorite rooms in the house.

Carpet

Carpet gets worn out faster than you can say, “Take your shoes off!” Keep carpet out of heavily-trafficked areas, like the entryway. And don’t install it in areas that tend to have a lot of spills and messes, like dining rooms. Instead, use tile or hardwood flooring. You can always purchase a more easily-replaceable rug if you want a softer landing for your kids.

Smart Features

You’re going to want the latest products and gadgets that make living easier, so build your home with the infrastructure for smart technology already in place. That way, when the latest time-saving product comes out, you’ll be able to use it right away.

In-Ground Sprinklers

Picture this. It’s summertime, and you’re supposed to be taking it easy, but instead of relaxing with an ice-cold lemonade, you’re outside every 30 minutes, moving sprinklers across your yard. Save yourself the hassle, and add in-ground sprinklers to the features of your new construction home.

Kitchen

Perhaps the most used room in the house, you really don’t want to have regrets when it comes to your kitchen. Make sure you thoroughly consider size and layout. Keep things logical - sink near the dishwasher; prep areas near the sink, etc. Buy appliances that will get the job done, and make sure you have enough lighting to clearly see what you’re doing. And don’t forget to choose colors and materials that go well together and that make you happy.

Bathrooms

Bathrooms are hard to add to a home after it’s built, so think carefully when making bathroom decisions. Make sure you have at least one bathroom on the ground floor that’s easily accessible for guests. Choose a large bathroom in the master bedroom, and make sure there is a separate bathroom for kids.

These important factors will not only keep you comfortable and happy in your new home, but they will also help with resale value should you ever decide to move. Find a home builder that offers floor plans that match what you value most and think through each decision carefully.

In the Houston, TX area, please contact Princeton Classic Homes to help walk you through the home building process and avoid making any major home building regrets!

If you’re planning to build a new home, you’ll soon become incredibly familiar with various floor plan options. But how can you determine what you need in a floor plan? What will suit your family best - now and in the future? What will be the most efficient layout and make you feel the most comfortable at home?

Keep these factors in mind when making your floor plan decision.

How Do You Live Now?

You can take cues from how you currently live. Think about your current home. Is it too big? Too small? Do you need more rooms? Have you always wished that one wall was pushed back just a foot? Make notes of all the things you love and hate in your current home (and even in past homes) to determine what you value.

Do you love to entertain, but can’t fit enough people in your kitchen? Do you want more kids, but feel as if you’re already bursting at the seams? Or have all of your children left the nest, leaving you with unused bedrooms? Do you work from home? Keep all of these in mind as you look at floor plans, and make sure a floor plan accommodates your unique living situation.

How Many Floors?

How do you feel about stairs? If you’re in good health and don’t mind stairs, you may look for a two story floor plan. Two story floor plans with a downstairs master and all secondary bedrooms upstairs are very popular these days with younger families. If your household includes an aging relative, having a master and at least one secondary bedroom on the main level might be the better floor plan for you. If, on the other hand, you just don’t want to deal with stairs altogether, a single level floor plan would be the best layout for you.  

How Many Bedrooms?

How many people are currently in your family? Are you hoping to add more children? Are you going to open up your home to aging parents? Do you want a guest room? The number of bedrooms you need largely determines the options you have in floor plans.

What About Bathrooms?

What type of bathrooms do you want, and how many do you need? Would you like to have a large, luxurious bathroom in the master bedroom? Do you want to have a separate bathroom for each of your kids? What about a bathroom for guests on the main floor? Do they all need to be full bathrooms, or can some be a half bath?

What’s Your Design Style?

Sure, your design style could change, but chances are you feel more comfortable in some floor plans than others. If you’re more modern or contemporary, you will likely feel more at home in a house with an open floor plan. If you’re more traditional, having at least a little separation between rooms might be more desirable to you.

Follow Your Feelings

If you can walk through model homes before settling on a floor plan, do it -- and do it often. Some factors in a floor plan can’t be written on a checklist; some can only be felt. You know when you like the feeling of a room.

Walk through a floor plan you like, and pay attention to how you feel. If it feels right, it likely is. Find a home builder who can offer you a floor plan that makes you happy.

Speak With a Professional

A good experienced home builder can help you determine what floor plans will best suit your needs and preferences while taking other factors into consideration. If you’re planning to build a new home in the Houston, Texas area and want to determine what floor plan might be best for you, please contact Princeton Classic Homes to explore your best floor plan options!

You’ve decided to build a new home, and you can’t wait to get started! But not so fast. It’s time to do a little prep work and research before you select your new home builder. Make sure you follow these rules when selecting your builder from the many residential home builders out there these days.

Determine Your Needs and Wants

It may seem obvious, but don’t start shopping for home builders if you aren’t perfectly sure what you want yet. Most new home builders specialize in certain types of homes. Knowing the type of home you plan to build will help you decide which builder will be the best fit for you.

Look for Experience

Be sure to check how much experience your potential home builder has before making a decision. Has the company been in business for several years? Did it survive the recession? Even if the company itself is new, you may still feel comfortable with the experience of the actual professionals if they have been in the industry for several years already.

Ask About a Contact Person

You’ll definitely have questions, likely lots of them, as the home building process moves forward. Find a home builder who appoints a contact person to keep you updated and informed as the home is being built, and make sure you feel comfortable with that person.

Talk to Current and Past Customers

If you know someone who has built a home with the builder, pick their brain. Ask if they’re happy with their choice, what they wish had gone different, and if they would use the same builder again. Find out if the company resolves issues quickly, and if they communicate well with their customers. If you don’t know anyone who has used the builder, ask the company for customer referrals.

Make Sure Your Builder is Licensed and Insured

If licensing is a requirement to build in your area, make sure your builder is licensed. In addition, make sure you understand the insurance coverage your builder carries.

Ask About the Warranty

New homes come with warranties on the products and materials used for your home, but don’t just assume everything is covered under warranty. Learn the conditions of the warranty before you buy. Is any part of the warranty transferrable to a new owner? Is there a structural warranty in place?

Find Your Style

What’s your style? Are you a lover of all things contemporary, or do you prefer the traditional? Do you like the cottage look, or would you prefer a sprawling rambler? Make sure the builder you select has actually built homes in the style you want so you can be sure to be happy with the outcome of your home.

Also, does the builder allow you to make alterations to plans, or will you be happy with their provided options? Can you customize the home the way you want?

Tour the Home

Now comes the fun part. Tour the model homes of the home builder you’re considering. When you find a model you love, tour it more than once. How does it feel? Can you imagine your family living there? How is the quality of the materials? Pay attention to details in the construction.

Don’t Rush

The excitement of building a new home can sweep some people off their feet, but don’t let that happen to you. Rein in your emotions, and do your homework so you can select the right builder for your needs.

If you’re looking for the right home builder for your new home in the Houston, TX area, we’d love to talk. Princeton Classic Homes builds high quality homes in great new home communities throughout the Houston area. Contact us today!

The housing market is hot and getting hotter. New home construction is seeing its highest sales in over eight years with 592,000 new homes sold in June of 2016. This is the highest level of sales since February of 2008. This also marks a four percent increase from May’s home sales and a whopping 25 percent increase from just last year at this time.

The increase in home sales isn’t happening uniformly across the nation, however. While the Midwest and the West saw soaring sales (jumping 10.4 percent and 10.9 percent respectively), sales actually fell in the northeast by 5.6 percent. Still, the nationwide numbers continue to climb.

Why Are New Home Sales Increasing?

With the unemployment rate currently at 4.9 percent, a solid job market is certainly helping the housing market. Employers hired 287,000 workers in June, which is an increase from the slipping numbers in April and May.

Mortgage rates are also staying low - lower than anyone expected - at an average of 3.45 percent for prime buyers on conventional 30-year loans. Last year at this time, mortgage rates were at 4.04. VA loans, FHA loans, and USDA loans are even lower than the average.

On top of a rising job market and low mortgage rates, mortgage lenders are also making the qualifications for first-time home buyers easier to meet. Fannie Mae is helping with this trend by recently adding the 3 percent down HomeReady mortgage program to currently available loans, which already includes low and no-down payment options.

Purchase mortgage applications are once again being approved at high rates. In fact, they’re being approved at the highest rate since the start of this decade.

New Home Builders

New home builders are understandably feeling confident, according to results from the Housing Market Index (HMI), a monthly homebuilder confidence survey recently released by the National Association of Homebuilders. The HMI shows confidence levels of new home builders at their highest points in ten years. Many home builders are expecting their sales for this year to be near multi-year bests.

In fact, homes are even being purchased faster than new home builders can even build them in some areas. New home builders are actually finding it difficult to secure land and workers to keep up with the demand for new homes. Even so, the number of construction workers continues to rise with 217,000 new construction jobs created in the past 12 months.

Supply

As expected, the increase in sales is causing the supply of new homes to begin to dwindle. The current stock of homes available for sale is sitting at 4.9 months, meaning that all current newly built homes will be sold out by the end of the year. The stock is shrinking, as the stock had a shelf life of 5.1 months just a month before in May.

This trend of a limited stock has held for the last 55 of 56 months, which is pushing housing prices up bit by bit. In fact, home values are up 35% nationwide since 2012 with the median price rising 6.1 percent from just a year ago to now be $306,700. However, because of low mortgage rates, people are still able to afford new homes.

Your New Home

If you’re in the market for a new home, expect to act fast. Be smart - but quick - with your research. Walk through model homes, tour new home communities, and make a list of must-haves. Then find a good new home builder such as Legend Homes or Princeton Classic Homes to help build the home that is the perfect match for you!

Your music and taste in clothing isn’t the only thing affected by your age. It’s likely your housing preferences are also a result of the generation you belong to. Are you a senior (born in 1945 or earlier), baby boomer (born between 1946 and 1964), Gen Xer (born between 1965 and 1979), or a millennial (born in 1980 or later)?

The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) conducted a study in 2015 to determine if and how preferences in housing differ amongst the generations. Do your preferences match up with these findings?

Size of the Home

It doesn’t matter your generation on this one. According to the NAHB study, most people across the generation board are looking for a new home that is a different size than what they currently have. Not surprisingly, Gen Xers and millennials want a bigger home than they currently have with the ideal square footage sitting above 2,300 square feet. Baby boomers and seniors, however, want to downgrade to a home that is less than 1,900 square feet.

Single Level or More?

If you’re a senior or baby boomer, you probably only want a single level for your new home. The NAHB study found that 88 percent of seniors and 75 percent of baby boomers were looking for a single-level home. However, less than half of Gen Xers and millennials found the number of levels in their home to be important.

Number of Rooms

Growing families need more bedrooms, and this is evident in the amount of rooms each generation prefers. Gen Xers and millennials want homes with four or more rooms, while baby boomers and seniors don’t want more than three.

Backyards and Front Yards

Extending your living space to the outdoors is a concept fully embraced by the younger generations. Millennials ranked three outdoor spaces in their top 10 list (the only group to do so): a deck, a patio, and a front porch.

WHERE THE GENERATIONS AGREE

Every generation is primarily looking for a single-family detached home, but the similarities in preference don’t end there.

Location

Everyone is moving to the suburbs. Every generation ranked the suburbs high on their preference list, while rural came in second place. City centers, even among millennials, are the least preferred location.

Lighting and Storage

Every generation ranked exterior lighting in their top 10 list. Walk-in pantries and garage storage were also ranked high on the lists of preferences for each generation.

Laundry Room

We all want to make the chore of laundry easier on ourselves. Each generation ranked a functional laundry room in their Top 10 list. Not only that, but each generation wants the laundry room on the first floor. The younger generations, both the Gen Xers and millennials, actually ranked this as their most wanted feature.

The Environment

Every generation ranked Energy Star appliances and windows high on their list of preferences. However, having these appliances and windows out of concern for the environment isn’t the motivation. Instead, each generation wants these features mainly for their costs savings. Helping the environment is a happy consequence.

New Homes

New home builders are of course very aware of these housing preferences, and you will find numerous new home communities across the country being built with these preferences in mind. Customize your new home just the way you want when you build new.

For the best new home options in the Houston area, please check out the many great new homes offered by Legend Homes and Princeton Classic Homes today!

Old homes appeal to many people for their charm. However, not everyone takes into consideration how un-charming it is to live with someone else’s problems, mistakes, design ideas, and outdated appliances. New homes give you the chance to design your life exactly the way you want.

Consider these many benefits when deciding between a new or a used home.

You Design the Home Yourself

Remember the geese of the 1990's? Remember how they wore bonnets? Remember how they were everywhere? Most of these geese have been removed from the wallpaper and stenciled paint of most houses, but don’t be surprised if you stumble upon a goose or another outdated interior design choice. Outdated light fixtures, countertops, flooring, and more are expensive to replace (not to mention the effort and time needed to get rid of them).

Many older homes on the market have been smartly updated to contemporary design, but those updates still weren’t done by you -- and you may not like them.

Buying new means you get to decide the paint colors, cabinet fixtures, flooring, and more. The home is a complete reflection of your tastes. Could anything be more fun?

You Choose the Layout

You know your family, and you know what you expect for the future. When you build a new home, you get to plan the layout to meet your family’s needs for now and in the future. If you have an aging parent, you can make sure to include a guest bedroom and bathroom on the first floor. If you have several children, you can add additional bedrooms. If you entertain frequently, you can expand your kitchen.

Making any of these changes after the home is built is incredibly difficult and expensive (and in some cases, impossible) to do. Better to get it done all at once while the house is being built.

Can’t Beat the Security of a Warranty

An older home comes with older appliances and equipment. You don’t know when those are going to go out, and it’s difficult to prepare for those expenses when you’re getting used to a new mortgage payment.

Building a new home gives you time to adjust and breathe, since most appliances and equipment will be covered under a warranty. Not only that, but all the equipment and appliances will be new.

Easier Maintenance

Along with warranties, you’ll also have an easier time with maintenance in a new home. New homes are built with the latest building products that require less maintenance. The systems in the home are also all built to work better together.

Community Amenities

When you buy a new home in a planned community, you’ll likely be treated to a variety of public amenities. Swimming pools, bike paths, parks, and more could be right outside your door. New home communities often are so well planned that you rarely need to leave the neighborhood for regular errands and entertainment.

Better Windows

Because of advancing technology, the newest windows do the best job at keeping the hot air out in the summer, as well as keeping the warm air in during the winter. This not only helps keep you more comfortable, it also reduces money spent on utility bills every month.

Better Air Quality

It’s vital that the air you breathe is healthy. When you buy an older home, you can’t be sure of its air quality. New homes are subject to strict energy standards and codes that old homes didn’t have to worry about. High-performance energy efficiency is combined with state-of-the-art air filtration and ventilation to keep you breathing better.

You’re the First Owner

Being the first to own a home is a magic that can’t be matched. It’s clean, fresh, and ready for you. The germs of past owners don’t exist in a new home, and the memories inside those walls are all yours to make.

Look for an experienced residential home builder with a reputation for quality work so you can feel confident building the home of your dreams. In the Houston, TX area, be sure to contact new home builders Legend Homes or Princeton Classic Homes to help build the perfect home for you at a price you can afford!