Two ways in which building a new home could be more economical in the long run than buying an existing house
It's often said that building a new home is far more expensive than buying an existing house. However, constructing a brand new property could actually be more economical in the long run. Read on to find out why.
You can make it extremely energy efficient
A lot of older properties are poorly-insulated. This can lead to extremely high energy bills which, over the course of a few years, could add up to several thousand dollars. If you buy an existing property that is not very well-insulated, you will have to either put up with paying costly energy bills for the foreseeable future or spend a lot of money making the property more energy efficient.
Installing insulation materials can be both expensive and time-consuming. You may, for example, have to pull up the floor materials or tear down the wall plaster in order to put fibreglass insulation into the floor and wall cavities. You would then have to pay a tradesperson to replace the floors and re-plaster the walls. Likewise, replacing single-glazed windows with double-glazed ones could also be very costly.
Conversely, if you decide to build your own house, you can ask your new home builders to design it in such a way that it is very energy efficient from the outset. They can, for example, place fibreglass or other insulation materials into the property's wall and floor cavities during the construction process; doing it at this stage will mean that there will be no need to damage the wall plaster or flooring materials. They can also ensure that the house is completely draught-proof with neither chimneys nor door or window gaps that cold or hot air could seep through.
You can build it with high-quality, durable materials
When you buy an older property, it is not always possible to tell if the materials from which it was built are of a high-quality. As such, you could potentially end up buying a house with, for example, a roof that is made from cheap tiles that will crack when exposed to fluctuating temperatures (and thus allow rainwater to drip into your home and cause water damage) or floorboards that are made from untreated timber which will end up being destroyed by a termite infestation because it does not have any protective pesticides on its surface.
If you do purchase an existing house that is made from these type of low-quality materials, you could find yourself having to spend thousands replacing or repairing various parts of the property. If, on the other hand, you build a new home, you can ask your building team to use high-quality materials that will last for decades to come before they need to be replaced or repaired.
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