Selwyn Times: March 14, 2018

14
Key reasons
to buy new
Buying new has many advantages. No one has
yet lived in your brand new home and it has that
new home smell and feel.
That doesn’t appeal to the villa crowd.
But many people dream of a home in a
new suburb.
There are many other advantages -- such
as being able to customise the home before
it’s built. Buyers love it that their build
guarantee covers most things and there’s
little maintenance to do for the first 10
years.
There are a long list of reasons some
people dream of buying new.
They include:
• Current Building Code requirements
specify a higher standard of insulation
and glazing than you can expect in an
older home, which makes your new home
warmer in winter and cooler in summer,
meaning cheaper to run. In addition there
has been a vast improvement in the quality
and technology of construction materials
over the last decade.
• New homes are designed for modern
lifestyles with walk-in wardrobes, double
or triple car garaging, en suites and heat
pumps.
• Internal access garaging.
• Indoor-outdoor flow. Home builders
before the 1970s rarely thought about this.
• Automatic pool covers and electric
curtains are included in a lot of new
homes, he says.
• In a new subdivision you’re not going
to have five cross-leased small homes next
door to your architecturally designed fivebedroom
dream home, he says.
• New purpose-built shopping and
service centres cater for the modern life.
• New schools can be popular. New
schools are being designed with “Modern
Learning Environments”, which are
considered better layouts for 21st-century
learning.
Another important factor is it’s easier
to get a mortgage. New Reserve Bank of
New Zealand loan to value (LVR) ratio
restrictions from October 1 don’t relate
to new homes. Likewise the KiwiSaver
HomeStart grant is doubled for first time
buyers.
When it comes to new apartment
buildings they’re built to a higher standard
of earthquake/fire proofing and, hopefully,
are no longer leaky.
There are, of course, disadvantages to
buying new. Not everyone wants to wait
six or 12 months to move into their home.
Other downsides include:
• Borrowing to cover the progress
payments is more complex than taking out
a mortgage on an existing property.
• Builders and developers can go broke,
leaving the buyer in an awkward position.
• With some new homes the buyer
effectively needs to become a project
manager.
• You have to deal with council for
building and sometimes resource consent.
• The location may be further from the
centre than you wanted.
• If it’s infill housing you might have a
cross lease situation that some people find
tricky.
• There are often teething problems with
a new build.
• You won’t get a quaint tree-lined street.
• Your section will most likely be smaller
than that of an existing home.
• Fences, paths and landscaping might
need to be added at a cost.
Copper ridge.
55 brand new home & land packages in the first 2 stages.
• Modern, beautiful and affordable homes
• Titles expected later this year
• Sought after location on Halswell Junction Road
• Brand new Primary School scheduled to open
early 2019 just across Halswell Junction Road
• Close to Southern Motorway for easy access to
Christchurch CBD and going South
• Everything Halswell has to offer and so much more
All enquiries to Evan Beker,
evanb@generation.co.nz
021 840 088
Generation Homes Christchurch
www.generation.co.nz