To be honest, purchasing new construction isn’t all that different from purchasing an existing home in an established neighborhood. Of course, for either purchase, there’s a lot of value that having the support of a professional agent can bring you when making such an important (and expensive) decision.
If you visited a model home on the weekend and talked to the on-site sales agent, you likely wouldn’t be talking to an agent who had your best interests at heart. What I mean by that is that particular agent is likely employed by or represents the builder and their fiduciary responsibility is to them.
When you hire an agent of your own, you get the advocacy of someone who does have your best interests at heart and who will help you navigate the intricacies of negotiation, paperwork, terms, conditions, and every other aspect of the real estate process in order to ensure that you’re getting the best benefits from your purchase.
For example, builders may offer discounts, savings, or incentives if you work with their lender or select specific upgrades and finishes; as agents in your corner, we’ll make sure that those incentives truly are savings and won’t come back to bite you later on.
Something else to take into consideration is how long you plan to live in the home. If, for whatever reason, this home ends up not being your forever home and you decide to resell it later on, your agent can also advise you on which upgrades you can do to increase your future resale value and which ones may actually decrease or not improve that value.
One of the biggest things an agent on your side can help you with is researching the builder: how they work, the quality of their products, their building programs, the incentives they offer, and their sales history.
And finally, it typically doesn’t cost you any extra money to hire an agent like myself to represent you. Like any seller in a real estate transaction, the builder will be the one who ends up paying for your agent’s commission. If you’re not working with an agent, don’t assume they will just pass that difference on to you as cost savings, often they may use that money instead for marketing or just for profit. I’ve found that most of the builders in our market are “agent-friendly” and like working with buyers that have representation; the key thing is that we, the agents, need to be the ones who introduce you to the builder, not the other way around. If you have more questions on that, send me a message and we can talk more.
If you see value in having an agent like myself represent you in the purchase of a new construction property, and are looking to buy a brand-new home, reach out to us. We’d love to have your back in the transaction.
