Here at Bedico Creek Preserve, we are about information for our builders, our buyers, our homeowners, our partners, and our vendors. If you are looking for a dependable source of information about real estate in Southeast Louisiana, specifically the Greater New Orleans area, please use our blog as much and as often as possible to read informative and timely real estate information. We promise you, you won’t be disappointed!

Building a New Home – How Long Will It Take?

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It is a proven theory that in the beginning, home buyers tend to want to look at existing homes in their search for the right investment for themselves and their families.  Existing homes normally have a lot of “stuff” in them that help people visualize the space of the home, the placement of furniture, and the livability of the home.  However, even first-time home buyers will move on to considering buying a brand new home vs. buying a resale home.  In this decision there are considerations of the home’s age, the quality of its parts, the excellence of the building process by a 17-1704 Audubon Parkway Rear Exteriorcertain builder, and the new home community experience that goes along with building a new home if they decide to buy in a subdivision.  These factors all contribute to the decision to “build instead of buy” a new home.  At some point, a buyer will ask when building a new home, how long will it take?

If a new home buyer is unfamiliar with the home building process, there are many questions that arise during the process from the new home design, the selections available from which to choose during the construction phase, the walk-through and home inspection, the financing, and even the closing of the real estate transaction.  A good builder will have an easy-to-understand step-by-step plan to implement with each of their new home buyers to guide them through the entire home building process.  One of the main questions that comes up is “how long is this going to take?”  Different builders have different timelines for building a “home from scratch.”  It also depends on the size and customizations to the home.

The Census Bureau conducted a survey called the 2014 Survey of Construction (SOC) that established the average time of completion of construction of a new home.  7 months was the timeline that the survey discovered with 25 days from the signed contract to the start of the project and approximately 6 months to complete the job. Nationwide, the factors that affect this time period include the housing category, the geographic location, and the 1704 Audubon Parkway Under Constructionmetropolitan status – density of housing and population in a particular area.

Particularly, a single-family house built by a builder took the least amount of time, according to the survey, 6 months; while an owner contractor took approximately 11.5 months – the longest time recorded by the survey.  Single-family homes that were built relying on all outside sub-contractors took approximately 8 months to build from permit to completion.  Specifically, in the Greater New Orleans area, the average time quoted by the Census Bureau it takes to build a new home in this area is 7 months.  The “moral” of the story is to check with your builder to find out how he builds the home by asking if he uses his own employees, if he has established subs he uses for the job, if everything is contracted, and how long he or she will take to build your new home.  It should never be a problem for a builder to answer these specific questions for you before you move forward with a contract or the building process.

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Continued Growth of New Home Sales in 2015

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New home sales in the South region of the United States increased by 4.5% in the month of November – an optimistic statistic for one of the slower real estate months of the year.  This statistic shows the continued growth of new home sales in 2015.  Overall, new home sales were higher by 14.5% compared to the 11 months of 2014 at this time.  New home inventories are at an all-time high since January, 2010 at 232,000.

A one-time anomaly that is affecting existing home sales and new home sales is the mandatory system change of 1-lot-199-bedic-creek-exterior-front-1home closing implemented by the United States government at the 1st of October.  As of October 1st, all home loan applications taken after this date had to adhere to a new system and procedure that slowed down the mortgage approval-to-close process.  This new process informs home buyers every single step of the financing process to ensure that they are fully aware of the financial responsibility that they are undertaking in their home purchase.  Because of this, the closings of existing homes was delayed by several weeks as lenders learned and implemented the new system.  Title companies also had to adjust to the process as they were required to respond to documentation that normally had been handled differently in past closings.

The effect on sales at the end of 2015 was apparent as existing home closing number stagnated.  The overflow effect was that home buyers, which typically start looking at existing homes first, were delayed in making purchasing decisions.  Therefore, new home sales were affected by those same home buyers turning to a new home purchase vs. an existing home purchase.  However, even with these delays and anomalies, the new home, real estate market is thriving in 2015 – all numbers year-over-year comparatively are on the rise and show no sign of slowing down.

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Highest New Home Inventory in 5 Years

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News from the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) is that new home builders are looking for and buying lots and getting building permits, but new home inventory of homes not yet started is still strong because it is possible that these builders are waiting on buyers (pre-solds) before beginning construction.  There is much good news coming out about new home building permits for single-family homes, new home inventory, and new home sales.Lot 59 Bedico Creek

Single-family home building permits were up 2.4% in October, 2015.  Overall, single-family new home building permits are up 8.6% for the year 2015.  Single-family home starts are up year-to-date as well with a slight dip in October due to storms in the Gulf Coast and Southern regions.  Because building permits and starts are up for the year, new home construction of single-family homes is also up across all regions nationally.

New home inventory stands at the highest level since March, 2010, and increased overall in 2015 1.3% to 226,000 available homes.  If homes continue to sell at their current pace (and no new homes were built), all homes would be sold off in 5.5 months.  Inventory for new homes not yet started is the strongest it has been since the end of 2008, right before the Recession.  Builders are looking for lots and labor as the housing market returns in force.  There is simply not enough land for sale or sub-contractors to build new homes to support the amount of inventory coming out of the ground – which is good news for the real estate industry.

In addition to the high amount of new home inventory, new home sales are also thriving to increase 10.7% to 495,000 in October compared to September’s numbers.  The total number of new homes sold has increased 15.7% year-to-date.  The NAHB is predicting an overall sales pace of 511,000 new homes in 2015, and October’s numbers seem to show that it will happen by end of year.

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Average Size of the New, Single-Family Home is Above Average

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The majority of home buyers interested in building a new, single-family home or new, custom home remain 2nd, 3rd, and fully custom home buyers.  The re-entry of the 1st time home buyer to the real estate market has not yet begin post-Recession. While the housing market has been recovering on a slow and steady pace since 2012 when house pricing started to really climb, it has not recovered enough to allow qualification of credit for first-time home buyers.  The number of approved FHA loans – loans typically offered to 1st time home buyers – has remained 1-545 Bedico Parkway Front Exteriorstagnant for many quarters in a row.  Even with the lowering of the down payment cost from $5,000 to $3,000, there has not been a great surge of first-time home buyers into the housing market.

Because of these statistics, the average size of a new, single-family home has remained above average compared to the years just before the Recession.  Historically, it is typical for home buyers with more security, fewer credit problems, and a larger investment to be able to build and afford “more home,” so the larger square footage of homes is not unexpected coming out of the Recession.  However, for the 2nd quarter of 2015, the median square footage of new homes built dropped slightly and then remained the same for the 3rd quarter.  During the 2nd quarter of 2015, the living square footage of new, single-family homes dropped from 2,478 to 2,445.  Total square footage dropped from 2,704 to 2,653.

Historically, total square footage during the 2nd quarter of 2015 was up by 13%, and the living square footage amount was up by 17%.  The cost of building these square footages is on-average – $468,318 for a new home built on 1/2 acre of land.  Of that cost, 61.8% was construction costs, lot cost was 18.2%, builder profit was 9%, and overhead was 5.6%.  The remaining percentage of the cost to build and buy a new home included Realtor commission, financing and marketing.  These costs are not dissimilar from 2013’s numbers, so the percentage breakdown of the cost of building a new home have not changed much in the last two years.

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Reasons to Buy a Home

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From a survey conducted every 2 years by the National Association of Homes Builders (NAHB), builders and Realtors can learn and understand what the “average home buyer” wants in the home that they are buying.  This survey is very important in detailing a buyer’s reasons to buy a home.   From a broad perspective, the survey indicated that over 55% of home buyers would prefer to buy a new home vs. a pre-existing home, but the actual percentage of home buyers buying new homes was only 11% from 2011 – 2013.  However ,this 11% was actually a 3%1-277 W. Longview Exterior Front increase from 2008 when only 8% of home buyer bought a new home.

Size, floorplan, price and neighborhood scored in the top 70th percentile as reasons to buy a home by home buyers surveyed by the NAHB with the aesthetics and safety playing an important role in the decision to buy in a certain neighborhood.  In St. Tammany Parish, Bedico Creek Preserve offers a master planned community in Madisonville that scores highly on not only beautiful homes and an almost completely safe neighborhood location, but also, with 10 Neighborhoods within the subdivision from which to choose, new home buyers also get to enjoy lots of variety in choosing not only a house to buy but also a lot location on which to build a new, custom home, if desired.

The NAHB also said that good schools tended to be important to new home buyers especially.  Madisonville, Louisiana, boasts the best school district in St. Tammany Parish which already scores as one of the best school 5-1092 Cypress Crossing Drive Kitchendistricts in the state.  Many home buyers’ reasons to buy a home in Bedico Creek is because of its excellent school district.

Another important factor found in the survey was that buyers of new homes valued quality construction especially when using a builder to build them a new home.  The construction, durability, and beauty of the home was extremely important to them.  In Bedico Creek, we have 14 new home builders that are available for a consultation on either building a new home on a lot purchased in our community or buying a new home built by our quality builders in St. Tammany Parish.

According the National Association of Home Builders,  Bedico Creek Preserve scores highly across the board for all of the features that are important to new home buyers which is probably why the homes and lots in our new subdivision are selling out so quickly.  Don’t miss your opportunity to own a new home in the fastest growing master planned community in St. Tammany Parish!  Contact Us at 985-845-4200 or E-mail Info@LiveBedico.com.

 

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Single-Family Home Construction Available on the Northshore

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New Urbanism is alive and well in the Greater New Orleans area with Mixed-Use Developments being built where previously housing projects had stood.  Many developers are tapping into the multi-family construction industry, building apartment housing in popular neighborhoods.  Single-family home construction is taking a backseat to these types of developments as well as multi-family condo and townhome construction also in the city of New 1-1009 Deer Park Drive ExteriorOrleans.  Because of this, people relocating to the New Orleans area as well as young people graduating from college and moving out are finding it harder and harder to find the traditional “first time home buyer home.”

Surprisingly, Millenials, according to the National Association of Home Builders, tend to want to live in single-family homes in the suburbs.  According to the NAHB’s survey, 75% want traditional new homes, and 66% prefer to live in the suburbs with only 10% choosing urban living, such as living in downtown New Orleans or the outlying areas.  While nationally this is a trend, the migration of Millenials may very well benefit the Northshore of the lake because in St. Tammany Parish, there are plenty of new homes for sale as well as lots for sale.

Since the Recession, home pricing has been somewhat unreliable, but now housing prices seem to have stabilized, so it is less difficult to acquire housing finance for new home buyers looking to buy their first, second, or even third 3-1009 Deer Park Drive Family Room-2home.  Another factor that may drive new home buyers to the north shore is the fact that inventory in popular, safe neighborhoods in New Orleans such as the Garden District, Bywater, Uptown, etc., is very scarce, prompting bidding wars among home buyers.  Young home buyers may get priced out of the market with competitive pricing being higher than normal.

Regardless of where the Millenials in the Greater New Orleans area choose to buy their new, single-family home, Bedico Creek Preserve is “ready” for any type of home buyer with 10 Neighborhoods from which to choose new homes for sale and lots for sale.  Lot pricing at Bedico Creek starts in the $40’s, and new home prices start in the $240’s.  If you are ready to view a lot for sale or new home for sale, Contact Bedico Creek at 985-845-4200 or E-mail Info@LiveBedico.com.

 

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