Buying new Home or older?

[Bankai]

Which part of Edmonton are you looking to potentially build in? I went through a similar situation as well and ended up going the "new" route.

[Robo]

If you are planning on moving in a couple years I would either keep renting or buy an older home and fix it up when you are about to sell again. No use fixing it up with a little one on the way they are like little walking wrecking balls. It really is amazing the damage they do to a house.....

[chemgear]

Originally Posted by Robo

No use fixing it up with a little one on the way they are like little walking wrecking balls. It really is amazing the damage they do to a house.....

I know a bunch of coworkers that spent a ton of time, effort and money to custom design and build a brand new home. Then had 3 kids.

What a waste.

[4X4]

Originally Posted by chemgear

I know a bunch of coworkers that spent a ton of time, effort and money to custom design and build a brand new home. Then had 3 kids.

What a waste.

Jesus Christ, where do you work? Chicken on the Way?

[Morning Wood]

Originally Posted by EVERLAST

I've worked for both builders in a sub trade capacity and like neither builder.
New regardless of who builds it is typically disappointing for most people.
Been working in the industry for 32 years behind all trades and hear more horrible stories from new home owners than from any other group of people.....And I see deficiencies galore without people even telling me .

Buy older. If it's been maintained well you'll have less to worry about.

Have you ever worked for Morrison Homes? If so, what is your opinion on them?

[Robo]

Originally Posted by chemgear

I know a bunch of coworkers that spent a ton of time, effort and money to custom design and build a brand new home. Then had 3 kids.

What a waste.

Did they plan on living in that house for over 5 years because if they were that would be the way to go but the op said he was hoping to move back to Calgary in the next 5 years

[wooohooo]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Is the new house the actual sale price, or does it not include things like GST? That can add a lot. New houses can also have added expenses, like fences and landscaping. If it were me I'd be on the border between old house and renting...

The price includes GST. Yeah those are some costs we haven't really calculated in.

Originally Posted by tvp2003

How are you with repairs and home maintenance?

Just my experience -- we bought a new townhouse as our "first home" and it was nice because we didn't have to worry about maintenance, etc. (being a townhouse) nor did we have to worry about repairs (as a new build).

We since moved into an older house (with a bigger yard, better location), which worked out well because now I have some basic tools and experience to deal with little maintenance and repair issues that old houses have.

Anything less than 5 years and I would suggest renting (especially given the current market); those realtor fees can eat up a lot of equity if the market stays flat. Do the math and see what you can stomach. Obviously this probably won't be your "forever house" so use the flexibility to your advantage if you can.

P.S. Congrats!

Thanks! It is pretty nerve wracking having a little one on the way. I am fairly handy - I've done my share of flooring, drywalling - nothing too extensive. But I'm also not sure I have the time to do it.

Originally Posted by bc-chris

whooohooo... is this your first child?

this amazing thing called 'spare time' quickly evaporates with the emergence of a child.

my wife and i have 2 kids (our girl is 4 in a couple weeks and our boy is 1yr/7months). we often joke about all these people that told us before we had kids, 'oh... you won't even remember what life was like before kids!'

i call b.s. on that - it's a lie... total lie. we very much DO remember what life was like before kids... we had tons of spare time to go and do stuff... like dates, road trips, work around the house, yard work, play on sports teams as a couple, etc.

don't get me wrong, i love my kids and wouldn't trade them for anything, but they eat up every last bit of time you have!

buying an older house that requires renos and then lots of yard work is a big time commitment and your life is about to take a drastic change of direction (for the good... but no spare time!)

Yeah man, this is our first! But That's a big thing I'm worried about - the time it takes to do the renos. All the decent looking houses seem way over budget in terms of older homes.

Originally Posted by Fuzz

I guess it depends what "old home" means, too. How old? And it's upkeep. Does it need a roof, furnace, etc? Or mostly a coat of paint and be good for 5 years?

Yeah, there's not many 'old homes' out there that are inside our budget. The few I'm eyeing looks fine to live in just very dated. The roof and furnace seem to be in good condition. Just my wife prefers living in a new house and thinks the new house location isn't too bad. But of course we're worried about the selling price potentially in 5 years.

Originally Posted by REDVAN

We built with Pacesetter in Airdrie and are 90% satisfied after 2.5 years.

Any specific questions you have?

We're looking at getting a quick possession home so we can't make too many changes to it but we do love the house layout. How are they with warranty/build quality. Would you go with them again seeing how satisfied you were?

Originally Posted by Bankai

Which part of Edmonton are you looking to potentially build in? I went through a similar situation as well and ended up going the "new" route.

We're looking at Cavanagh and Glenridding/Chapelle. We prefer Cavanagh as the location seems better to everything. But Chapelle is closer to our in-laws.

Thanks everyone for their replies, definitely lots to consider. The new houses are bigger, cheaper by $40 000, and they're priced really well. The house we're considering is around 1500-1600 sq ft, and it's priced around $330-350000 which was the incentive for us to buy. It's priced at the cost of a duplex and we love the house. The old homes we're looking is the Greenfield/Royal gardens area but they're upwards of the $400 000. With my wife going on mat leave and not sure if she will return, and the higher price for the older homes + renovations I'm still trying to justify the extra expense/if we can afford it.

We are trying to factor in selling in 5 years so we don't want this to depreciate too much, but we are okay holding and renting it out as well. The issue with us continuing to rent right now is we will need to leave in 2-3 months as the owners are taking back their property and feel a house might be good value for us long term. Especially with the price of the house to be around that of a duplex .

[V]

If you have any ability it's not a bad idea to buy older and fix up. That's what I would do. I would never buy new.

[afc wimbledon]

Always buy old, new home warranty's aren't worth the paper they're written on and all houses have issues, buy the largest cheap house you can afford, train your wife in the art of never ever saying anything nice about any house you are looking at and come in with a 10% under price offer.

Take your time and never ever fall in love with anything until you own it.

[calgarywinning]

Buy location and sacrifice everything else if you are looking to retain property value. Real estate is so flat right now and who knows what could happen.

Even renting is still a positive option in this market.

You are trying to hard to meet to many criteria, which means you need to limit what you want to 2-3 items. Make a list of everything you want, but choose 3 priorities each and find that property. You can't have it all when starting out.

There will be some give and take.

[curves2000]

There are lots of things to consider when it comes to buy vs rent and old vs new so here are a few tips and bits if info I have come across the way. I am a homeowner with a rental property as a side gig.

There is no RIGHT answer for new vs old as both have pros and con's. The issue with most new/newer homes is that everything looks all fine and dandy a lot of the time from a pure aesthetics perspective but underneath you CAN have issues galore. During the Alberta labour boom of the last 15 years or so a lot of quality workmanship went out the window with builders and trades literally picking up people off the street for random work which lead to awful construction. Modern homes though are usually more energy efficient, have nice open floor plans and have been developed more for modern ways of life.

Older homes can have a lot of character, better quality construction and can many bonus features like very large back yards, large decks, huge garage's and are in more established areas with more mature surroundings which is always nice. Older homes though do have weird upkeep in terms of being drafty, odd sized kitchen cabinets that don't allow for things like larger fridges of today, lacking room for a potential a built in dishwasher. Electrical wiring that may be odd or need to have the outlets changed for 3 prong electronics etc.

If you can find an older, well maintained home than has good roofing and appears to be in good shape, don't discount it.

As for buy vs sell, I have always been on the solid "buy" side due to the equity/ appreciation and the fact that sooner or later you do eventually stop making mortgage payments but with rental payments? They go on for ever until you actually buy.

5 years isn't a SHORT period of time but like some other posters have said, if you plan on moving in a short period of time, go ahead and rent.

Now this will not be a popular opinion and I may get roasted for it but it's what I believe in, despite the fact myself and my family have been in the residential rental industry for a long time. For far too long a lot of people have always thought about their primary residence as an "Investment" and have done a lot of stupid things to justify overpaying for properties or pumping in a LOT of money into their homes for things that don't really add a lot of value. Paying $700k for 1000 sq ft condos in downtown high rises and considering them "land" or dropping huge sums of money for things like top end appliances, kitchen renos and so forth. I am not saying it's a bad thing but for every property somebody views and doesn't like something, odds are it was added, changed or built because the owners thought it was a good idea or that somebody was going to pay them for it.

Another thing to consider is I do think we are a little frothy in terms of the housing market in Canada, across the country. The values have gone so high for so long and the actual demographics of the country are changing. I have worked on the lending side in a big 5 bank and followed the trends and some of the cautions I have seen coming from the Banks, Bank of Canada, CMHC, Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OFSI) and its "interesting" to say the least.

If we take the Alberta market and drill down to Edmonton and Calgary, we have gotten used to yearly increases in real estate values without blinking an eye for many years. Affordability is a concern for a lot of people. If we take my generation (millennium=32) a lot of them across the country can't afford to buy the homes they grew up in from their parents, their parents though are looking at taking a lot of that equity, downsizing and using the proceeds for retirement. In a market place there needs to be the buyers and sellers.

I have probably blabbed on for too long with this but if anybody wants me to elaborate a little more I can. I am not looking to scare anyone but I do find that when it comes to real estate sometimes people go in a little blind thinking its the cats ass of investments when it may not be in some ways.

Anyways good luck either way and sorry about the long post!

[Snuffleupagus]

Put me in the group that would prefer a slightly older home in an older area, especially if it's upgraded with the newer "stuff"

Even if the home is slightly smaller for the same money as a big suburb home, the bigger lots with more privacy are worth the extra $$ in my opinion.

[GordonBlue]

Originally Posted by wooohooo

Hey everyone,

My wife and I are expecting a little one in a few months here and right now we're renting a house but are interested in buying a place. My wife wants to buy a new house (because... new) and it seems to be priced quite low but the location is a little far, there's little to no yard and it's a 0 lot line. The two builder's we're looking at is PaceSetter and brookfield homes.

The older homes are a better location, smaller, but huge yard but also more expensive.

This is also in Edmonton (not sure if it matters). Another last point is in ~5 years our hope is to be able to move back to Calgary - would it be more cost effective to rent? We have family as well in Edmonton so we are open to renting it out as well.

So the question remains - is it worth spending $40-50000 more for an older home (needs renovations) but is in a more convenient location and a huge yard? Or would you take the savings, and build a nice, newer home that takes an extra 10-15 minutes to get to work?

Lastly, has anyone heard much about PaceSetter or Brookfield Homes? Our realtor said he really likes to deal with them, but we have little to no experience with this.

Thanks

I personally love the older more established neighbourhoods.

mature trees, larger yards, better locations, more distance between the houses, the houses have more character.
much more to offer., in my opinion.

[Fuzz]

Do you work downtown? Royal Gardens is only 6km away and has LRT nearby. It also looks to be easily bike-able if you are into that. Cavenaugh is outside the ring road, which to me would be way to far. The only benefit is it is closer to Calgary , and the "Edmonton" Airport. But if you work downtown, everyday is what matters, and a long commute is soul-sucking.

[jwslam]

I live pretty far into the burbs and I definitely hate the commute into downtown. That's pretty much the only thing I hate about my place now.

Not sure what your budget is, but if I were in your shoes:

1) Continue renting in Edmonton.
2) Find a location in Calgary that I like and shop there now; yes it will be expensive
3) Buy a house in Calgary that will be a fixer upper; if you do this right I believe there are places that are net cash-flow or even slightly positive.
4) Rent out said house until ready to move back to Calgary
5) Renovate Calgary house BEFORE moving into it.

Reasons behind this:
1) You won't be pressed to choose a Calgary house within x months when you finally choose to move back; you've got a few years to find a location you like. Two things you cannot change on a house are location and lot size. Everything else
2) Positive equity in Calgary house from rental income may help offset future renovations.
3) Renovating this house will make it "new" to you, and get the stench of any tenants out of there
4) I personally believe Calgary RE has bottomed out and nearing an upswing again

Obviously there are variables:
1) What if you never move back to Calgary or it's further down the timeline than you anticipate?
2) What if your work work will be super far from the location you choose?
3) Trash tenants trash the place entirely

[Lubicon]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Do you work downtown? Royal Gardens is only 6km away and has LRT nearby. It also looks to be easily bike-able if you are into that. Cavenaugh is outside the ring road, which to me would be way to far. The only benefit is it is closer to Calgary , and the "Edmonton" Airport. But if you work downtown, everyday is what matters, and a long commute is soul-sucking.

Other thing I see about Cavenaugh is the good location comes at a bit of a price. Great access to the QE2, AHD, and the airport but it also sits literally right beside the QE2 (and between Edmonton and Nisku which has heavy traffic volumes, including trucks 24/7) and right off the end of the runway at YEG.

[V]

Traffic in Edmonton is waaay easier than it is in Calgary. I live west of town and it takes me 25 minutes to get to work downtown in the morning. 35 minutes home.

When I lived in Calgary every day was a miserable commute. I have a feeling it hasn't gotten any better over time.

[wooohooo]

Yeah I've been waiting to find an older home with a big lot. They are out of my budget at the moment - unless I get a small house which I don't think will fly with my wife with a baby coming soon as well.

I'm keeping an eye out for some older rundown homes but there don't seem to be that many in my budget.

I also work out in Sherwood Park so it's just on the Henday for me which isn't too bad. And it seems far enough removed from the highways that I don't hear anything and the location of Cavanagh seems decent like you said Lubicon.

[wooohooo]

Originally Posted by jwslam

I live pretty far into the burbs and I definitely hate the commute into downtown. That's pretty much the only thing I hate about my place now.

Not sure what your budget is, but if I were in your shoes:

1) Continue renting in Edmonton.
2) Find a location in Calgary that I like and shop there now; yes it will be expensive
3) Buy a house in Calgary that will be a fixer upper; if you do this right I believe there are places that are net cash-flow or even slightly positive.
4) Rent out said house until ready to move back to Calgary
5) Renovate Calgary house BEFORE moving into it.

Reasons behind this:
1) You won't be pressed to choose a Calgary house within x months when you finally choose to move back; you've got a few years to find a location you like. Two things you cannot change on a house are location and lot size. Everything else
2) Positive equity in Calgary house from rental income may help offset future renovations.
3) Renovating this house will make it "new" to you, and get the stench of any tenants out of there
4) I personally believe Calgary RE has bottomed out and nearing an upswing again

Obviously there are variables:
1) What if you never move back to Calgary or it's further down the timeline than you anticipate?
2) What if your work work will be super far from the location you choose?
3) Trash tenants trash the place entirely

Tough part about that is if there's anything that happens to the house I'm no where close to it and I won't be able to renovate so the house prices will be a lot higher. Also it seems Calgary's market seems much more expensive than Edmonton's. But there's also no guarantee's that we will be able to move back to Calgary - it really depends on the job market (Engineer).

[Fuzz]

Why not get a place in Sherwood park, if you work there?