Two days ago I just closed on my second house. Brand new, gorgeous 3500 square feet house for $363k. Great schools and good commute. The company I work has over 10,000 IT workers world wide with four major hub offices in the US. None of the hubs are in SV because of reasons like this.
Is being brand new a good thing in houses in the US? In the UK few people would prioritise a new house as it means no period features, no fireplaces, no history, almost invariably thinner walls, no established garden etc
Pros and cons, that's for sure. My current house is from 1974 - it's built very well. There's a comment below about new houses being built poorly - there are builders that cut huge corners but still stay within code. The new builders will clear cut pristine forest areas, build houses and plant little twigs called 'trees'. My current house...I had to cut down an oak tree as it was getting a disease..I counted the rings and it was 90 years old. Same for all the houses around my old neighborhood. The houses are about 40+ years old but you can tell the trees are older than. Builders, and people cared back then. I love walking in my old neighborhood...tons of trees, you don't even feel like you're in a big city but I'm 15 minutes away from downtown Atlanta.
The new house is a open floor plan, 2 story foyer/family room, tall ceilings etc, 50% larger more square footage. The outside looks beautiful.The funny thing is, the price of my current house and new house are very similar...old is valued at $330k, old was purchased a $363k. But my old house is closer to the city in a nice area.
I am moving to a newer part of town. It's closer to work for both me and my wife. All houses around there are no more than 20 years old...most are within 10 with new construction everywhere.
In France a new house means you don't have to pay the notaire, which adds 7-10% to the price. A new house doesn't have liens or inheritance disputes.
A friend took 18months to close on a building in Paris. The notaire had to track down family in the US, Uruguay, Australia, and the U.K. and ask them to approve the sale and split the sale accordingly.
Generally speaking, construction in the US is of very poor quality. Houses, even at the high end of the price scale, are invariably wood frame construction since at least the 1940s. That explains the preference for single-family housing (because noise insulation is so poor) and also the 30-year mortgage (without maintenance we are looking at a lifetime of ~ 25 years).
There's also the US way of dealing with crime - you move away from it. City centers are not desirable to live in, neither are inner-ring suburbs. These two factors really explain the exurban appeal.
