How Buying a New Home Could Save You Money
3 min
For many, buying a new construction home is the dream. Everything is fresh and on-trend, there’s no haggling with emotional sellers, and you may even get a say in the home’s layout, features and amenities. In today’s market, buying new—rather than an existing property—might be an economical choice, too. As the median payment on a new mortgage creeps toward $2,200, most buyers are desperate to save cash wherever they can. And while improving your credit scores or shopping around can often help you snag a lower mortgage payment, builder-offered incentives—which have been on the rise in recent months—can also lead to notable savings. “We’re seeing builders sweetening the pot for buyers,” says Nick Bailey , president of Re/Max LLC, a real-estate brokerage based in Denver. Those extras—plus some built-in insurance advantages—could theoretically save a buyer with a $500,000 budget $40,000 or more in just the first year of homeownership (though actual savings, if any, will vary quite a bit from buyer to buyer). Here’s how buying new could help make your home purchase more affordable.
1. Builders are slashing prices
Though new homes typically cost slightly more than existing ones—the median sale price was $418,800 vs. $394,300 in September—builders have increasingly been cutting price tags. In fact, nearly a third of home builders reported reducing their prices in October, according to a survey from the National Association of Home Builders. It’s the highest share in nearly a year and roughly triple the share of price cuts seen July 2022. The size of the reductions are worth mentioning, too. Almost 40% of builders say they cut prices by 6% or more in October. So, a home on the market for $500,000 a month ago could be listed at just $470,000 today.
2. They’re offering lower mortgage rates
If slashed prices aren’t enough to get a mortgage payment in your budget, builders have another offer: A lower mortgage rate. In response to today’s decades-high interest rates , some builders are now offering “buydowns,” chipping in to get home buyers reduced mortgage rates—at least for a time. (Essentially, the builder prepays the lender the interest for the years the mortgage rate is reduced). NAHB’s data shows that 29% of builders offered mortgage rate buydowns in October. “Many builders are using sales incentives—including mortgage rate buydowns—as a method of addressing housing affordability headwinds,” says Robert Dietz, chief economist at NAHB. Buydowns can be permanent, lasting for the entire term of the loan, but more often—at least with builder buydowns—they’re temporary, lasting for the first one to three years of the mortgage. Home builder Lennar, for example, offers what’s called a 2-1 buy-down. This allows home buyers to reduce their mortgage rate by 2 percentage points in the first year—say, down from 7.5% to 5.5%, for instance—and then by one point the following year. By the third year, the loan would revert to that original 7.5% rate (or you could refinance if rates had become more favorable). In the above scenario, the buy-down would save you over $10,000 in interest during just the first year of a 30-year loan. Another perk: Builders are also offering to pitch in on closing costs. These typically clock in around 2% to 6% of your total loan amount, or up to $30,000 on a $500,000 loan. According to the NAHB survey, 35% of builders offered to pay closing costs last month.
3. New home insurance is more affordable, too
The last way a new home could save you on your mortgage payment has little to do with builders—but instead, how much it costs to insure a property. And according to insurance pros, home insurance premiums —which are typically paid as part of your monthly mortgage payment—are often much more affordable on newer homes than older ones. “Older homes may have issues like roof leaks,” says Angel Conlin, chief insurance officer at Kin Insurance in Chicago. “New homes, with fresh materials and construction, pose less risk to insurers.” (Just keep in mind: A new home—and new materials—doesn’t necessarily mean the place is perfect. So if you do opt for new construction, always get a home inspection.) According to data from Policygenius, a new home costs 13% less to insure annually than a 10-year-old one and 32% less than a 30-year-old home. As of 2022, the average premium on a new home was just $1,200 per year. A 30-year-old home’s premium was $1,776. “If you’re looking at two properties that have a similar size, construction type, and location with the difference being that one was built 30 years after the other,” says Pat Howard, a home insurance expert at Policygenius, “you can likely bank on the newer home having cheaper home insurance premiums.”
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A historic Barbados estate with a 300-year-old villa and 11 acres overlooking the Caribbean Sea is now for sale with a guide price of $22.5 million.
The seller is Kit Braden, chairman of the U.K. branch of French beauty empire L’Occitane Group, whose family has spent every winter for the last 13 years at the island property, known as Fustic Estate.
“It’s very much a family house,” Braden said. “We love having a lot of people there. It’s a collection point to keep everyone together.”
The main villa dates to 1712, though it’s been reimagined and expanded substantially over the years.
It spans 13,000 square feet and features seven en suite bedrooms across three wings, as well as expansive verandas, stone courtyards and rows of louvered doors in gay Caribbean pastels.
In the 1970s, when the home was owned by Charles Graves—brother of British poet Robert Graves—it was reimagined by stage designer Oliver Messel, one of the foremost theater designers of the last century. Messel expanded the home, added a lagoon pool with a natural waterfall and other theatrical features, according to Braden.
“The whole place is a little bit magical,” he said.
The home sits about 350 feet above the water, and surrounded by lush gardens that slope towards the water.
“We look down through our garden—which is about 12 acres of tropical gardens and palm trees and wonderful old mahogany trees—onto the Caribbean,” Braden said.
He and his wife first saw the property on New Year’s Eve 2013, during a quick trip from where they were staying in Grenada.
The couple spent an hour walking the perimeter, some of it still untouched jungle, in the pouring rain.
“By the time we got back, I had fallen in love with it,” Braden said.
His wife, however, wasn’t so sure. But in Braden’s telling, a second visit in sunnier weather with two of their children brought her around.
“She had to be talked into that it was a jolly good idea; now she absolutely loves it,” he said.
When they bought the property, the edge that runs along the waterfront was a jungle, so they cleared the ridge and transformed it into gardens.
They also bought an additional sea-level parcel with two beach cottages, giving the property direct access to the water and the town below via a five-minute walk.
The property also has a 15-person staff, a reflecting pond, an outdoor pavilion suitable for yoga and a commercial grade kitchen that can serve more than 100 guests, according to a brochure from Knight Frank, which posted the listing in March. They did not provide further comment.
For Braden, the property is special because of its natural beauty, its proximity to the town of Saint Lucy and its history—which dates way way back to when the island of Barbados was first formed via tectonic activity.
“It was basically tectonic plates that collided about a million years ago so the seabed is the top of the hill,” Braden said. “We’re on coral rock.”
As a result, Fustic Estate includes an extensive network of caves that were likely used by the Arawaks, a Venezuelan fishing tribe that followed the fish to these islands about a thousand years ago.
“If the fish were good they’d camp here,” Braden said. “There’s evidence that they stayed there in those caves, they lived there in good winters.”
Now it’s someone else’s turn to live on the land shared by Arawaks, the plantation owners of 1712, Charles Graves and the Braden brood.
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