What lies ahead for homebuilders
Could it be red and green. No, we're not talking about Xmas. Homebuilders balance sheets might look somewhat red today with sales of new homes off dramatically in the past year but they are still looking ahead to what real estate consumers might want when purchasing a new home. That seems to be green.
Here is an interesting quote I noticed in an article at MarketWatch. "I've lived through seven cycles in the housing industry, and this is one of the worst. But every time we come out of one of these cycles, consumers want something different in their homes. They don't want the house they went into the cycle with," said Charles Shinn, a Littleton, Colo., home-building consultant.
It appears that once this housing downturn is over, what's important to homeowners will be different than before. Bigger might not be as important as high quality amenities. Functionality of design for current and future lifestyle might become more of a consideration. An emphasis on energy efficiency and green will be far more important considering today's high costs of oil and gas and the growing awareness of environmentally friendly building materials.
We are starting to see some of this trend in Charleston real estate with some builders focusing on and receiving a nice response to these trends and we'll likely see even more in the future. Right now, I think the most important thing for homebuilders to do is to get inventory under control instead of just building and being forced to offer huge incentives to rid their balance sheets of costly unsold inventory.
But don't just run into the nearest model home by yourself.
Bring a real estate agent to protect your interests. And better yet, there is no cost to you because the builder pays the buyers agent commission. Whether you bring a real estate agent with you or not when buying new construction, the base price remains the same. And the net price could even be lower if you have a real estate agent who is knowledgeable and experienced with new home construction rather than doing it on your own.