Cons Of Buying New Construction Homes in Boise Idaho

So you're looking at buying a new construction home here in the Boise Treasure Valley area. We're going to be covering everything you need to know about the cons of buying new construction home before you buy one so you can make the best decision for yourself. We're getting after that right now.

We are going to be going over exactly what you need to know before you buy that home for some of the things that you're not going to get with that home and that you might get caught  unawares and surprised by before you actually buy that home.

Everyone thinks of Boise when they move in here. Well, frankly, a lot of people don't actually move to the city of Boise itself. Boise is the capital, the largest city here in Idaho. But a lot of people, especially when they're looking at new builds, are actually moving to the suburbs of Boise.

These are all individual cities surrounding Boise, such as Eagle, Star, Middleton, Caldwell, Nampa, Meridian, and Kuna. Those are the big areas that people are moving to. And that's where most of the new construction actually is, especially in, little bit in Eagle, but Star, Middleton, Nampa Caldwell and Kuna. Those are blowing up with new construction.

Meridians kind of built out, but you can still get it. And I'm talking brand new construction where you're buying from the builder. There's a lot of homes you can get that are for resale that are only a couple of years old because people have to move and relocate for various reasons. You can still find fairly new construction that isn't exactly brand new, new built off the builder.

And there's actually some benefits to going after that versus doing new construction. We're going to dive into all those things right now.

Cons of Why People Buy New Construction Homes

Con #1 Landscaping and Fencing

The first one up is, when you're buying new construction, just from right from a builder, they may or may not include landscaping and fencing in the contract. Oftentimes they are going to provide landscaping out front. They want the community to look beautiful. They want it to be consistent with the whole neighborhood. That's why they have the HOA.

But they may not do landscaping in the back. Most likely they won't, unless you're getting a fully customized home or the builder allows you to do some upgrades along the way, such as landscaping. If they don't provide fencing, the HOA is certainly going to require it. That's going to be an extra cost that you're going to have to come up with.

And sometimes the lower end builders won't provide that out of the gate, pun intended, but sometimes they will. Make sure you're looking out if they got fencing included, do they have any landscaping? Most likely the backyard will not be landscaped. It will just be a scraped dirt lot in the back.

Con #2 Hard Soil

The soil here is very hard because these homes are getting built in farmland. What they've done is they're going to scrape that good top soil off, cause they need to get down to good soil so they can build a good foundation for the homes, your house doesn't settle.

But unfortunately that strips all the nutrients out, all the bugs, all the good probiotics and bacteria that's in the soil and it's just rock hard. What happens is if you go and try to plant grass, right on top of that, it's going to die. You're going to have all these brown spots. It's going to be splotchy and your grass is just going to die.

Unfortunately you have to typically over excavate your soil and then bring in new soil on top for a top soil so that your plants and grass can actually latch on and have the nutrients they need to grow and thrive and survive and have a beautiful backyard. That's an added expense just between landscaping, depending on what you want to do, and then having to excavate and add in your top soil.

And because it's so hard, you also are going to have the tendency for water to kind of run off your property. Maybe if it's not sloped properly, which it should be away from your home, it can go into your home, into the crawl space. You've got to make sure that it's sloped away properly when you're doing your in-home inspection, but because you can have all this running water on top of your landscaping, it can then have a tendency to pool.

That's the other thing you got to look out for. And most likely either the builder have them do it, or you got to do it, after the fact, is install a French drain. A French drain is essentially a hole that's drilled or dug down through that hard top layer into the sand layer beneath that. And then that's filled up with coarse gravel, like three quarter inch aggregate, and then a little area drain on top.

And that allows the water to hit that drain, filter down through the gravel and then hit the sand layer and escape from your property. That's how you have to handle the hard top soil on these new builds. Those are all things that you just may not be aware of when you're buying a new build.

You're looking at these model homes and they're all perfectly landscaped and beautiful. And then you actually have to come out of pocket for all this stuff. And this stuff you just may not have been aware of it.

The other thing too is some of these builds, especially again, in the more tracked home type builds, they're just going to drop in a little 10x10 concrete patio for you, you have a little 10x10 pad when you walk out your patio, that's it. That's all you got and you get your dirt lot.

I don't know about you, but I like to have much more concrete. When you're entertaining hen you want to have a nice concrete surface for people to walk around on, put your chairs, your fire pit, all that kind of stuff. I got a solo stove I like to put outside. I just like to have it on a nice concrete surface.

That's usually an added expense too. If you want to add a lot of concrete, that's going to cost you tens of thousands of dollars, depending on how much concrete you want to actually pull it in. That's kind of a little bit of a bummer that you got to look out for when buying a new construction.

Con #3 Water

And before we leave the exterior completely, let's talk about water. Real quick, you're going to have an HOA and a new construction, and you want to try to find out if that new build or the HOA includes water in your HOA fees. It's not going to include your interior water, your faucets, your drinking water, and showers, but oftentimes it can include exterior water for landscaping cause they want you to keep your exterior beautiful.

You want to try to make sure that you've got that included, but they don't. That's a big con cause it can get expensive. You can certainly spend hundreds of dollars a month keeping everything watered. But because they want the front landscape, sometimes, even if they don't include complete exterior water, they will include front water.

I have water that's on a meter for the HOA just for the front, not for the back. A trick that I've heard some people do is buy a long hose, like 150 foot hose tap into the water in the front. They got faucet, you got spigots out there and run that to the back. Boom. Now you've got your backyard watering covered by the HOA.

Con #4 Appliances

Let's head inside a little bit and take a look at a few things that you may not be aware of that are not going to be included. That's typically going to be your appliances. You'll have a range of course, but you won't have a refrigerator and you won't have a washer and dryer. Those are added expenses if you don't already have them that you're going to have to pick up.

That's not necessarily terrible. It gives you an opportunity to buy a brand new one and everything's nice and brand new that you get to select exactly what you want, but you know, a lot of resale homes, oftentimes that's included. It's just another extra expense that you may not have been looking for.

Con #5 Blinds

The other thing interior wise is blinds. You're going to have no interior blinds, typically. Now again, on these custom homes, you can probably, you can add that in, but your typical tract homes, spec homes, even semi-custom homes, you're typically going to have to buy your own blinds.

You get to select what you want, but be prepared to shell out $1,500-$5,000 depending on the level of blind quality that you're looking for.

Con #6 Vents

Another kind of odd thing that I've noticed in a lot of lower end builders versus the custom homes is they have these vents that are installed in between the hallway and the bedroom. What that is, it's above the doorway. And what it is, it's actually a return air vent for the air conditioning heating system.

Instead of installing a return air vent in every single room, it's basically like a lazy man's way or a cheap way of installing a return air system. Heating and air conditioning needs supply air, and it needs return air in order to function properly. What you often see as a return air in the main living areas and the master bedroom, but you won't see it in the other bedrooms and laundry room.

You'll have this hole with the vent that's just a pass through. And what it is, is that's allowing the system to balance and they don't have to install duct work specifically for each room with a return air. It's a much cheaper way, but obviously now you've got this kind of unsightly event, but more importantly, it allows sound much more sound to pass through the walls. If you're like me and I've got kids and they got to take naps and you just have a lot more sound that's traveling through the house.

And if you go ahead and block them up, it messes up the balance of the system and you're going to have inconsistent heating and cooling. Room might be colder or hotter than the rest of the home, depending on the time of year and how that system is functioning.

Overall, what you're going to find too in these homes is that, especially if you're buying from a home builder like CBH, Hubble Home or Hayden Homes, you're really not going to have a whole lot of opportunities to upgrade the home. You might, especially if the home has not been built yet, it's a future build home or a to be built home. Or as they call it a pre-sold home, meaning they haven't built it yet. They call it a pre-sold home.

You can have more opportunities to upgrade your home. Selecting countertops, selecting carpets and flooring, that kind of thing, maybe doing your landscaping, but generally speaking, you're not going to have a lot of upgrade options. You're kind of stuck with what they're going to give you, and that can be okay, but you can't upgrade it.

If they do allow you to upgrade, it gets really costly. A friend of mine, he just bought a Hubble home. His first one was a spec house, no upgrades a lot at all. His second one was a pre-sold home. He kept his first one, he's renting it out. He loves the Hubble homes and he did a lot of upgrades, but that caused a lot more expense and a lot more delays in order to get all those upgrades done.

And what you're going to get in a lot of these homes is pretty basic as far as the type of building materials. And I'm going to dive into that a little bit more when I get into the CBH and Humble Homes so we can dive in a little bit more about that because people want to know why are those so cheap? And we're going to cover exactly why that is.

Con #7 Off Gassing Homes

The last thing to keep in mind, it's not really a con per se. It's just something you need to be aware of is that these homes, because they're brand new, they do off gas, especially inside. They've been closed up and they've got materials in there, like the carpet, paint, the LVP flooring, any sort of glues that might be in the Formica countertops or the carpets, those are going to off gas. And those are the VOCs that are escaping, is normal, but the house might smell plus it just exposing yourself to more chemicals.

Because this home has been closed up for a while, what you want to do is open the house up, open all the windows, put some fans in there and air it out for a day or two. You can even run some diffusers like eucalyptus and lemon, that's going to help to absorb that and dissipate that. Just keep that in mind that these homes do off gas, that's normal and just open it up and you'll be good.

Con #8 Contracts

These last couple of cons are more about the contract and they are about the actual home. The first thing you need to know is that most likely if the home does not appraise at the purchase price, then the way that these contracts are typically written are that you have to come out of pocket for the difference.

You're not using the standard Idaho real estate offer contract or using the builders contract. We can negotiate that stuff up front and try to clarify it. But sometimes that can happen. Right now, where the way the market is with balancing out, but it's really not an issue, but that can have. That was kind of more of an issue before when the market was rapidly appreciating.

You just got to be aware of that. That potentially you could be on the hook for the difference in the appraised value and the purchase price. But right now the bouncing market is not such a big deal, but you need to watch out for that.

The other thing too is it's difficult to pull out of these contracts so they will require an earnest money deposit. That's like an initial deposit to secure the home. And oftentimes it can actually not be a whole lot of money. Like when I bought my home from Hubble, it was only $2,000.

However, if you want to pull out what they get you for is liquidated damages. Liquidated damages has nothing to do with water or water damage. It is as the contract term, that's called liquidated damages that is basically saying for you harming the other party by pulling out, you're required to pay them damages, a fee,1 in order to pull out on top of your earnest money deposit.

You're going to lose your earnest money deposit, most likely because these homes, these contracts are written in such a way you don't have financing contingency. With the changing market, this could change as well, but this is how it's been for a while here in Idaho. And you're going to lose your earnest money deposit, which could be a few thousand dollars.

And then they're going to hit you with for liquidated damages. And that could vary. But for instance, the Hubble contract is written with a $5,000 liquidated damages. You might be in for $2,000-$5,000 earnest money deposit, and then get hit with liquidate damages on top of that at $5,000, if you decide to pull out for whatever reason, cause you couldn't get your loan and you did an appraise and you don't want to pay the difference.

Or you decided you don't want that home anymore and you want to go buy another home. They can come after you for that. It does go to arbitration. It's a whole process and thing, but potentially you could lose $7,000-$10,000 because of the way that these contracts are written.

And the other thing to keep in mind is that the builder is going to try to get you to work directly with them because it saves them money because they don't have to pay us to help represent you to buy that house. And the thing is, if things come up that you want someone in your corner to help navigate the process for you to handle it, contracts and negotiations, handle the appraisals, handle the inspections, handle all the emotions that come along with buying a home.

Do you really want to be working directly with a seller to do that? And they're only looking out for themselves. That's what's happening here. You're not saving any money by working with a builder. They're saving the money and they're probably screwing you on the back end. You just don't know it because they're looking out for themselves. That's the thing.

We work with people all the time that are relocating to the Treasure Valley and we absolutely love it. And we need to talk to you so that we can figure out what your lifestyle is. Where do you want to live? Do you want to live out in the country, out in Middleton or in Star or do you want to live in right next to the Greenbelt in Eagle so you can get easy access to the river or maybe in Meridian, same thing, easy access to the river, more central and more built out.

Or you're looking for that slower pace of life in the country and say Nampa, and you're okay with driving a little bit further and just depending on what you're looking for.

Curtis Chism, Realtor
208-510-0427 | Mobile
boise@chismteam.com 
Chism Team | NRDS# SP56593
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