I recently read an article that talked about the differences in buying an older home over a new home.  There are pluses to both.

The article talked about the fact that you can usually get an older home that has the wallpaper and paint already done.  Sometimes you can actually negotiate to have the window treatments included with the home.  The closing can occur in a short period of time.  On the down side you are buying a property that has used carpet, appliances, heating, and cooling systems to mention just some of the items in the home that have already been used since the home was built.

  When you buy a new home you are buying a home that is under warranty for the minimum of 1 year.  Nothing in the home has been used prior to the buyer moving in.  The buyer can select the items that go into the home if they are building from the ground up.  If the buyer does buy an inventory home they can usually get the best incentives from the builder.  Even if the buyer does not get to pick out everything for the home, most builders put neutral flooring in the home and sometimes they actually put upgrades into the home. Right now builders are offering allot of incentives to buy their homes.  There is a down side to buying a new homes.  The main down side is that it normally takes 4 to 5 months to build a new home.  If their is an inventory home you like you can close as quickly as a resale home.  Allot of time there is going to be construction going on in the neighborhood after you close.

I have been previewing resale homes lately.  Most of the homes I have looked at clearly needed some TLC.  I was surprised that with the market as slow as it has been that the sellers have not put more into the staging their homes to sale.  I know that there are homeowners that do take allot of pride in their homes also.  After looking at older homes I have to say that I believe buyers are going to get allot more for their money in a new home.  One of the big things that I noticed is that new homes are brighter and have more windows to let natural light into the home.  I would recommend that buyers whenever possible buy a new home over buying someone else's headaches.