Electronic Househunting

By Katherine Salant

The first step in any new house search is finding out where new houses are being built and who is building them. Until recently, the best source for this information was a local newspaper's real estate section. But now we have the Internet.

With a few clicks of the mouse, buyers can access information on new houses in almost every market in the country. Much of this data, however, comes in the highly abbreviated form of "$271,900, 4 BR, 2.5 Bath, 2 Floors, 2,416 square feet." And all the listings are organized according to price, size and room count. For seasoned new-househunters who know what they are looking for, the Web sites are an invaluable tool.

For beginners, a newspaper real estate section is still the best place to start and become familiar with builders, planned communities and price ranges in a given market. And newspaper real estate sections remain the best and quickest way to keep abreast of what's new -- grand openings of new models in existing developments, grand openings of new models in new communities, closeout sales and special offerings such as a finished basement included in the base price.

Careful study of the real estate section and visits to model-home parks in several planned communities, however, will bring most buyers to a state of Web site readiness -- a firm idea of what size house and features they can afford, and enough experience looking at models to interpret the floor plans shown on the Web. Then they're ready to hunker down over a computer for several hours of Web site research.

I looked at three national Web sites devoted to new houses, NewHomesDirect.com, NewHomeNetwork.com and homebuilder.com. Starting with a state and city or county, each national Web site allows a user to select price ranges, size and basic features -- the number of stories, bedrooms, bathrooms and car capacity of the garage. Since each of these Web sites is in the process of developing a national network, buyers should check the listings of all three for a given market. When I tried markets that I know well, I found each one had different listings for the same profile of size, room count and price.

The discrepancy in listings is also attributable to how the material is collected and how it is paid for. Listings at homebuilder.com, which is affiliated with the National Association of Home Builders, is by subscription only. The listings are quite complete -- after clicking in your preferences, you get a basic list. More clicks and you can get the builder's Web site, floor plans and front elevations. A few listings even offer virtual tours. Homebuilder.com also has a builder directory, which is very useful if you know the names of particular builders and want to know where they are building houses.

NewHomeNetwork.com gets its basic listings from the Meyers Group, a firm that tracks house listings and sales for all new housing developments with more than 10 lots in 40 markets throughout the country. The basic listing is free to builders, but brief. Those who pay an additional fee can have more detailed information posted including floor plans, front elevations and links to their own corporate Web site. The well-designed NewHomeNetwork.com site also includes a street locator map for each detailed listing.

NewHomesDirect.com is building up its own database, working directly with builders. Its basic listing is also free and, compared to NewHomeNetwork.com, provides more information, including along with 4 BR's and 2.5 Baths, the school districts, a brief written description of features, and a photo and a floor plan, when supplied by the builder. As with NewHomeNetwork.com, builders who pay can have more elaborate listings.

The national sites also have daily news feeds and a host of other consumer information germane to the new househunting process.

Besides these three national Web sites for new houses, some local markets have their own new house Web sites. In the Washington, D.C.-area, for example, buyers can click to NewHomesGuide.com, which lists every builder and every development within a 15-county, three-city area. To find out which markets have local Web sites, check HousingGuides.com. Most of the HousingGuides.com sites also offer a free subscription to their monthly publication. Though more cumbersome to use, these are a handy to have when touring models.

Another Internet source of information on homebuilding is home plan Web sites. Perusing these can be a valuable exercise for new homebuyers, even for those with no interest in buying a plan and building a custom house. Since many tract builders use plan services, one or two hours of surfing here will provide an overview of what's out there as well as some practice in correlating size with a floor plan. For example, what does a room layout with 2,400 square feet look like?

I looked at two home plan sites, HomeStyles.com and DesignBasics.com.

With HomeStyles.com, users click in the same basic information as on the homebuilder sites -- house size, number of stories, bedrooms, bathrooms, and the car capacity of garage -- plus a choice of 11 different styles.

The plans do not have a scale, and the size of the floor plans for the first and second floors often varies. But after clicking through a number of plans, buyers will begin to get an idea of the possibilities. Houses range from the very small -; one-bedroom, one-bath honeymoon cottages of less that 500 square feet -- to very large six-bedroom, seven-bath houses of palatial proportions with more than 9,000 square feet. With more than 8,000 plans in the site, similarities are inevitable -- in one case I found the same plan with seven different facade treatments.

DesignBasics.com, which has only 1,000 plans on its site, lists them by series and by ascending number of square feet. As with HomeStyles.com, the first and second floors are not shown at the same scale, but DesignBasics.com does show the rear elevation.

At this time neither site offers clues that would indicate how a particular design affects the cost to build it. For example, a 2,030-square-foot, four-bedroom house that fits into a very efficient box with one stall of the two-car garage projecting from the side is much less costly to build than a four-bedroom house only 10 square feet bigger but with the garage at right angles to the house, a dining room that extends from one end, a complex roof line and a master suite with his and hers bathrooms.

By next September, however, HomeStyles.com will have cost estimates for all its plans furnished by RS Means, a national estimating service. Although the actual price to build could be as much as 10 percent more or less than RS Means' estimate, the figures will certainly give an idea of the relative cost differences between houses, Anita Barberi of RS Means said.

DesignBasics.com has a national registry of builders who have used their plans. This is a real advantage for someone who wants to build a house, as every plan purchased from a service requires modification in the field for local code requirements and site conditions. A builder who has already worked with plans from DesignBasics knows how they must be modified. Should you choose a plan the builder has already built, there won't be any guesswork on the price.

HomeStyles.com does not list any builders, but it is linked to Improvenet.com, an online service that matches up homeowners with builders. Using electronic databases, Improvenet screens homebuilders, architects and designers all over the United States, checking for legal and credit problems. Wherever possible, Improvenet also checks licenses, liability insurance and references. The service for consumers is free, but the builders and architects pay a finder's fee. If you are considering a contractor or an architect who is not on its list, Improvenet will screen the firm for $29.

Copyright 2000-2006 Katherine Salant. Distributed by Inman News Features