Why New Construction Lottery Lists Aren’t Your Best Bet
Avoid making this common home building mistake.
As hopeful homebuyers tire of the competitive market for existing homes, many of them have turned instead to the prospect of building a new house. But not all homebuilding situations end up simpler than buying an existing home...especially when a lottery is involved.
What’s a new construction lottery?
Many new developers have adopted the strategy of placing hopeful homebuyers interested in their lots into a lottery system. Because demand for lots - and for homebuilding - has soared much higher than the available inventory, some builders scrambled to find a fair way to designate their newly available lots.
Now, some of them draw names when new sections of their developments begin construction and become available for contract. After hopeful buyers camping out on lots became common in too many new developments, builders sought a lower-stress, and hopefully more equitable, way to designate new homes to eager buyers.
Low probability of winning
Although the lottery method invites more equity into the process for those who can’t take time off of work (or find childcare, or any of the other logistical traps) in order to camp out at a site, it still proves futile for the vast majority of hopeful buyers in each round. Commonly, sites will see around 50 buyers entered into a lottery where only 10 end up selected for a lot. Even after completing arduous processes like getting pre-approved and arranging down payment, many buyers found themselves losing over and over.
Frustrating cycles
Especially for buyers who sought out building as a less frustrating, less competitive alternative to buying an existing home, the repeated let-down of losing lotteries becomes just another frustrating cycle with no set end date. Many systems don’t include any methods of boosting those who are in the lottery for the second (or third, or fourth, or fifth…) time, which results in months on end of waiting at the mercy of the developers for just another shot at a high-stakes, low-probability draw.
Limited choices
Even for the lucky ones who do win the lottery, building with large developers often disappoints. Many buyers quickly realize that what they’ve really won is a house that looks nearly identical to, well, all the other people’s who’ve won that neighborhood lottery.
With limited options to choose from and only a few floor plans, these developments often end up with a cookie-cutter appearance, with each house varying only slightly from the next. Instead of being able to customize their new homes to fit their needs, most families end up dealing with just as much compromise and frustration as they did when they were trying to purchase an existing home.
A better option: custom building
For more control over their future home and far less frustration, many home buyers are choosing to build custom instead. While the process of custom building once included so much back-and-forth that it was practically a part-time job, those days are over. With Atmos, a dedicated project manager facilitates each step of the journey.
Buyers can purchase a lot, choose their ideal layout, and customize to their heart’s desire without spending countless hours on the phone to sort out logistics. And best of all? No lottery.
Ready to make your own luck by building the custom home of your dreams? Get started with Atmos to skip the sacrifice and frustration of today’s competitive market!
