Key reasons to buy new

New LVR restrictions don't relate to mortgages for new homes.

Buying new has many advantages. No one has yet lived in your brand new home and it has that new home smell and feel.

That doesn't appeal to the villa crowd. But many people dream of a home in a new suburb.

There are many other advantages -- such as being able to customise the home before it's built. Buyers love it that their build guarantee covers most things and there's little maintenance to do for the first 10 years.

Real estate agent Jeremy O'Rourke, managing director of Lodge Real Estate, can rattle off a long list of reasons some people dream of buying new. They include:

• Current Building Code requirements specify a higher standard of insulation and glazing than you can expect in an older home, which makes your new home warmer in winter and cooler in summer, meaning cheaper to run. In addition, says Jasmax architect Tomasz Gibowicz, there has been a vast improvement in the quality and technology of construction materials over the last decade.

• New homes are designed for modern lifestyles with walk-in wardrobes, double or triple car garaging, en suites and heat pumps.

• Internal access garaging.

• Indoor-outdoor flow. Home builders before the 1970s rarely thought about this.

• Automatic pool covers and electric curtains are included in a lot of new homes, he says.

• In a new subdivision you're not going to have five cross-leased small homes next door to your architecturally designed five-bedroom dream home, he says.

• New purpose-built shopping and service centres cater for the modern life.

• New schools can be popular. New schools are being designed with "Modern Learning Environments", which are considered better layouts for 21st-century learning.

Another important factor is it's easier to get a mortgage. New Reserve Bank of New Zealand loan to value (LVR) ratio restrictions from October 1 don't relate to new homes. Likewise the KiwiSaver HomeStart grant is doubled for first time buyers.

When it comes to new apartment buildings they're built to a higher standard of earthquake/fire proofing and, hopefully, are no longer leaky.

Gibowicz, who specialises in designing apartment buildings says there have been significant improvements in the quality, performance and durability of building materials.

There are, of course, disadvantages to buying new. Not everyone wants to wait six or 12 months to move into their home.

Other downsides include:

• Borrowing to cover the progress payments is more complex than taking out a mortgage on an existing property.

• Builders and developers can go broke, leaving the buyer in an awkward position.

• With some new homes the buyer effectively needs to become a project manager.

• You have to deal with council for building and sometimes resource consent.

• The location may be further from the centre than you wanted.

• If it's infill housing you might have a cross lease situation that some people find tricky.

• There are often teething problems with a new build.

• You won't get a quaint tree-lined street.

• Your section will most likely be smaller than that of an existing home.

• Fences, paths and landscaping might need to be added at a cost.