1. Repair Costs. Driving your vehicle over time adds miles, and major systems can need replaced as they wear out.  Unlike a predictable monthly car payment, you never know when these expensive repairs will hit.  Without a warranty covering those repairs, your out-of-pocket costs can add up quickly making your older vehicle costly to own, even when the car is paid off.
2. Maintenance Payments. As your vehicle ages, it may require more time and money to keep it running its best.  With or without a car payment, there are still maintenance payments to budget for older models.
3. Availability. There are plenty of good-condition, pre-owned vehicles on the market right now that cost less than a brand new one.

Ok, so you’re probably asking yourself what does this have to do with building your dream home?  Well, even though these are good reasons to upgrade a vehicle, they are also the same reasons you should consider buying or building a new home.

But wait you say, I’ve heard that now is not the time to build. With what I like to call “The Great American Housing Beatdown” currently in full swing, you can almost guarantee that no matter where you look, whether it is the newspaper, magazine, evening news, neighbor, friend or family member you’ll hear or see something negative about the economy or housing industry. It’s no wonder that everyone is hesitant about starting their dream home project.  But despite all the economic woes going on around us, now is a once in a lifetime opportunity to build your dream home and if you wait any longer, you’re probably going to miss it.  Listed below (in no particular order) are 5 reasons why now is the time to start building your dream home.

1. Material Costs. When the initial drop-off of demand for new home construction hit, the costs of almost all construction materials sank like a poorly built foundation.  And despite the continuance of a low demand for new home construction, building materials have been slowly creeping back up.  But not only are building materials sitting at lower than normal costs, so is land.  And as we all know once the demand for new home construction rises, the cost of material and land will go up right with it.  
2. Interest Rates. Due to the slow economic recovery, interest rates are now at or near record lows.  Unfortunately the rates are not here to stay. After all, what comes down in the mortgage world always has a way of finding its way back up.
3. Time. The sooner you start the project the sooner you’ll get to enjoy it.  Right now most contractors don’t have a long backlog of construction going on to keep them busy.  If you wait till the economy looks better what could’ve been 6 months to 1 year of waiting may become 2+ years of waiting.
4. Technology. Some people say buy a resale or foreclosure, but when you do that you’re losing out on a lot.  When you build new you get the most up-to-date technology in your home that you have hand selected to match your needs.  And once again a lot of what you want is at lower than average costs.
5. Economics 101. As I have mentioned no matter where you look it’s almost guaranteed you’re seeing something negative about the economy or housing industry.  Regardless of what side of isle you support, the best way to get us out of the economic slump is for you – the consumer to start spending again - wisely.  Anytime you hire a local contractor to build your dream home, not only are you building your dream home you’re also putting money back into your local economy.

In closing, despite all the economic woes currently surrounding us, there really is no better time to start building your dream home.  With low material costs and interest rates, availability of contractors and technology I couldn’t disagree more with anyone saying that now isn’t the time to build.  Finally, knowing that YOU are helping with the recovery of the current economic slump wouldn’t you say that NOW is the time to start your dream home?