How to Find New Homes for Sale Near You Without Realtors

When I buy a home, I would prefer to buy a new home so I don’t have to worry about updating it to building code and making it energy efficient. The problem is, most brand new homes are not listed on the multiple listing service the realtors use because the builders want to sell the homes themselves for a larger profit. Additionally, realtors don’t seem to welcome new homes on the MLS because that would give buyers the perception that there is a huge inventory. Both parties want to keep the prices up. So how do you go about finding new home developments in your community without using the MLS?

Drive Around — This may seem obvious, but you can just drive around the places you want to live and look for developments. Often the builders will have big signs out and sales offices are ready before all the homes are built. They are usually pretty friendly in the sales offices and will tell you about the property in detail.

Look at Recently Sold Homes — Most newspapers have a real estate section listing the homes sold in the past month or so. If you see many properties sold on the same street, chances are it’s a new development.

Search Builder Websites — If you know of reputable builders in your area, you can go directly to their webpage and search for new developments

Use Google — Type in something similar to New Homes Your County in Google, and you will receive some hits, but you have to take some effort to weed out the irrelevant results.

Search the City Planning Division — This is probably the best resource for finding new homes in places like San Mateo that are perceived as completely built out. Before each builder can break ground, they need building permits from the city they want to build in. So a good way to find out who’s building what is to look at city planning pages. For example, San Mateo has an excellent page listing all the sites that have building permits and the list of builders applying for permits. If your city doesn’t have a resource like this online, they will have the information in the city planning office, and it should be public record.

Builders are offering a lot of incentives lately such as free upgrades and closing costs, so it’s possible to get a new home that’s cheaper and better than a used home. Anyway, it still takes patience and legwork to find the home you want because you need to research the builder and the area. Personally, I don’t mind waiting for some of the developments that will come up a couple years down the road or wait for the current builders to cut their prices some more.

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