As with most things in life there are pros and cons to buying either a new home or an old home. Many people prefer the charm and history of an older home. Others are more concerned with the daily lifestyle conveniences that normally come with a new home purchase Also, you may not have a choice between the two because of your personal financial situation.
So what are the pros and cons:
Older neighborhoods have more developed public amenities. They normally have well developed landscaping, trees and parks. The school district is well established along with the public services like fire and police stations. Also they normally have better access to public transportation and highways. Many new “cookie cutter” neighborhoods are still waiting for the paint to dry on their mailboxes. The city planning stages have not yet been implemented and the public park might be just an empty lot with a sign saying “Coming Soon”. However they can also have modern conveniences like shopping malls, dog parks, public beaches or swimming pools or even better infrastructure like high-speed internet access.
I really don’t like speculation so the neighborhood has to have a history that will allow me to make my decisions based on facts. My determination is that I look for houses that rent for the multiple of note and expenses that will make the spread of profit that I need. That being said the neighborhood usually needs to be old enough for me to determine what that rental pattern is. The houses have to have a history of rental prices achieved in order to know what they will be. That rules out new houses usually. I also want to buy at a discount. If the house is new and is worth $100,000 it may have $90,000 worth of materials and labor in it that means that it can’t be sold below that unless the mortgage is relieved by foreclosure or short sale or someone writes a check for the difference. If the mortgage has been paid down to say $40,000 then the house can be sold at that price without anybody writing a check for the loss. That makes the deal more doable.
It depends of your preferences. If you want to save money buy an old home. If you want to save time in repairs and other kinds of hassles, buy a new home.