New is my vote but right now in your market marion, the builders are behind the repos as far as pricing goes, this may change. Rustico made some valid points, older homes are inefficient, poorly insulated, unfinished (no drywall) garages, low tech windows, some have galvanized steel pipes. Houses built after about 1998 in Temecula are a safer bet, avoid 1992-1997 builts in this area, absolute crap, there was no profit margin and corners were cut. Houses, like wines, have a vintage and each year is different. With a repo you will likely have similar expenses because flooring and landscaping needs replacement, with resale houses you’ll pay too much. I’m not nuts about wolf but it was an example you used, the builders are 50-100k over repos in their own tracts, this is going to hurt them and they will have to come down, all of wolf is upside down so the pressure will be there. Redhawk is older but the construction years vary, there is one tract still under construction on the last piece of premium land (hemmingway) and yesterday a repo came on the market for 329k, about 100k lower than new and it was dialed in as far as options go, probably lived in for a month, they are only on about the 30th house and the first ones are going under, they can’t keep that up much longer, on the other side of this bounce, look for 20% slashings at the builders.
