New home construction: What’s out there in the Albuquerque area

(Transcript Snippet): “Tego:

I want to transition to new home construction. Tracy, you’ve been doing a lot of work in this area and there’s been a lot of press about new construction and that, you know, it’s difficult to build and that the timeframe for building are slow and stuff. And, you know, we all kind of know the supply chain stories that are out there and th the, the challenges there, um, and that’s definitely affected new construction, but Tracy, there are, there’s a lot of new construction going on around Albuquerque. And so can you kind of give us a summary of, you know, what’s out there, um, what, what neighborhoods are, are open and available right now and, and, um,

Tracy:

Sure. So it’s sort of interesting to go because, um, in the last month or so we have had, um, probably five new neighborhoods opened up brand new. They just are starting to sell in them from Pulte, Dr. Horton, Twilight, um, other builders. So lots of new neighborhoods, there’s a new one called Los DIA Montes. It’s in Rio Rancho, west of rust hospital up on the top of the hill. It’s in unit 10 for those of you, but, um, the legal description, but it’s, you know, very near south Rio Rancho, just west of the hospital. Um, that neighborhood is just opening up. There’s a couple of builders in that neighborhood. There’s some, um, the hock site, you know, out by the national guard, armory there’s lot of new homes there.

Tego:

It’s called mountain house mountain hot.

Tracy:

Yeah. Mountain hock. Sorry.

Tego:

But yeah, no. Yeah. So, so Los de Amantes is a big deal for Rio Rancho. I mean, that’s, that’s a, a large, uh, I’d call it masterplan community. It’s one of the first we’ve seen in a long time. Yeah. And it’s, it’s a nice south, you know, Rio Rancho location. I’m going to say south west Rio Rancho location. Right. And so, yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s starting to starting to build.

Tracy:

And another one coming, uh, at the trails, which is volcano Vista high school on the west side, Catalonia at the trails. Um, you know, we know Hakes brothers is at that location building beautiful homes, Dr. Horton Pulte, um, lot of, lot of new neighborhoods coming and, you know, from inspiration in Northwest Albuquerque to, um, the peaks to, uh, Montecito area, the whole petroglyph area, there’s several new neighborhoods going in by Pulte, Dr. Horton. Very exciting. So what’s real interesting too, is prices. So, you know, prices are up that new home construction. Now you’re starting more in the threes. I don’t think in the Metro area, there’s a house in the 200 thousands now, new construction, um, Amherst in homes, another builder, this name who you might not have heard has been around now just a couple of years, they’re building in a variety of areas.

Tracy:

And we talked to the rep there. I did the other day because we have a client buying two houses and, uh, our two clients buying houses and, uh, they’re building all over the Metro area. Now they have a lot of lots. I think they said like 2000 lots over the next couple of years that they’ll be able to build on from Los Lunas to the valley, to the west side, to Rio Rancho. So a lot of, um, a lot of new homes, but what’s interesting. I think a lot of people don’t know that as realtors, we can represent you with new home construction and whether it’s custom home or pulled to your Dr. Horton or Twilight homes or Hakes brothers. So what I have the honor today of showing new construction. So I’m really excited because I just love going and seeing our partners at the new home builders locations and seeing their homes. I haven’t been to some of these new neighborhoods yet. So it’ll be interesting to see as they’re coming out of the ground. Um, but you know, we can show you all of the different builders. Sometimes people go for a Sunday drive and they see one new home neighborhood and they follow the signs and they don’t realize that maybe a half a mile down the road, there’s another builder that they could also look at to compare and make sure they picked the right name. Yeah.

Tego:

Well in another part of town too. And so, so Tracy, where, where, you know, in, you know, looking around, where do we see a lot of the new construction in the Albuquerque area happening? Right?

Tracy:

Sure. So we’ve got a lot going on in Los Lunas, several builders, uh, Mesa Del Sol has a few builders. That’s just south of the airport, great location for people that work downtown, the hospitals, UNM, maybe even in Los Lunas. And then there’s, Volterra in Volterra has some homes still available. Volterra is right next to the air force base between Kirtland air force base and Fort Hills on the very south end of one turbo. Yup. Um, those are the, you know, some of the main areas that direction then of course we have Northwest Albuquerque and Rio Rancho, and those are where we have most of the land. As, as our listeners know, we are a Metro area, landlocked in three areas.

Tego:

I’m pretty landlocked on the north and the east, the east a little bit on the south, but we’ve got Mesa Del Sol in the Southwest.

Tracy:

Right. But we have the air force or the is Leta Pueblo on the south. Right. We have San Diego, Santa Ana to the north and we have a mountain to the east. We do have land to the west, but to develop

Tego:

It. Yeah,

Tracy:

Yeah, yeah. But somebody has to assemble it, figure out utilities and you know, so, so that’s, that’s sort of the constraints and, you know, it’s, it’s exciting because we do have a lot of new homes that are in the works, but right now most buyers would need to be patient because not a lot of them are sitting on the ground done ready to be bought and moved into in a month. Yeah.

Tego:

Yeah. And if, if nobody’s ever been in the new construction world, you’ll, you’ll hear the term, well, it’s a spec home or it’s, you know, um, pre-sold or, you know, different, different term to be built different terms like that. And in a spec home would be where the builder basically invest in building a home and then having it finished and put it into market. We don’t see very many of those right now.

Tracy:

I used to see a lot, especially with Dr. Horton and now they’re building them, but they’re still like, no, just most of them, December, January, February for Dr. Horton to be completed where they’ve actually picked out all the finishes and the floor plan and just started building.

Tego:

So there’s some in the pipeline, just not a lot, not, not as much as we used to. What, what are you hearing a builders quoting for bill times? Again, we’re talking production builders here, not custom, but they’re production type builders. Yeah.

Tracy:

Varying a lot. And they don’t usually like to give you a solid number because if you’re buying a house, they want to make sure that they can account for construction.

Tego:

Yeah. All their materials are sitting on a ship in long beach Harbor.

Tracy:

Most of them are quoting between eight and 12 months. We have some folks who put a house under contract about 30 days ago and they were quoted may or June for a completion date. Yeah. And, but that was a house that had already been specked on a lot, just not broken ground yet. They already had the permit. They’d already picked all the finishes and the floor plan and the lot. So it it’s may, or June of next year.

Tego:

Construction’s a great option for folks. And it, you know, you’re, you’re basically buying it. Today’s price. You’re locking in your price for the future. And then, um, you just have to be patient.

Tracy:

Yeah. And just a side note that made me think of it is we have a guaranteed sale program. So if you have a house you need to sell to be able to buy new construction, we can guarantee that your house will be sold. So you can close on your new construction, maybe eight or 12 months from now. And lot of the builders that we work with will, um, allow that allow you to move forward and have a house built, knowing that we’re in the background, guaranteeing that your house will be sold, sold that you currently own. So.