News

The only thing that you can be sure about our Southern California weather is that it’s unpredictable. We’ve been in a drought for years. So in your house hunt, you’ve only considered how a potential purchase would do in dry weather. Now that El Niño is bringing us lots of rain, you have to switch gears and think about how a home will endure water.

You never know whether the owner of a used home has prepped his or her abode for either kind of weather. However, our new homes are built to deal with all kinds of outdoor conditions. Here are some advantages of considering our new housing over used. 

No leaks

The constant drip of moisture from the ceiling to an interior floor is the scourge of any homeowner when heavy rains come. Worse yet is a drip you can hear but not see because that indicates a hidden hole that may be difficult to find. Owners of used homes may have neglected roof inspections and consequent repairs because of dry weather. The older the roof, the more likely is it to leak. New roofs, on the other hand, are impervious to leaks. 

Cleared gutters and drains

Years of dry weather may have caused leaves and dirt to pile up inside gutters and around drains. You won’t even realize that such piles of debris can cause problems until they prevent water from draining properly, causing flooding or sheets of rain to fall from your roof. Such buildups don’t have time to occur in new housing.  

Correct sloping

The last thing you notice when inspecting a new or used home is how the ground, driveway, patio, and roads around it are sloped. Yet such slight inclines are critical for flood control. Around older homes, the ground around the foundation may have settled over the years, which causes pools of water to form around walls or wetness to invade the home. Our new developments meet ground construction standards for draining water away from your property. 

Neighborliness

What happens if the backyard of your new home lies lower so that water from all the surrounding properties comes gushing in? Or what if the guy next door installed a downspout that diverts rainwater toward your backdoor? Such issues won’t be apparent until the first heavy rains. And even if you tell your neighbors about it, they may not be inclined to make any repairs, if at all, until the spring or summer. In our new developments, how one property interacts with another or with public areas is carefully considered in the overall site design. Any disputes are fairly and quickly resolved by bringing them to the attention of the homeowner’s association management.

Water savings

When the rains come to a new housing development, the maintenance team or built-in automation technology shuts off the watering systems that irrigate public spaces and front yards, and keeps the swimming pool or other water features filled. In a used home, you’ll have to take care of shut offs yourself, which, hopefully, won’t entail going outside in wet weather with a wrench to deal with antiquated plumbing systems. One caveat for our neighborhoods: you, and not the HOA, are responsible for any sprinkler or drip systems you may have installed in your backyard. You’ll need to shut those off, most likely until the spring or summer, because of continuing rains. 

You can check out in person how we deal with wet or dry weather by touring our developments. Please contact us for an appointment.