Why New Homes In Mature Areas Make Cents

Do you ever find yourself driving down a tree lined road on the Hill or in Riverside, passing schools, cafes and boutique shopping and think to yourself, “Wow, I wish I lived here!”? Only to turn your head and see the rows and rows of 60-100-year-old homes and realize that you aren’t quite ready for the complicated, sometimes multi-year, renovation project that would be required to bring one of those homes up to today’s standards?

Now, there is absolutely nothing wrong with tackling a renovation project such as that (and Brost’s Renovation team would be more than happy to help!) but in some cases, you can buy an older home that has fallen into disrepair for the same price as what new building lots cost in the outlying new areas. There is certainly nothing stopping you from having us knock down that old home and starting from scratch with a brand new, energy-efficient, modern property that will occupy that beautiful lot for another 100 years.

This concept is called “infill development” and has been gaining some steam in the last number of years. If you travel to larger centres such as Calgary or even comparably sized cities like Red Deer, you will see fine examples of infill development in many of the core areas. Often, these infill projects are examples of some of the nicest housing in those cities.

Certainly, infill development is a bit of a process when compared to building on a new lot but have no fear! The team here at Brost has ample experience with many infill projects under our belts and we would be more than happy to help you realize your dream.

Are there any reasons to build in a mature area besides the obvious advantage of location?

When looking at other centres, and even certain places within Medicine Hat, you will see that often infill sites are the best places to build something a little different than the typical homes built in new subdivisions. Whether you’ve always dreamed of building a modern, flat-roofed masterpiece or want to make your new home look like a 100-year-old character home, you will find that it will blend more naturally in a mature location.

As well, you will often find wider, more open building sites in mature areas than what can be found in today’s new areas developed under the principals of “smart growth”. Another reason to consider infill development is that, at times, the selection of desirable new lots can become picked over with very few choice properties available.

During these times, expanding your search to places like the Hill or Riverside can turn up an absolute gem. Lastly, if you want to talk about being friendly to the environment, you can’t get much closer to true recycling than re-using developed land as opposed to a lot that was recently a farmer’s field or natural habitat!

We believe in this principle and are showing it with a number of our homes being built in such areas. There are many reasons why you should consider building in an older area, and we would love to talk to you about them.