Playing with the True Cost of Ownership

Playing with the True Cost of Ownership

I recently played with Ekotrope’s deployment of True Cost of Ownership™ on theSunwood Development website. I wanted to test its usefulness, envisioning myself as a potential homebuyer that is looking to better understand the projected monthly spending of buying a Sunwood home vs. the other purchase options I might have. Maybe it is the engineer in me but this was actually a lot of fun. I kept moving back and forth between the inputs and result panels, exploring how the different selections affect the final results and trying to find a way to get the BEST house for my monthly spending. One thing that I found very surprising was how much “more house” I can get when buying a new home vs. the used home alternatives. By “more house” I mean how much equity I can get in a new house without increasing my monthly spending relative to the used alternative (this is due to the reduced spending onutility and maintenance that covers the increased mortgage payments). For example – a homebuyer buying Sunwood’s Ascott model with a heat pump will spend the same every month as a homebuyer buying a similar 20 years old house that is $70,000 cheaper!For me this is amazing – a buyer can get $70,000 more equity (which is over 15% of the house price) and still spend the same. I wish I had that comparison when I was buying my current home.