Traditional Home Buying vs. Buying a Nabr Home
Nabr aims to create a streamlined, supportive home buying experience. We break down the process into six steps — and explain how we’re doing it differently.
By Nicholas Stewart + Anthony Schwarcz
As we discussed in the Homeowner’s Dilemma, buying a home is many Americans’ most important purchase — but one of their most frustrating experiences, too.
Here at Nabr, we’re laser-focused on delivering an empowering and transparent experience for buyers. When you buy one of our homes, you work directly with us. In each market, we’ve assembled a highly experienced sales team so that you always have a direct point of contact. We believe the home buying process should be simple and straightforward.
That’s only one way that buying a Nabr home is different. Here’s a primer on how the traditional home buying process works — and how Nabr is streamlining it into six simple steps.
Buying a home today vs. buying a Nabr home
1. Finding a Place
Today: Search for a home On average, buyers actively spend 124 hours — more than 17 days — searching for a home. You will probably start on a platform like Zillow or Redfin, or get a link from your broker to a listing. Likely, you’ll click through images and confusing floor plans, and then your broker will email the seller’s agent to ask for more information. You’ll probably have a few back-and-forths. Maybe at some point, you’ll receive a PDF with more information. If you’re interested in touring a home, you may be asked first to submit proof-of-funds or a mortgage pre-qualification: an assessment from a bank indicating the maximum price you can afford, based on a review of your income, assets, and a soft credit check. After leafing through brochures and trading PDFs with brokers, you’ll hopefully have zeroed in on a home that you’d like to own.
With Nabr: Tell us about yourself At Nabr, we don’t force our prospective customers to go through onerous red tape just to view our homes. That’s why you can browse all of our locations and buildings on Nabr’s website. Click “Get Started” and spend 5 minutes building your profile with your preferences, including the number of bedrooms, location, and price range that you’re targeting. Once you have a profile, you can access our Design Studio to see the homes that meet your criteria. The onus is on us to search for you.
2. Design
Today: Off-the-shelf design When you buy, what you see is what you get. If it’s a new house or apartment, you’re committed to the materials, finishes, and appliances that the builder has pre-selected. If it’s a resale, you’re getting the prior owner’s selections. Likely, it won’t have everything that you need.
To customize your new home, you’ll have to wait until after you’ve purchased it and then spend more money to hire some combination of an architect, general contractor, and an interior designer. These professionals will submit cost estimates for whatever upgrades you want, but they are just estimates, and the actual cost usually exceeds them. Home buyers usually spend at least 10% of their purchase price on renovations.
With Nabr: Design your home In our virtual Design Studio, you can browse curated design packages and upgrades that will make your space feel personal to you. These are all features that will be built into your unit from the start.
All homes begin with the Nabr design — a classic California style with top-of-the line appliances and finishes. You can browse custom features a-la-carte and save your favorites, like a feature wall, outdoor kitchen, or terrace landscaping; later on, you’ll work with a Nabr Design Advisor to lock-in your selections using a digital model of your home.
If you’d prefer to leave the decision making to the experts, we’ll soon introduce designer packages, which include distinct material palettes and features curated by top-notch global designers from Bjarke Ingels Group and Katty Schiebeck Studio.
You’ll be able to revisit your selections with help from a Design Advisor closer in time to construction — or even add features to your Nabr home after you’ve moved in.
3. Securing a Home
Today: Bid, bid, bid until you win If you decide to move forward with a purchase, you’ll need to submit a bid. Buyers typically communicate the offer to their broker, who then shares it with the seller’s broker — meaning the buyer is twice-removed from the transaction. In a competitive housing market, putting an offer at asking price will likely not be enough. Bidding wars end up driving the selling price much higher than the listing price — to the benefit of the sellers and brokers but to the detriment of buyers. If your bid isn’t accepted, then it’s back to square one.
With Nabr: Reserve your home Once you’ve found a home you like, you can reserve your selection — and lock in a price — by placing a refundable reservation fee, paid directly in the Design Studio. As a matter of principle, Nabr doesn’t negotiate: we aren’t in the business of pitting consumers against one another to boost our bottom line. Instead, we’ve built a model that gives preference to those who come first (either by entering the Design Studio or joining our paid Priority Waitlist).
4. Payment Options
Today: Get a mortgage pre-approval and pay 20% Prior to having your offer accepted, the seller will want to know that you can afford to purchase their home. If you’re buying with all-cash, you’ll need to submit proof of funds sufficient to cover the value of your apartment. If you’re looking to obtain a mortgage (as most buyers do), you will likely need to obtain a preapproval letter from a bank — an official qualification letter for a loan that includes a hard credit check and a comprehensive audit of your assets. Typically a buyer who purchases with a mortgage will make a 20% cash down payment; the mortgage covers the rest and is repaid (generally) over a 30-year term.
With Nabr: Choose how you pay With Nabr, you have three payment options: all-cash, mortgage (with a down payment), or LEAP, our lease-to-purchase program (details coming soon). Unlike the traditional home buying process, we don’t require preapproval at this stage, but we will ask that you upload a less onerous prequalification or proof of funds (more on this in a post coming soon).
5. Making it Official
Today: Sign the paperwork If your bid has been accepted, it’s time to move to a contract (what’s called a “Purchase and Sale Agreement”). The contract will specify all details regarding your purchase: when you need to complete the purchase and transfer funds, what you are buying, and any representations made by the seller. At that point, you will be asked to put down a non-refundable deposit (between one and three percent of your unit price) to hold your unit.
With Nabr: Make it official The process of committing to your purchase with Nabr is basically the same, but you can sign on the dotted line digitally and avoid the hassle of paperwork. At this point, we’ll also ask you to get a loan preapproval from a lender if you plan to finance your home with a mortgage or pre-approval from Nabr if you’re enrolled in LEAP.
Once you’ve made your purchase, we’ll start building your Nabr home just as you designed it. And while you wait, you’ll have time to save more for your down payment, get your finances in order, finalize your upgrade selections, and prepare for a move.
6. Moving In
Today: Move in — on your own At closing, the buyer transfers funds to the seller, the deed of the property transfers to the buyer, and the purchase is complete. A title company will register the sale and coordinate all payments. With funds and the deed transferred, the home is yours — and then you’re on your own.
With Nabr: Move in — with us by your side The closing process with Nabr looks similar. One key difference, though, is that Nabr doesn’t just disappear after you’ve bought your home. We give you a digital model of your unit — which you can use to do things like take measurements — and we provide an app for you to control your home environment, which will work across any of your smart devices. If you decide to order additional upgrades or further customize your home, we can make that happen, too — so your Nabr home continues to grow with you.
Check out our next post for a demo of our Design Studio beta, where you can explore Nabr homes.
