Builders eagerly await orders

PHILADELPHIA – Forget the still-sputtering economy, tight credit and all the other reasons not to take that giant leap of real estate faith right now.

For some people, now is precisely the right time to build the house they want.

Like Jennifer and Julio Cassanelli, who bought a three-bedroom house in Williamstown, N.J., soon after they married – before Anastasia, 7; Angelina, 5; and Amelie, 2, came along.

“Three girls and 1 ½ bathrooms,” their mother said. “Can you imagine what things would be like when they’re teenagers?”

Then there are Katherine and Jonathan Mattison, who married in May. With the two children from her first marriage, Charlie, 4, and Hannah, 2, the couple are living with her mother, Jane Wellbrock, in a four-bedroom house.

“Hannah came here right after she was born,” Wellbrock said. “She doesn’t know anything but this house.”

For each family, a freshly built home was the answer: for the Cassanellis, a $307,000 four-bedroom, two-bath single a mile from their old house; for the Mattisons, a $237,500 three-bedroom, 2 ½-bath townhouse in Avondale, Pa.

And why not, with builders so eager to deal they’re offering incentives and discounts and faster move-ins? After the latest round of tax credits for home buyers expired April 30, new-home sales nationwide for May plunged to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 300,000, the lowest since recordkeeping began in 1963.

“Buyers might do as well or better now than when the tax credit was available, since some builders may need to move inventory that did not sell in March and April,” said Wayne Norris, regional sales manager for Hanley Wood Market Intelligence, which tracks U.S. new-home sales.

Neither the Cassanellis nor the Mattisons wanted to buy fixer-uppers.

In 2008, during her divorce – but “fortunately before the crash,” Katherine Mattison said – she sold a 250-year-old house that needed lots of work.

“Not this time,” she said.

The Cassanellis’ house was just a few months old when they bought it in February 2002 from a couple getting a divorce.

“We spent almost nine years working on this house,” Jennifer Cassanelli said. “We wanted to move into a house and not have to do that again. With kids, it’s much harder.”

Julio Cassanelli, 42, is contracts manager for Thomson Reuters in Philadelphia. Jennifer Cassanelli, 34, was an accounts manager for Quickie Manufacturing Corp. in Cinnaminson, N.J., until daughter Angelina was born.

They bought their last house, with 5 percent down, for $162,000 in 2002, records show. She said they were “lucky we were able to get it before the market began heating up.”

When they reappraised a few years ago during the real estate boom, their equity had increased enough to drop private mortgage insurance.

That, and paying “everything off we needed to get into shape to buy” were solid steps to moving up to their second house, Jennifer Cassanelli said.

After Amelie was born, the Cassanellis began considering their housing options.

“We put ourselves on a plan,” she said. “It was supposed to be three to five years, but the tax credit made us push up our deadline.” They believed – correctly, as it turned out – that a first-time buyer might want their house.

Still, they had big concerns.

“The economy is always in the back of my mind,” she said. Even though her husband has been working with Thomson Reuters for eight years, “no one’s job is secure. There’s only one income now. What happens if that goes away?”

They considered adding another bedroom and a bathroom, Jennifer Cassanelli said, but the estimates were through the roof. And when they called their lender about financing for the improvements, they were told that “because of declining home values,” they would not qualify.

On the Cassanellis’ wish list: four bedrooms, two baths and a finished basement with an office because Julio Cassanelli works a lot at home “and needs to do it without the girls nearby.”

Online, Jennifer Cassanelli saw nothing she liked. “Houses in Williamstown are either 40 years old or new,” she said. Their real estate agent sensed this and took her to Savona, a Paparone New Homes development a mile away.

“We arrived in a heavy rain and spent two hours looking, but the base price was still high, and there was no finished basement,” Jennifer Cassanelli said. Paparone took $25,000 off the base price, which allowed the Cassanellis to move up to the next model, with the finished basement.

Price: $307,000. Two weeks ago, the couple locked in to a 4.5 percent, 30-year fixed-rate loan with Oak Mortgage of Marlton, N.J., a company with which builder Bruce Paparone said he had been dealing with for 12 years.

They are scheduled to move in Aug. 20, meaning that Jennifer Cassanelli’s “vacation” with the in-laws will end.

“I’ll have to start cooking,” she said with a laugh.