Should You Buy a Lot or a House at Tennessee National?

Buy a lot if you want a home designed around you and can wait for it. Buy a finished home if you want to be living at Tennessee National soon.

Plenty of buyers have closed on a house. Few have closed on bare land. Here you can do either, and the two purchases work differently enough that it is worth laying them side by side before you pick.

What is the difference between buying a lot and buying a house?

With a house you buy what exists. With a lot you buy what is possible. That one shift changes what you inspect, how you pay and when you move in.

Neither column is the advanced option. They are different trades of time, control and effort.

What are the ways to own at Tennessee National?

There are five.

• The Timbers. Wooded homesites.
• Lake homesites.
• Waterfront homesites.
• Land & Home packages. A homesite and a home offered as a package. Ask what is included.
• Townhomes.

The first three are land. The last two involve a home. Ask your land consultant, in writing, what a Land & Home package includes and whether a townhome is finished or still to be built. Finished homes are listed on the properties page. Pricing is in the info pack.

When does buying a lot make sense?

Buying a lot makes sense when the setting matters more to you than the move-in date.

• You want a particular setting. Trees, lake or shoreline. See how to choose a homesite.
• You want a home drawn for the way you live. Homes at Tennessee National are custom built, so the plan starts with you and the land.
• You are not moving yet. There is no deadline to build. You can own the homesite now and build when life allows.
• You do not mind a project. A build means a designer, a builder, design review and a long list of choices. How building a home works covers the steps.

When does buying a finished home make sense?

Buying a finished home makes sense when you want to be living here soon.

• Your timeline is short. Months, not years.
• You would rather not manage a build. No loan draws, no change orders, no waiting on weather.
• You want to see exactly what you are getting. You can walk every room before you sign.
• You want to try the life first. You can buy a finished home, live here, and decide later whether to build.

The catch is choice. You pick from what is for sale that month. See buying a move-in-ready home.

How does the money differ?

The money differs in three ways: the loan, the carrying cost and the size of the unknowns.

The loan. Lenders generally treat land as riskier than a finished house, so land loans often ask for more money down and shorter terms than a mortgage. Fewer lenders make them. A finished home is financed the way most people already know. How financing a lot works explains the options.

The carrying cost. An unbuilt homesite has no roof to insure and no utilities to run, so it usually costs less to hold than a house. You also cannot sleep on it.

The unknowns. A finished home has a price. A custom build has an estimate, and estimates move with the site and your choices. Ask a builder for a written number before you count on one.

Tennessee has no state income tax either way.

What if your plans change before you build?

Then you wait, or you build something different from what you first pictured, or you sell the land. There is no deadline to build, so taking your time breaks no rule.

One caution on selling. A lot is often harder to resell than a house, because in most markets fewer people shop for land than for finished homes. We do not make resale promises about either one, and you should be careful with anyone who does.

The honest trade-off

A lot gives you control and asks for patience. A house gives you speed and asks you to accept someone else's choices.

The way to settle it is to stand in both. Walk a homesite and picture the porch. Then walk a finished home and picture moving in next month. One of those will feel like relief. That is usually your answer.

Whichever way you lean, you end up in the same place. That is 1,492 gated acres on Watts Bar Lake, with a Greg Norman Signature golf course, a marina with 140+ boat slips and 22 social clubs already running.

Facts about Tennessee National come from the community. Lake facts come from TVA. Rules, taxes, loans and insurance change, so confirm anything that affects a purchase with the right office or professional before you buy.