When your house no longer fits your family, you have three options. You can remodel your home, buy one that already works, or build a new one. It’s normal to go back and forth between them for months.
New Era Homes builds semi-custom homes across Central Oregon, so we know building best. It isn’t the right fit for every family, and the other two get a fair look here too.
- Remodel if you love your neighborhood and the problem is one or two rooms.
- Move if you need a different house within a few months and one on the market already fits.
- Build if you can give it most of a year and want a layout planned around your family.
Still deciding? That’s fine. We’re happy to talk it through whenever you’re ready.
Explore Options in an Online Consultation
See How Each Path Fits Your Family’s Year
| What You’re Weighing | Remodel | Move | Build New |
|---|---|---|---|
| How long it takes | Several months of planning, then roughly 3 to 4.5 months of construction, depending on the room | Usually the fastest, once you find a home and sell yours | 8 to 11 months from planning to keys, once you have a lot |
| Where your family lives | Usually at home, around the work | In your current home until closing, unless the dates don’t line up | In your current home, unless you sell early |
| How many moves | None, unless you move out during the work | One, or two if you rent in between | One, or two if you sell early |
| The school year | Construction may run through part of it while you live at home | Can land in summer if the right house comes up in time | Runs close to the length of a school year, so your start date sets your move-in season |
| Daily routines | A temporary kitchen or bathroom setup while that room is under construction | A new neighborhood, and possibly a new school | Mostly unchanged until move-in day, then possibly a new neighborhood |
Remodel When You Love Where You Already Live
A remodel keeps your street, your school, and your neighbors. It makes the most sense when the house mostly works, and maybe one or two rooms are the pain points. Maybe the kitchen can’t fit everyone, or too many people share one bathroom.
In Houzz’s survey of 2019 remodels, homeowners spent longer planning than building. Kitchens took the longest, at about eight months to plan and four and a half to build.
What Living Inside the Work Looks Like
Two-thirds of homeowners in a Houzz kitchen study stayed home during the remodel, and most set up a temporary cooking station somewhere else in the house. If you stay, plan for:
- Meals from a temporary kitchen while the real one is torn out
- Crews arriving while the kids get ready for school
- Dust and noise in the rooms next to the work
- Decisions that come up mid-project, once walls are open
What a Remodel Does to Your Home’s Value
If you might sell in a few years, the 2025 Cost vs. Value report estimates how much of a project’s cost shows up in resale value. It puts a minor kitchen remodel at 112.9 percent of its cost nationally, with the Pacific region among the strongest returns. Look up the project you’re planning before you count on it.
Move When You Need a Different House Soon
If you buy a house that’s already built, you can usually move soonest. The timing depends on finding one that fits and selling the one you have.
The catch is that you’re choosing from what’s for sale that season, in the neighborhoods where it’s for sale, and the layout comes as it is.
Line Up the Sale, the Purchase, and the School Calendar
If the new house closes before yours sells, you’ll pay for two homes for a while. If yours sells first, you may need a rental in between, which means moving twice. Many families with kids try to time the move for summer to avoid school disruption.
Build When You Want a Home Planned Around Your Family
Building takes longer than buying a house that’s already on the market. In return, the layout is planned around how your family lives: where backpacks land, where homework happens, and who shares a bathroom.
A typical New Era Homes project runs eight to eleven months from planning to keys, with permitting and financing in the first one to three. School mornings and practice schedules stay the same until move-in day.
Meanwhile, we coordinate permitting and site work, including septic and well drilling on rural lots, and our team supervises construction on site. If you haven’t bought land yet, start with our no-cost property evaluation.
We start from proven plans with fixed home pricing, with lot costs listed separately. Our Uncommon Standards, features we include at no extra cost, come with every home. From there, we modify the plan for the way your family lives, and our floorplans for families are a good place to start.
“The planning process was a lot of back and forth, focusing on our desired outcome while understanding the tough choices of cost/reward/tradeoff. Throughout this process, they provided excellent suggestions, alternatives, and modifications to create our unique plan.”
Time the Build Around the School Year
Bend-La Pine Schools’ 2026-27 calendar runs from September 9 to June 17. Typically, the month you start a build decides the season you move in. See how to plan a build around the school year.
The other date to plan around is when you sell your current home. Selling once the move-in date is firm means one move, while selling earlier frees up your equity but may mean renting in between. Our guide to when to sell your house while you build walks through both.
Discover Options with an Online Consultation
Compare the Costs Before You Decide
Cost often decides it. These two guides compare it in detail:
- Is it cheaper to build or buy a house? It counts land, site work, upgrades, and repairs on both sides.
- What is the most expensive part of building a new house? It shows where a build budget goes.
Questions That Help Your Family Decide
Do you love your neighborhood and your kids’ schools? Is the problem one room or the whole layout? Could your family cook out of a temporary kitchen for a few months? Do you need to be in a different house by next fall?
If your answers lean toward staying put, look hard at a remodel. If you need to move soon, start with homes on the market. And if you’d rather move once, into a home planned around how your family lives, that’s where we can help.
Frequently Asked Questions
It depends on whether the house or the location is the problem. If you love where you live and one or two rooms don’t work, remodel. If the whole layout is wrong, moving or building makes more sense.
New Era Homes builds typically run eight to eleven months from start to finish, and the first one to three go to permitting and financing. Bring your target move date to the first conversation.
You can still start. Our no-cost property evaluation checks a parcel for zoning, setbacks, septic, utilities, and access before you buy.
Talk Through What Your Family Needs Next
You don’t need to have decided before you talk with us. Bring the problem the house has now, your timing, and the school calendar you’re working around.
In an online consultation, we’ll listen to what isn’t working, then talk through whether a build fits your family and what it would take on your timeline. Nothing moves forward until you’re ready.
“New Era Homes has a homeowner website where they posted pictures of our home’s progress every day. We loved being able to check in and watch our home take shape. They also provided a calendar showing what was scheduled to be worked on and when.”