Buying or Building a Home?

I am in the house-hunting process. Over the last two months I have looked at www.har.com, spoken with my realtor and looked at hundreds of homes online. I've personally walked through at least a dozen. Some are marked off the "possibilities" list right away, while others might be marked off after some research or discussion with one person or another. I've currently narrowed it down to about two. I say about, because one is out of my price range, but I think the owner is asking too much, so if they lower the price, it would be a possibility. The other is a new build.

Now there are many nice perks to building my own home. I get to choose what type of flooring is laid and the color of that flooring. I get to choose from several different floor plans and make adjustments to make me happier. Because I may be one of the first to buy in this neighbor, the builder is throwing in all appliances and free crown molding as well as a few other perks. It is a single family home, so I am not sharing a common wall, but there is a common area with picnic tables, a walking path and a pond with a fountain. I like the location of the neighborhood and have friends close by. The builder is throwing in 10k towards a down payment and closing costs, making my monthly mortgage payment very affordable.

However, there are some headaches to building my own home. It won't be ready until October-ish, so I'll be moving while teaching and taking school. This was pretty stressful last fall as I moved out of a leaking apartment. I was hoping to not repeat that process. Building a house means being involved in a process I'm not at all familiar with and learning what questions to even ask.

It's exciting, yet overwhelming.

I'm still not sure of my final decision...