Hellobee Boards

What phase of the project did you decide to purchase? Why?
Construction was already complete by the time we started house-hunting.

What kind of incentives or deals did the builder offer?
None. Even in the doldrums of early 2009 when we bought, our area has always tilted a bit in favor of the seller.

Which model did you select? Why?
Ours is a townhome community so we picked the house on the back row (because they front row lacks the fenced backyard) on the end (more light/space).

Anything you learned from your experience & care to pass along?
Look into what kind of HOA setup you're going to have. We are a tiny community, just twelve homes, and we were pretty much thrown to the wolves to DIY our approach to paying all the community bills etc. Our neighbors did the grunt work but it was insane. I'd ask to make sure all that is being handled by a management company from the get-go.

What phase of the project did you decide to purchase? Why? As KODYBEAR stated, pricing will nearly always increase as each new phase is made available (or even just as a certain number of lots are sold). Can you deal with having construction take place after you've moved into your home? how large is the development and how long could construction potentially take? Do you like the lots available in the first phase?

What kind of incentives or deals did the builder offer? This is really based on how hot your market is. Does the builder do any sort of sales events you can wait for and then take advantage of?

Which model did you select? Why? Check out the price per square foot to see what might make for a better deal. The model that is shown as the decorated model (if the community is large enough to warrant one) is usually the most popular. People like what they can see and touch.

There were 8 units. We bought the second unit. When we signed the P&S agreement nothing was on the ground yet. We based our decision on the floor plan and similar projects in nearby cities from the same builder.
A month later, 85% of the unit was done and we were able to walk through. With new construction's they offered little incentives. Instead they give you flexibility like choosing the color carpet, upgrading to another type of granite, whether u want a different color paint on the walls. But you got to pay the extra. We did however was able to negotiate for a bigger allowance on the appliances. They gave $1200 and we asked for $3000. Just an example of what I know because we were one of the trustees of the association, we negotiated about 15k below asking price. While one of the owners paid full asking price, they had negotiated for 18 months free of HOA dues. So when we closed it was just half a month before phase 2 was completed. Phase 1 being the first 4 units and phase 2 the latter 4. So there wasn't much noise level after we moved in.
We had a poor management company that did not respond to any of the vendor bills, we fired them and took it into our own hands. Our fees were paying them a $5000 a year for doing nothing. We were able to reduce the $240 fee to $160 without increase for a good 5 years. We had an awesome team of unit owners, one was in charge of finding vendors that met our needs and at a very good price.

What phase of the project did you decide to purchase? Why?

The house we bought was already completely built and they were just putting some finishing touches on it (molding, stair railings, etc.) when we bought it.

The neighborhood was mostly finished. I think there were maybe 5 or 6 lots/houses left.

What kind of incentives or deals did the builder offer?

We bought in early 2012 but even though the market still wasn't great, no incentives were offered.

Which model did you select? Why?

We didn't really select the house as a model since it was already built. We just liked the home when we walked through it!

Anything you learned from your experience & care to pass along?

At least for us, the builder was unwilling to negotiate on price at all. The only offer they would except was full asking and we were told that upfront (our realtor confirmed that this is typical and to not try to negotiate there).

But what they would negotiate on was "stuff". We asked for them to add 13 different things (figuring that they would reject at least half of them) but they were willing to do every single one with no change to the house price. Sometimes I wish we had asked for even more because I was shocked how much they were willing to add!

Some of the major "extras" they gave us were a wrought iron fence around the entire backyard, a stainless steel refrigerator, building stairs down from the back deck to ground level, pouring a concrete pad beneath the second story deck, screens in all windows that would open, faux wood blinds in every window in the house, installation of shelves in the master closet, etc.

We closed in January on a new construction home.

What phase of the project did you decide to purchase? Why? We purchased during phase one. I'm so glad we did, because our exact model is now $50,000 more (we live in very hot real estate market) & none of the same incentives are being offered.

What kind of incentives or deals did the builder offer? Our builder paid all of our closing costs, we asked for & received 2 garage door openers, blinds for all of the windows, stainless steel refrigerator and washer and dryer & quartz countertops.

Which model did you select? Why? We choose our model based on the floor plan, it was our favorite.

Anything you learned from your experience & care to pass along? Even though its new construction, still get a home inspector. There were a few things that we would have missed if we didn't get one. Good luck!