[NJblue]

This post is meant to be informative for those considering buying in TV as well as a solicitation for advice from those who may have experienced a similar buying experience in TV.

We just returned from a Lifestyle Preview visit. We saw and experienced enough to know that we will want to move to TV - friendly people and lots of activities. We also spent a LOT of time looking at real estate - including existing news homes ready to sell, pre-ownd homes and lots that are available for building a home on using the Personalization Package that TV now offers. After doing a lot of looking we decided that building on a lot was the right thing for us. We found a great lot at what I think was a very reasonable price relative to neighboring lots. So far so good. However the process of closing on this deal seems to have been an ever-escalating level of pressure imposed by TV sales policy. Here's the process:

1) Find a lot that will accept the model of house that you want, including expansions.

2) Tell the sales agent that you want the lot; he/she can then put a hold on it for you for 3 hours. At the end of three hours, to continue to hold it you must put down a $2,500 non-refundable deposit. Pressure Point One In our case, our home state law (which apparently also governs real estate deals in Florida) dictates that any transaction such as this requires that the builder honors a 7-day period to allow consulting with attorneys or just re-think your decision. Kudos to New Jersey! Note that at this point you don't yet know the final price of the home! All we knew was the price of the lot premium and the agent's best guess as to what the final price of the house would be based on mental additions/subtractions of assumed prices for features of existing new house ready for sale.

3) Sign a whole bunch of documents (which our agent said did not remove the 7-day protection offered by NJ law).

3) Meet with the agent to pick packages (interior, exterior, extensions, and a few minor additional options such as Roman shower or regular shower.) The packages provide zero options for modification. If you want the model with maple cabinets, then you had better like the type and color of counter tops, flooring, light fixtures, color of walls, etc. Same with the exterior - if you want a particular color, then you better also like the front door, roof and exterior light fixtures that come with that color. While I wish we had some more options, I can see that doing it this way is easier from a sales complexity, pricing and building perspective. Plus the choices are created by a professional designer - for whatever that is worth to you. I just wished that since they had simplified the feature selection process that they would also have provided at least ballpark estimates for the prices for these packages - it would have made the decison and sales process far more simple.

4) Agent submits all choices to the design team who create a firm price quote. This presumably takes 1 to 2 days. Note, in step 2, if you do not come from a state that provides a 7-day contemplation/study period and if you feel uncomfortable putting up a $2,500 non-refundable deposit on something that you do not yet know the price, you can skip the deposit but have to accept the fact that a) someone can come in a scoop the property out from under you and b) our agent said that requests for quotes that do not have deposits will be treated with lowest priority and may take up to 5 days. Pressure Point Two In our case the quote came back by 2:00 PM after being submitted at 8:00 AM. Also, to our agent's credit, the quote came in right in the middle of his estimate - even after we added a few things that the house that we were using as our "base" from which we were creating our home did not have. This price quote is good for 7 days, after which it must be re-calculated based on any price changes in materials, etc. At the end of the 7 days you must send them a check for 20 percent of the final costs and also have a signed contract.

5) If the price is too high (or low enough such that you might want to add additional features), you must resubmit your feature request and go back into the queue to be processed all over again. Meanwhile the original quote becomes null and void. If the second quote is not to your liking and you want to go back to your first quote, you must resubmit once again and hope (and have a bit of faith) that they come up with the same price that they originally did. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking on your 7-day period to get your deposit back. Pressure Point Three.

6) After getting a quote on a house that you want, you sign more papers confirming that the house that was quoted is the house that you want to have the contract built around. At this time our agent casually mentioned to us that we were lucky that we acted when we did because 10 minutes after we put a hold on the lot, someone else tried to buy it. Possible Pressure Point Four This is then turned over to the contract team who generate a final contract which also includes a non-negotiable closing date. This is the point at which we currently are at and from here on the steps are as I understand based on what our agent told us.

7) Once you have the contract you have 24 hours to sign and get it back to them. Failure to do so within that time period will make the price quote null and void and you must start all over again at step 4. Note that the original 7 day lock on the price as indicated in step 4 appears to be superseded by this requirement - that is, by getting to contract stage early, you have less time to think about it. Pressure Point Five This is the part that I have major problems with. If they were willing to lock in the price for 7 days before generating the contract, why do they then drop that to only 24 hours once the contract is generated? This doesn't make sense to me - other than forcing a final decision earlier.

So, this is the process that we experienced. Hopefully anyone else reading this and thinking of going this route will be better informed concerning what to expect. I would also like to hear from anyone in terms of having similar experiences and if they found ways to have TV be more flexible in their sales/contract approach.