[NJblue]

We went through this process in July. Unless it has changed since then, here is how it works:

Starting with the interior, there are a number of base "models" from which to choose. I'm not sure, but there may be an already constructed home in each of the interior choices. In our case that was the situation. Hence we could walk through the home and see exactly the colors and material for the tile, carpet, walls, cabinets and countertops. The only modifications that I recall were allowed were: walk-in versus standard shower in the MBR, Lanai extensions (both length and width), appliance package, blinds or no blinds.

For the exterior, the package selected dictates color of siding and roof and the front door as well as lighting fixtures. Options included: one of 3 elevations, which in some cases also dictated the ceiling style (i.e., vaulted or not) in some of the bedrooms. You could also opt to add a golf cart garage (if your lot is wide enough) and also extend the overall length of the garage. There may have also been an option to add a couple of feet to the width of the house but I don't recall. The exterior options for roof/color/door/lighting were available in many different models and hence if you wanted to buy a Lantana but found an exterior option to your liking in a Gardenia, you could get it also in a Lantana. Our agent drove us around for over an hour just looking at different exterior packages before we finally picked one (most likely out of shear exhaustion and hunger).

While not nearly as flexible as it used to be in having a house almost custom built, it certainly is an improvement over the take-it or leave-it approach. The one problem that we encountered was knowing what the price of the various options would be. The only thing that our agent was able to give us definitive pricing for was what was in the model that we were looking at. Any of the the above-mentioned options could only be derived by estimating by the agent. We could also have had a formal price quote provided, but they would only give you one price quote at a time so if you were undecided about stretching the garage, for example, because you didn't know how much it would cost, you would have to have them quote you first one way, wait a few days to get the quote and then ask them to quote it the other way. Meanwhile the original price that was quoted was only good for a few days and (at least our agent) made us feel that we could jeopardize getting the original price if we went back for a second quote. The bottom line was that because of this ambiguity in pricing, they left some money on the table because we opted to not stretch the garage fearing that the other options that we asked for would completely blow our budget. As it turned out, the quote for these options came back less than what we expected and we probably would have opted for a stretched garage as well.

Another irritation was not having details about the appliance package options. Not only were the exact prices not available for each package, but what you got for your money in terms of features was also not documented. The best that we were able to do was have our agent take us to various homes which had different appliance packages and we could look at them (and try to remember from the knobs and buttons on the faceplates what features they had). I would have thought that having a simple brochure available for each option would have been very easy to administer.

My advice is don't wait until your last day to make these selections (like we did). If you are sure you want to buy and have selected a model and lot, get your agent to show you the various options several days before you plan to leave so that you can have time to think about them. We were making decisions right up to 7 PM on our last night there.

Note that when we bought using this program in July it was the very first time that our agent had done such a deal. Perhaps since then some of my above-mentioned "gripes" have been addressed and at least the agents have become more proficient in dealing with these issues. Despite these gripes, we are grateful for the program to allow us some level of customization. Good luck!