Quote:
Originally Posted by Barefoot
Actually, to be competitive, most resales include upgrades for a fraction of the price that it would cost to install them. The owners that expect to price their houses and recoup the price of upgrades, are the owners that complain about their houses not selling!
For instance, we purchased a Courtyard Villa and added a huge birdcage, glassed in the lanai, landscaped it with rock and palms, and renovated the kitchen. And we sold the CYV for less than our purchase price.
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It's unfortunate that losing money on upgrades when selling in TV has been common during the downturn. But I think that's changing.
The point is there are still many people who are strongly drawn to a new house. Often it is a highly emotional decision, made in just a few days. The Villages realtors make it as enticing as they can and some people can't resist the "all new" urge.
But people still have choices, they can buy a lot and build, with time to make decisions. And unlike the almost infinite patience it requires to do that almost anywhere else in the country, it's still a speedy process here. Building without big upgrades is more feasible for many TV'rs because they tend to have a large enough nest egg to take out a smaller mortgage or none at all. Taking a little bigger mortgage at current attractive rates and holding onto some cash for upgrades just seems to make good sense.
I go back to the swimming pool example. It is a fact that new owners pay thousands more for a pool and birdcage built with their house than if they hired the same company (T&D), the day after they close on the house. And as a bonus, the owner gets to select options in much more relaxed fashion, supervise the process, and make changes if they realize there were things they didn't consider at the start. (Gee honey, I didn't know it would look like this!)