My friend's experience trying to buy a new home here
 

I wanted to share my friend's story and see if others experienced the same thing. They were down last week for the sole purpose of finding and purchasing a home here. They looked at both owned and new and settled for a new home in Labelle. They were pre-approved for a mortgage through Chase. When it came to sign the paperwork, the Villages would not budge on the 30 day closing date. In addition (I looked at the contract also), if closing did not occur within 30 days (for any reason outside of the developer's control), then the discount on the home would be voided and they would have to pay the higher price. Chase wanted 45 days to ensure they could process the mortgage. So my friend went to Citizen's thinking that well, it's a developer owned entity, that must be the preferred way to go. He said that they were very professional but could not guarantee 30 days either for a mortgage. He said that there had been instances where either paperwork got delayed or something else (out of there control) by which they were not able to complete the processing.

So to make a long story short, they didn't buy.. they were concerned that if they could not get a mortgage within 30 days and if the discount was not continued, then they'd end up paying an additional $11k.

They went home disillusioned about their experience and have a bad taste about the Villages corporate entity. I tried to reassure them. We are on our second home now (all pre-owned) and had nothing but positive experiences in the buying / selling process. I guess that's the difference between dealing with an individual seller vs a corporation.

Anyhow, I'm just sharing.

it's interesting that The Villages Real Estate has a restriction on purchasing when they know the banks cannot fulfill the restriction. Seems to me that if they are really wanting to sell homes with the discount, they should work with the mortgage companies.

It might help to get pre-approved for the loan before they begin the house hunting process. Banks have no problem with that. They pre-approve you and the loan is good for about 90 days. Not sure how long it take to close once you are pre-approved.

The developer no doubt has a marketing plan which necessarily incorporates certain restrictions. I am sorry to hear things did not work out for your friends.

I'm not surprised. I wasn't here but I heard quite a few stories when houses were in demand that you would get a phone call from a salesman that said you have 45 minutes to decide if you want a house that you haven't seen.
If your friend bought into the dream he will do what they say. Tell him to buy a resale. He may feel like he has more control.

They were pre-approved. Chase wanted 45 days for processing.

That is how it was with us back in 2008. You found a house and they would put a one hour hold on it for you to decide. Then if you found another you liked better they would call and take the hold off the other one and put the hold on the new one. You were pretty much at their mercy with how it was handled. They decided how much up front money they needed and it was substantial. We closed with Citizens bank because they told us that if we went with another bank they may not meet the closing requirements and the deal might fall through. They strong-armed us into using Citizens.

Mom and I didn't have any problems getting a loan with Citizens when we bought a new home in 2012. And, we got the discount. Our realtor did recommend that we get our loan through Citizens because they are able to get loans through quickly. Citizens bent over backwards to get everything done in a timely manner.

Bought a spec house in 2011. Same 30 day closing period. Credit union could not do it. Citizens did.

We bought our house with a discount through Citizens under the 30 day requirement, however, that was 2 years ago. Recently, I went for a home equity loan, and Citizens Bank (I am a customer), Chase Bank (I am a customer), and one other bank (not a customer), all stated 45 days, and interest rates of over 5%. Then I tried Community Bank, WOW, 3.75% interest rate, and closed in right around 2 weeks, which allowed the construction of the addition to proceed on schedule.
My advice, have your friends call Community Bank and trust and see what they can do.
Hope this helps.

Yep, he wanted to go with Citizens but they could not guarantee 30 days. The person provided several accounts of loans of which they did not finish in 30 days for various reasons. So, my friend went back to the sales office and asked what happened in those recent cases where Citizens could not satisfy 30 days. The salesperson said they made an exception and allowed the buyer to keep the discount. So he asks, "can you put that in my contract?". The salespersons says no, he is not authorized to do that. So that's what scared them. Unless you buy in cash, you do take some risk.

Tell your friend he can buy pre owned, but tell him/her to focus on MLS listings, if possible. their sales contracts are negotiable regarding various terms and conditions, whereas, the developer's VLS listings have absolutely no flexibility regarding T&Cs. Some of VLS T&Cs are ridiculous. The developer's attitude is my way or the highway.

Did your friends request the Villages agent to take it to a supervisor who may have been able to help? I doubt the developer would want to miss out on a sale financed through its bank unless there were backup offer(s) which could close within the 30 day period. It seems sad to me that it did not work out for them after the time and expense they put into it.

The wife and I bought earlier this year through The Villages. We got our mortgage through Well Fargo, who bent over backwards to meet the 30 day date but just couldn't do it. We closed about a week later. We did NOT lose our discount but we did have to pay some sort of fee for each of those days we were late by. Afterwards, Wells Fargo sent us gift debit cards equaling the amount of the fines so it's not like we actually had to pay much of anything for the fines.

I'm not sure why buying through The Villages includes this absurd 30 day time, but it is a bit of a pain in the a**. If we'd found a resale home we'd like as well as the new one we bought AND if we'd gone through an "outside" realtor, I feel like we wouldn't have had this. Whatever. It's all behind us now. We just need to finish up our final year or two of our careers and retire down to TV!

Did you get a fixed rate on your home equity loan? We just got one with SunTrust and it took less than 2 weeks but it is adjustable rate. They did originally quote me a 30 day lead time but it processed very quickly. We will have the cash in our account in just about 2 1/2 weeks from the time we applied but do have to keep the account open for 3 years to avoid penalties. There were no closing costs. We are adding on a bird cage and enclosing the lanai.