Buying a New Home
 

Hi folks,

We are close to purchasing a new home in the village of Charlotte and wondering if there is any flexibility with the developer in contracts....terms,price, closing,etc? Do you recommend the use of a buyers lawyer or is the process pretty straightforward so that you don't need the expense? Any general advice as well would be appreciated?

Thanks

We close on Wednesday and everything is fully scripted. We requested a copy of the contract prior to moving forward. A friend looked it over and felt it was straight forward and we needed to fully understand what we were signing before we proceeded. It took us a couple days to make sure financing was in place and we could close within 30 days. If you're paying cash, 30 days will not be a problem. There is no negotiating with new construction. We were fortunate to have a good sales person and she has been very helpful. She obviously represents the developer, but has bent of backward to make this sale as convenient as possible for us.

We decided to use a lender we have used in the past and gave him a copy of the contract 2 weeks before we committed to the purchase. He read it over and assured us we would close by 2/12/14 and we signed on 1/13/14. There is a 30 clause for closing and can be extended 60, but there is a cost associated with going past 30 days. Our lender can write a mortgage in 48 states and was able to give us a better rate than we could get at the local Village bank. We used The Villages Insurance and Lawyer because their prices were the same as those we checked elsewhere. It made it quite easy.

I have read many people on this forum say there were surprises at settlement. So far, 4 days out and we got the HUD-1 today, everything is clearly spelled out. You just have to read everything.

The developer sets the closing date and price. Not negotiable as far as I know.

Closed January 23 in Gilchrist and everything went quite well! No surprises. What was surprising were the hoops we now have to jump through to get a mortgage. I own a career service and Citizen's Mortgage picked out several deposits and needed copies of client checks that constituted those deposits. Really?

But that's common these days so I jumped through the hoop. Can't wait to be there full time. Love it all.. as I freeze in Columbus, Ohio~ :spoken:

I cannot understand why so many homebuyers do not even want to consider resale homes.

A resale home has quite a few advantages: price is negotiable, bond is a lot smaller or even all paid, established landscaping, you see what the completed area is like instead of surprises, home also has a one year warranty, upgrades are already installed, etc.

Always use a Villages agent plus an outside agent as neither can show the other's properties.

We wanted the perks of resale, but when i wanted a Roman shower and golf cart garage and my better half wanted an open floor plan and room for a pool, we just could not find it all, so we had to add $$$$ to the new property in landscaping etc.

We looked at quite a few patio villas resale's and they were more expensive than new homes. $10-15 thousand more but they had no bond whereas the new had bonds so it ended up being a wash.

We chose new because we wanted move in ready and did not want to move and gut a house, which is what the resale's would have needed. In the long run it was cheaper for us to buy new seeing as we would not spend money on renovations other than granite and new appliances. Most of those resale's needed a lot of work.

Over priced resales
 

Most resales are over priced---especially for sale by owner. That is true here in TV and is common across the country. I suppose it is "natural" to think your home is worth more than it really is. :eclipsee_gold_cup:

I don't know other's experiences, but we found many of the resales to be quite expensive if not downright overpriced. We also found that the homes we saw with an outside realtor were way expensive. It seemed to us that people listed with an outside realtor because they could list a higher price than with the Villages. Have others had a different experience in the last year?

I agree. Plus resales usually have prior owners' smell, their wallpaper, and out dated appliances, cabinets and features.

We began our search with resale houses. At the end of the first day, the sales person showed us a new construction. We were sold. In October when we were looking the houses on the market were nice, but all seemed to need work. For the same price, we were able to get new construction and no out of pocket expenses. In time, I'm certain we will make changes, but we got more bang for our buck with new construction.

There's no right or wrong answer with new construction VS existing houses. Simply personal preference. For us it was dollars and cents.

Here's an illustration of one home's appreciation. In July 2011 the new CYV next door to us was a model and sold new with furnishing by Southern Lifestyles for $162,000. It is a 2BR 2BA masonry Beauregard model, it's now called a Cambridge.

The couple were in their 50's and still worked in the north and were here only briefly a few times. They had the front and back yard nicely landscaped by Mansfield for $10,000 and Perry Doors install a glass insert in the front door for $600. They listed the home less than a year later in March of 2012 for $199,900 furnished and it sold in 2 days for $192,000.

The current owners are snowbirds and have only been here a few times. The only improvement was a water softner and they have listed the home for sale for $214,900. That's $52,000 more than it sold for new 2-1/2 years ago.

All buyers think homes are over priced and all sellers think there home is priced too low.
Actually I think MLS lists resales lower than The Villages - at least that has been my experience.

Ditto the above. We close on the 13th but we are using a home equity as part of the financing so it is pretty much a cash deal. Not expecting any surprises. I do not believe an attorney is warranted. We did not opt for title insurance either on a new home. The Villages has been doing this for a long time and if there were issues they would not be selling as well as they do.

We have friends living in the villages and wanted to move to a larger home. Right now the problem with resale is that the inventory is very low. Good for the sellers but makes it hard for buyers to find what they want.