New house construction
 

Hi,
We bought a lot and now we are in the process of designing our new home with the Villages. What would you suggest to be the best way to compare prices between the villages and outside contractors not connected to the villages? Do you recommend the Villages or the outside contractors to do non structural work such as solar tubes, molding, recess lighting etc if we have a budget? Any outside contractors you recommend?

I'm not sure what you are asking, but I think The Villages will have to do most of the construction work to include everything needed for a complete, occupiable house. There are a lot of non structional items, but most of them are going to need to be constructed by The Villages builder.

You can't have an outside contractor build your home here in The Villages. As far a the extras go The Villages is very competitive and competent with all of the "extras" and non-structural items. There is no fair way to compare the actual home pricing for a house in The Villages to other communities. You will pay more for the house itself but the true and extra value here is in the community and amenities that are a part of living in The Villages. There is a huge difference between shopping for price and shopping for value, the value shopper will find what they are looking for here in The Villages for an incredible retirement lifestyle and know they've come out a winner, the price shopper will leave disappointed.

A couple of items to consider:
1) warranty, if TV does it when they build the house, you have one number to call with any warranty issue and there is no finger pointing or "not my responsibility", it gets fixed if there is an issue, you done have to call each individual contractor who put in the extra feature.
2) convenience, it's one stop shopping with TV and it will be done when the house is completed and on time, in some cases they also use the same contractors you would use but you don't have to do all the leg work and contract it after the fact. Do you really want to spend the first 6 months in your new home making changes to something you just paid for when it could be done once and ready when you move in.
3) cost, in general it will cost you less overall to have it done at the time of construction instead of after you move in, you don't have to pay the electrician to come out twice to put in light switches if they do it all while the walls are all still open. Yes, the price sheet may say $500 for putting in an extra _______, and you can find company "x" to do it for $400 or bargain with them to get the price down a little, but what's your time worth to you and is it really worth the extra effort? And will they respond quickly on a warranty issue.
4) Taxes, this is the loser for you, the value of the home will be higher when you have the builder put everything in so you property taxes will be higher on closing day. The county will catch up with it all in short order, every time a contractor pulls a permit with the county to do "extra" work on your house that becomes a tickler for the property appraiser at reassessment time that your home value has gone up and it's time to raise your taxes. You my dodge the bullet for a year or two but they will catch up eventually and it may be a bigger hit if your improvement adds substantially more value than it cost. Depending what you are adding you may save a at most couple of hundred dollars until the tax collector catches up.

For the stuff you know your are going to do or want, let The Villages do it for you and save yourself the headache and enjoy it from day 1 after moving in. You will find plenty of other things you want to do to your home after you get settled in and see what your new neighbors and friends are doing.

Most importantly, WELCOME TO THE VILLAGES, you're going to LOVE it here.

Something isn't quite right here.

Are you saying that it wasn't explained to you when you bought your lot, that The Developer...is the only one who can build your house?


On Edit: I think I misread your post. Since you're "in a process of designing our new home with the Villeages," I think you're asking about having an outside contractor vs. The Villages performing work other than the actual house itself.

My bad. :ho:

:shrug: Where is the lot? Is it south of SR44 or on the "Old Side" ?

I think your issue is this;

You are having a home built here in The Villages and wonder what additions to include or do later; such as pool, additional footage etc.

We had the pool added later, not sure if we wanted one. Most people add attic stairs, downspouts on sides and back of house later. And some add solar tubes.

Get as much garage space as you can when building, it's your extra storage. Ditto with additional square footage. Much cheaper now than to add it later.

Take your time after you move in to think what you want to add and there will be neigbors adding things too and you can compare notes. Almost everyone uses and likes Solar guys for tubes. We haven't added any.

I think her post is pretty clear - She is not asking about someone else building the house. She is asking if she should have peripheral items like Solar Tubes, a pool, etc done by the villages when she builds the house, or is it cheaper to do these things later with an outside contractor. In other words she is asking if the Villages prices for add on's are fair and reasonable, or should she build a bare bones house and upgrade stuff later.

It is a good question. How reasonable are the villages prices when building a home?

Thank you so much for your input. It was very helpful.

We bought a lot and built. We used the villages builder(s), as far as I know there are no other options. We already knew to basic house we wanted (Gardenia) so we discussed options for this design, in the end we got 3 of the 4 stretches we wanted, hit the build lines on the 4th. 36 other minor changes and the major birdcage addition were done after we moved in and got settled, and figured out what we wanted.
The only items that you really want done before you move in are items that affect the floors, upgraded rugs, changes in tile, coating the garage floor, etc. NOTE: you will need to wait at least one month for the concrete to fully cure before applying any coating.
You can ask about the cost of upgrades (like crown molding, back splashes, under counter lighting) and get the costs of the villages builders then compare to doing this later. In the case of under counter lighting, we were quoted $2000, we declined this option, I installed my own, both under counter and over head cabinet lighting for less than $300. IMHO there are several of these upgrades that are better done after moving in.
hope this helps.

The advise we received and knew in advance was to put your $$ into Structural changes now. You can swap counter top, pool, solar tubes, molding later on. We got all the stretches we wanted, we kis the build lines in several spots.
After closing we added attic stairs and epoxy coated the garage floor. Good luck with your choices.
We knew what model we were interested in before coming down. WE had scoured the homes for sale in the villages app and listing from a non villages agent (for existing homes). We didn't see any existing resales that fit our criteria so we decided to build. We are very pleased so far with the house.

If you are used to having a basement, build a 4 bedroom home and designate one of those bedrooms to be your basement. You will find no matter what you build, there will not be enough storage. The storage locker business is booming down here. If we would not have bought a 4 bedroom home we would have moved into one within a year.

Thank you for your very helpful information. We appreciate it very much.

Thank you so much for your information. They are all helpful. We are excited about our new house.

We have been here 10 years and have had multiple projects completed by 1ST IN HOME REMODELING,
They are fair priced, excellent quality, on time, Craig Northover is their
superintendent. Tel#352 255 9898.

What is fairly annoying to me is that you can't design your house BEFORE you buy the lot. That way you would know exactly what it cost, and how big a lot you would need. In my case, I would want to do this in anticipation of when the lots open up just south of Brownwood. However, I have been told you have to buy the lot first. Kind of stupid if you ask me. It sounds like several of you have bought a lot slightly smaller than you actually needed to get all the bumpouts.