[Gary7]

I discovered this morning that The Villages Dot Com website has a new marketing feature: You can select you floor plan and locate it at the lot that you want.
I think I heard this is how it used to be ... but changed later to "these are your choices".
Any comments on this approach?

[graciegirl]

Over the years, depending on how busy the bullding crews were, we potential customers were offered a variety of options. We bought an already built new home as our first one here and it was pretty close to what we would have chosen if we had full choice. We enjoyed it for four years and built our next one. We signed just two weeks before full choices were offered and missed the angst of all those choices. We found a model we loved and contracted to have our new home be built to duplicate it. We were pleased with the first one, and pleased with the second one. All of our home but one, from the beginning of our marriage. Seven or eight of them, we have seen built. We have lived closeby while our children built two homes too, so we have had a lot of experience with building homes for ourselves.

We have enjoyed both of our homes here and felt that any imperfection or fault was repaired immediately and felt the warranty was the absolute best.

On the walk through on our home in Hadley we greeted the builder with a list of small items and he spent a moment or two on his cell phone and then walked us through our new home. Almost immediately trucks pulled up and someone marched in with a missing sink stopper, someone else was fixing a grout line on the counter top and someone else was replacing the light in our pole lamp.

On our second home a delivery service for our new dryer gouged a big chunk of concrete out of the front threshold. I called warranty explaining I only needed the name of the contractor as it was NOT their fault. They fixed it anyway without any quarrel.

I like our home here, I like how it was built. I like the lifestyle and know we paid a little more for the house than if we lived off campus. I think this is a very fun place to live and I love the way it is run and maintained. If anyone would have told me I would enjoy life as much as I do at the age of 75, I would have been darned skeptical.

I feel you can count on any choice here about homes to be a good choice.

I don't work for the developer, either.

[Gary7]

Gracie: Thank you for personal experience with your homes in TV. Very much appreciate.

[justjim]

This is A big change from current policy. Several months ago when we built in Sanibel, we picked out our lot and home. It's great if you can do that again.

[redwitch]

I think TV discovered that no choice on lot was not working as well as expected. I know of several houses in Hillsborough and Collier that have sat empty for over a year. People really do prefer to pick what design to put on the lot of their choice. Kudos to TV to going back to this practice. Here's hoping they don't revert again.

[applesoffh]

I think TV discovered that no choice on lot was not working as well as expected. I know of several houses in Hillsborough and Collier that have sat empty for over a year. People really do prefer to pick what design to put on the lot of their choice. Kudos to TV to going back to this practice. Here's hoping they don't revert again.

I live in Charlotte and go to lots of open houses in Hillsborough, and, frankly, many of them are just, well, ugly; not the exteriors or floor plans, but the tiles, flooring, cabinets, bathrooms, etc. Not only that, but the prices are significantly higher than similar houses from a year or two ago. I come home and want to kiss the ground I walk on for being able to customize my build.

I guess the powers that be are realizing that if folks are expected to shell out bigger $$$, then they should have some say in what they are buying. JMHO

[Bonanza]

Originally Posted by applesoffh

I think TV discovered that no choice on lot was not working as well as expected. I know of several houses in Hillsborough and Collier that have sat empty for over a year. People really do prefer to pick what design to put on the lot of their choice. Kudos to TV to going back to this practice. Here's hoping they don't revert again.

I live in Charlotte and go to lots of open houses in Hillsborough, and, frankly, many of them are just, well, ugly; not the exteriors or floor plans, but the tiles, flooring, cabinets, bathrooms, etc. Not only that, but the prices are significantly higher than similar houses from a year or two ago. I come home and want to kiss the ground I walk on for being able to customize my build.

I guess the powers that be are realizing that if folks are expected to shell out bigger $$$, then they should have some say in what they are buying. JMHO

I happen to agree with what you've said.

We were fortunate enough to choose our lot and floor plan also. I walk into some of these "designer" homes and they are anything but! And speaking of the word "designer," were the Villages' decorators drugged when they chose the options for the houses? Most of them are bare bones and the prices are ridiculous for what you are getting.

You walk into many of these homes and see three different floorings -- engineered wood, carpet and tile. Terrible. Were these people not trained? They came up with the idea of not giving anyone choices and built street after street after street. Because of the past history with sales, they figured this would be less expensive to build that way and subsequently, they would sell faster and the developer would make more money. WRONG! Drive through some of the newer streets and you can see that their bright idea failed.

[kstew43]

so true, some homes we have seen are spectacular view, and exteriors....but when you walk inside, the tile and the granite.....what ever were they thinking.....1 particular home, we just love, has been sitting empty for the past year, everytime I drive by......its just elegant...from the outside.....but with spending 15k+ on making the changes inside is just not worth the money when the home is so overpriced as it is..... someone will buy it eventually.......

I do think custom is the way to go, but when I looked at the lots available there were no prices....and also if you read the script carefully, it states you can only make some item choices in the new homes.....interested to see what choices can be made....