[cattywampus]

.

There is a Date Certain when completed homes are issued a
Certificate of Occupancy. (Ready for Occupancy)

This Certificate certifies that the home is "complete" and
the home becomes "taxable". (no longer is just the lot taxable)

The Villages has over 400 homes on this "soon to be Taxable" list,
this is a timed move for the developer to "broom" this inventory.

.

[Chi-Town]

My neighbor just bought a new home in Charlotte. Got the 5% discount and must close within 30 days.

[janmcn]

The new homes on the historical side have all disappeared. A few days ago, there were six to eight still for sale, and now there are none for sale and none pending. Perhaps they were taken off the market to avoid the 5% discount.

New home sales are the engine that powers the growth of The Villages. Without those sale, builders won't get paid, vendors won't get paid, etc, etc. Obviously the sales agents are going to concentrate on new homes sales as that is where the profits are, not in the 6% commission paid on resale homes. The developer already made his money on resale homes when they were originally sold.

[Flyinglady]

Originally Posted by raynan

Does it say 5% discount for how long? It might only be for the month of Dec. to lure people to buy during Xmas season and will go away 1/1/15 when busy season starts.

My email said the discount will be there until Jan 31st.

[Bonny]

Originally Posted by The20Percent

Just speculation, but could it be that since Mr Morse passed away, the younger family left (who are now completely in control) might be shaking things up a bit, with offers of incentives and more flexibility than before?

When we moved here 14 1/2 years ago, (2000), they were getting close to selling out the Village of Santiago.
They gave us 5 % of the price of our home to use at Southern Lifestyles. That was so cool.
We ended up getting over $6,000.00 to spend. I had a good time.
These incentives go on everywhere in the world and have been done here for many years.

[Laurie2]

Originally Posted by janmcn

- - - - -New home sales are the engine that powers the growth of The Villages. Without those sale, builders won't get paid, vendors won't get paid, etc, etc. Obviously the sales agents are going to concentrate on new homes sales as that is where the profits are, not in the 6% commission paid on resale homes. The developer already made his money on resale homes when they were originally sold.

Originally Posted by KathieI

Having had my designer home on the market for the past 10 months with TV sales group, I can tell you the excuses are, we have the most preowned homes to sell than we have ever had, that with having many new spec homes to sell is creating more inventory for them then they like to have.

The lastest incentives like, pick your kitchen cabinets, pick your lot and now % off a new house is just to give incentive for the agents to lure qualified buyers to new homes.

My suggestion to anyone wanting to sell a preowned, go directly to MLS do not stop or hesitate. I have at least 5 friends who have not been able to sell their homes through TV sales and there's a lot of frustration out there. My plan is to sell FSBO as soon as my contract expires this month and it will be reduced by more than sales agents percentage. Keep your fingers crossed.

I think Kathie and janmcn are on to something.

So -- just what are those sellers listed with TV agents right now? Chopped liver?

While there are many excellent TV agents and while the website for their listings is really easy to navigate, I think the two posters I have quoted here have said some things for potential sellers to think about.

There are a lot of really nice pre-owned homes that have been lingering on the market with TV listings for months -- and months. I have wondered if this is particularly true in the areas just north of 466A because of the proximity to the new areas. Is it easier to get a qualified buyer to cross the road and drive a little farther? And here comes Fruitland Park.

Also, if I were a potential buyer, I would be looking at some of the beautiful pre-owned homes. I bet there could be some real deals now. And, just think -- you could avoid the possibility of getting into one of those dramatic scenarios that can happen when trying to deal with upgrades in landscaping, etc., because upgrades would already be there. And you just might get a house that is only a few years old with a brand new roof. (We bought pre-owned so I am not just whistlin' Dixie here.)

[Bonny]

My stepson sells mostly pre owned homes and works very hard at it and does a great job. He's been here for many years.
We chose both times to buy new because I could add or take out what I wanted.
Maybe a seller put in $50,000 in upgrades. It may be upgrades I could care less about and maybe don't even want, but that cost is figured into the house.
When we were looking at buying another house, I was looking at pre owned because we wanted to stay in Santiago and it was built out. The resale prices were ridiculous ! We built new in BonnyBrook. Did everything I wanted to do for way less than the cost of a resale plus most of them needed some work, an added cost to the resale.

[village dreamer]

im with bonny on this one, it was cheaper and better to buy new than to buy a used house,even with some of the bond paid off.