[Bgreuter]

I see that some of the posters had their new house built for them from the ground up. Do you choose a lot and then a model from the builder? From the Villages realtor? This choice wasnt offered to us and I am curious.

[CFrance]

You cannot do that anymore. The market has recovered, so now TV is only selling spec homes.

[Paulz]

The last design build was November 2013, now everything is spec. We designed ours from the ground up May 2013 on a lot we selected. It was completed in August. At that time they were designing 13 custom homes a week.

[Bgreuter]

Dear Paulz and CFrance,

Thank you for the helpful information!

[CFrance]

Originally Posted by Bgreuter

Dear Paulz and CFrance,

Thank you for the helpful information!

You're welcome. BTW, they also no longer have furnished models to tour. That's too bad for those of us with no imagination to walk into empty rooms and envision them furnished (moi). But oh well.

For the few furnished new homes that are still unsold, you must buy the furniture, and you cannot mortgage the furniture, so it must be paid for in cash. You cannot opt out of buying the furniture. It's all market-driven, and the market is great right now.

I'm not dissing. It's a great place to live.

[DeanFL]

Actually, we were the last to be able to do a Designer build at TV. Bought our lot in Nov '13 - and 1 1/2 hours after we signed, our TV Sales Agent said they were all called into a meeting and told - 'only Spec from now on'. I understand the same was done years ago - yes, Market driven is right. We designed our house, lots of changes/upgrades. Can certainly understand why they may prefer Spec-only as long as the Buyers come. A customer-design takes effort on the Designer staff and the Builders.

Our home was built and our Closing was in Feb, I must say, we are extremely satisfied that we had the opportunity to design/customize our home. Would we still be happy with a Spec home? Probably... but we were able to choose the location/lot, exact model, and make all the changes/upgrades allowed. That, in our opinion adds a lot. Would we have still moved to TV if it was Spec-only, as it now is? You bet.