Talk of The Villages Florida - Your Villages Building Experience..

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- - Your Villages Building Experience.. (https://www.talkofthevillages.com/forums/villages-florida-general-discussion-73/your-villages-building-experience-310880/)

We are building in St Catherine’s as well. Our home will be off Mincey Loop so just down the street from Shauna Lane. We liked both the Bridgeport and Woodside plans but ultimately decided to build the Bridgeport with a few modifications.
Our designer was very patient with us but I’m sure needed a few drinks after our meetings. Good luck with everything. I’m sure it will turn out great.

Thank you for your thoughts

Thank you for your thoughts on on acquiring lots and putting in soaker tub. Very much appreciated.

Be sure you get 8 foot tall garage doors.

With 7 foot doors, if you have a hatch back when the rear door goes up it will hit the garage door when in the up position. We experienced this during our lifestyle visit. Not to mention 8’ doors look much better

Joe

Discarded the Sequoia, then the Sycamore. It is now to be the Sunflower or Begonia depending on final price with the stretches. The difference from frame to block will be about 15000 with the stretches. Thats it. No more looking. Unfortunately, it means we lost our place in the queue. They will be fitting us in as they can. Love the added cabinets in the kitchen and the big living room.
If we go beyond the 45 days in the contract to order a house, we need to pay an additional $2500 to hold the lot. It will all come out in the final price - not a penalty, just more earnest money.
One thing we did learn - it costs very little to add a room in your stretched garage. It is now my walk in pantry :). Plenty of room for the jacuzzi now also.

Nice, we are adding a room to the garage as well but it will be my shop off the garage

Block is the only way to go. Looks much better!!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dotneko (Post 1881380)

We briefly looked into it but decided it would be quicker and easier for us to buy a new home that was build already. Worked out great.

Quote:

Originally Posted by graciegirl (Post 1829966)

We have seen built 11 of our homes. We are no stranger to it. This was the smoothest of them all.

We were here renting so we were at the site every night. Things were always prepared for the next day. Materials ready etc. The "boss" builder would occasionally leave notes for the subs, for example; "Remove all end caps in the kitchen and do it again right. " When it was time for the roof, on a very hot August day, 14 people arrived at seven and stayed until dark. When it was time to caulk the baseboards etc, three women did it expertly. When they were digging at the very first, they had a digging team. Teams for framing, teams for plumbing. Worked like clockwork.

This is now nine years ago. I am spending every day in this house during the last six months and sometimes I would like to hunt the builder down and tell him what a great house it is, what a good job and how much we enjoy it. I can't say enough good about this home. Please come to our house, O.P. and look around. Right now we won't invite you in but as soon as this virus thing is over you are very welcome.

P.S. On our choices, We saw a Seabrook model home finished and decorated and asked for every finish choice to be duplicated. Tiles were neutral. Good idea to choose neutrals in case you want to sell and go smaller or bigger later on. I know, I know, but neutral choices in tiles is always a good choice.

You were very fortunate to be able to witness the build so closely and consistently. Might be a reason for everything being so top notch. I know a friend who wasn't around who had many things that had to be redone once he took possession.

We pick and built last year. Came down on life style package. That put us with a realtor. He showe us around look at at houses newly built. Looked at new villages. Found a lot and then found a house plan that would fit the lot. Put a deposit on the lot the end of February. We had to come back and complete the finished and details on the houseincluding a couple of stretches. Spend the better part of a week with one if the design team the end of April. The contract was 22 pages.made deposit of 20%(the lot deposit was include in this). The closing date was set and it’s a firm date they never miss a closing. So 90 days from contrAct signing the house was completed and we closed. All our custom changes was done correctly . It went great.

We are in St Catherine as well.. Design appointment Mid Feb. We are on Shauna Ct how about you?

Joe

Quote:

Originally Posted by CateS (Post 1863943)

Congrats! We have our design appt the 1st week of January. We purchased in St. Catherine too. Beautiful area!

We are on Auster Ave. we finished our design appt. yesterday. We close 5/19.

Cate- do you mind my asking how much you spent in upgrades? We just purchased a homesite on Mincey Lane. We are planning on having a Iris built. We were given a base price of $350 which included a stretch lanai, quartz kitchen counter and laminate flooring.
Someone on here stated they spent over $100K in upgrades and that seems very high.

We were actually over $100k in upgrades, BUT we stretched our home almost 300 sq ft and had a lot of top end fixtures/appliances with vinyl plank flooring and quartz countertops throughout the entire house.

Upgrade Price List

This may be a shot in the dark, but is there anyway to get a list of upgrade costs?
:pray:

I know this is probably a shot in the dark.... But, is there anyway to get a price list for upgrades?

They gave us a closing date of April 27th when we signed our contract on Dec 12th. It sounds like the build timeline is a little over 4 months now, with a pool.

We drove down to our lot yesterday morning to see footings poured. Very exciting! The home next door signed their contract a few days after we did and they have concrete walls going up already. It looks like they aren't putting in a pool so their closing date might be earlier.

It's crazy how quickly they are building. The St. Catherines area looked completely different yesterday. Homes are popping up like daisies. :)

Tracy