We just purchased a house in Lake Denham, that had been on the market for a few months. We had placed 18 houses that we liked in our favorites list and watched them closely. Two weeks ago while checking them in the morning I noticed that one of our favorites had a $23,000 price drop, and we bought it. The house was originally listed for $402,000 but we bought it at $379,000 and it was a designer home style that we liked when we first started researching the Villages 4 years ago. Lake Denham is where all the new homes that the Villages are currently selling are located, so our house was not the last new home for sale in our area.

We were not allowed to negotiate our house price, but we packed our favorites list with houses we liked, adding new ones when others sold, and waited for one that we liked to go on sale. I think there is a buying slowdown due to the rising mortgage rates and you can get a good price on a new home if you are patient. The Villages will not let all these new houses just sit there, they need to sell them and they have shown us that they will reduce prices when they need to sale the homes.

Congratulations on the purchased off your new home!

Your approach sounds very smart!

It’s about cash flow. Move the inventory and build more. Reducing the occasional house is spitting into the ocean to them. They still make a nice profit.

That's exactly what happened with us. We had our eye on a fully furnished spec home. The sales agent told us the price is the price. No negotiating. When it didn't sell after a couple of weeks on the market, they dropped the price by $39k. Then we purchased it. It has made all the difference in the world not having to purchase furniture nor moving furniture from the north since we are snowbirds. No regrets...at least not yet.