Building with Westin homes in Elyson, please help! (Houston, League City: sales, house)

[shinjuku2019]

Thank you for taking your time, any advice and suggestions will be greatly appreciated!

Background: We are building our first home (both late 30s with no kid)
We are thinking of building with Westin homes in Elyson(Katy).

1. Westin homes as a builder. good or bad?
2. A 20k lot with no back neighbors, but the drainage easement is only 50ft away from the backyard, good or bad?
3. Is 10% incentives possible on a 375000 house? 8%?
4. Elyson. good or bad? Since we dont care about schools, should we go to Jordan ranch because it's 30k cheaper?



thank you for any input and happy holidays!!

[spider07]

Westin built my home last year. No complaints whatsoever. Different part of Houston as I am in League City but they were great to work with and did a really good job, been over a year and very minor issues have came up with the house and those were fixed ASAP.

Now as far as incentives, really depends on what you want in your house. In our development, we got Brick Pavers, Iron Spindles on the stair case, upgraded to Level 1 granite, an upgraded sink and 8% of the original sales price to use as down payment assistance or whatever we wanted. We still spent another 30K on upgrades. If you want to pm me, and ask about specific upgrades I can share with you the cost as of 2017.

What model? We are in the Bellagio. And I don't know much about the developments in your area, we did visit Elyson, we visited every model home for Westin in the Houston area before we signed our contract. It's a beautiful area.

[shinjuku2019]

Originally Posted by spider07

Westin built my home last year. No complaints whatsoever. Different part of Houston as I am in League City but they were great to work with and did a really good job, been over a year and very minor issues have came up with the house and those were fixed ASAP.

Now as far as incentives, really depends on what you want in your house. In our development, we got Brick Pavers, Iron Spindles on the stair case, upgraded to Level 1 granite, an upgraded sink and 8% of the original sales price to use as down payment assistance or whatever we wanted. We still spent another 30K on upgrades. If you want to pm me, and ask about specific upgrades I can share with you the cost as of 2017.

What model? We are in the Bellagio. And I don't know much about the developments in your area, we did visit Elyson, we visited every model home for Westin in the Houston area before we signed our contract. It's a beautiful area.

I decided on another community with Westin over Elyson, I already signed contract with Westin.
We went with Preston III (the model in Elyson).
I couldn't get that much incentives because the base price in that community is really low .(and we both suck at negotiation)
Just singned contract yesterday.

[spider07]

Congrats. Beautiful House. My neighbor has a Preston 3. Loves it. If you have any questions, just let me know. Maybe I can help give you some ball park figures on up grades that you want.

[hig21]

They suck. Bad quality work. Look close into the details and you will see. Go to a model home and you will see.

[a_guerrajr]

Good builder offers luxury design and detail for a lower price point. I've owned one and walked many. Have it inspected by a third party (as you would with any builder) to ensure someone is looking out for you. Take time to visit the site as it is being built. Not that you need to, but it helps to see and understand what is going on.

Lot premiums are always negotiable and subjective to what the buyer wants. 20K is pretty steep, In general, it would be an oversized lot, cul de sac, and offers better privacy. I would say as long as it checks off two things from the list of being premium and you see long term value in it. Are most of the lots on that street tagged with premiums? You don't want to over pay.

An incentive is really going to depend on how willing they are to sell their inventory or lots. You can always start high and get a counter, I received 10% when I purchased mine, but it was when the housing market was crap, so builders were desperate. A year later they were only doing 5% and firm, then went down to 3% as they closed out. If you are early, you usually have the leverage to negotiate, since the builder wants to attract buyers by showing the community is booming and people live there.

Elyson, don't know much about it, it is far from the city. So consider the commute and local amenities will take some time for development. Is the tax rate too high? What does it offer? Does it look like it is selling well? Where do you work? Katy to Houston commute is a pain in the ass.

@hig21's comment, not sure if he had a bad experience. You do have to keep in mind builders sub out all the work and usually, they have one representative for the community that oversees their product being built to their standards. So the same guys that touch Westin, may do Beazer or Ashton Woods, etc. Quality ranges based on how they inspect the work being done by the contractors.

[hig21]

Hello Mr Guerra, yes I am going through a bad experience with them. You are correct, they all subcontract all the work. What bothers me is the lack of attention to detail and supervision they have in my home. You would laugh if you would have seen the type of work, mistakes, rework, etc I have seen during this construction.

[Ms.Renee1983]

Did you have to pay a 10k deposit at the design center before closing on your home?

[SandraDelia]

Originally Posted by shinjuku2019

I decided on another community with Westin over Elyson, I already signed contract with Westin.
We went with Preston III (the model in Elyson).
I couldn't get that much incentives because the base price in that community is really low .(and we both suck at negotiation)
Just singned contract yesterday.

What neighborhood did you end up choosing? I am in the same boat right now. We don’t know if we should move into Elyson with no back neighbors but it backs up to that main road.

[sea922]

We have been in Elyson for a year and absolutely love it!