Louden Valley - Tollbrothers (short sale, real estate, credit)

[Itsme1]

Hi,
we are planning to buy new home at louden valley,Ashburn. This is our first home. We are more interested in carriage homes and the glen model.
So any tips or suggestions from anyone ,that you could share before signing their contract.....?? How to bargain the price ...? I mean are they much flexible on price or not . How to proceed with them ...?Please share information !


Thanks much in advance. !!!

[imisscarlsbadcalifornia]

We live in Dominion Valley/Toll Bros. community and after coming home from the quarterly "meet your new neighbors" event I feel fairly confident that Toll Bros. is more than ready to wheel and deal relative to options/upgrades and the associated price points as well as the costs for lots. If you were shopping for homes in October and November you probably saw their offers for one dollar upgrade packages? They essentially had three different upgrade packages from which to choose (and they were each pretty generous/worth about $40K apiece) that you could get for one additional dollar. My husband and I looked into building a house here and were offered that same proposition. In addition, a person I met who works for Toll said that the retail price tags on things mean less and less as the economy continues to slide. The most recent real estate numbers (announced yesterday, I believe) point to the largest drop in new housing starts ever when you look at the numbers nationally. Given that, if there are options/upgrades that you'd like to have on your home you may be able to negotiate them into your deal for far less than "sticker".

Given what I've heard and what others have written here relative to the difficulty of changing anything once you have a contract, I'd consider everything to be negotiable and approach your agreement accordingly. If there was ever a time when you could get exactly what you want for less, this is probably it. Get it all in writing before you sign.

As an aside, I have several good friends who own carriage homes here in DV and they are all very happy with them relative quality/durability at least so far. They are very young homes, of course, being built in 2005. My husband and I put two offers in on carriage homes down here but we never heard back from the banks (they were in short sale) so we ended up buying a SFH that was ready for immediate delivery. I think the carriage homes have super smart floor plans and beautiful detail.

Good luck to you in the negotiation of your contract and enjoy your new home.

[bazilia]

Thanks for your post. i know that you bought your home almost 3 years ago in DV. do you think toll brothers will still negotiate? i am looking into this community now. any words of advice for me? are certain sections better than others? its all so large. it seems that the lots they are offering now are terrible in the sense that they are not backing to woods or golf course etc. thanks a million.
maria
3dand4d @ gmail

[mshan242709]

Listen to the Toll Brothers earnings call: Toll Brothers Conference Calls

They are giving $40K in incentives, feel that demand is up (comparable to last year), but feel prices are inelastic (I think they are cautious because sales collapsed last summer after tax credit expired). Don't want to try raising prices, but also don't feel they need to increase incentives (there are signs there may be a double dip recession in housing, so this may change later in year). I think incentives are always there if they know you know about them, you don't have to wait for their official sales, which I think is basically repackaging what they offer every day so no need to wait for a "sale".

End of fiscal year for Toll Brothers stock is January, so if they have a spec built house or house someone cancelled on and it is not sold late in year, they will be more motivated to get that house off books, but home that is not built already they may not have much motivation to neogotiate.

(No direct experience trying to buy a house from Toll Brothers, just research I have done via google)

"Getting the best deal will depend on how you would like to structure any incentives that they offer. This could include upgrades, financing and price reductions. As you may already know the best deals are usually on inventory homes. Builders have no real incentive to loose money on a home that isn’t built." I am considering buying a Toll Brothers house in Tyllan's Reach area. I am planning to live there for at - Trulia Voices

"I am a construction manager on a new home complex in NJ (NOT Toll NOT Hov). I wouldn't buy a new house from any big builder including the one I work for. You do not get the care or craftsmanship that the small, custom builder offers. The big builders select their subs primarily on the basis of price, not quality of the workmanship. Ever wonder why so many Mexicans are building houses in the United States? Do you really think that the mega builders are really committed to quality when they're using substandard labor? You'll never find Norm Abram trimming out a Toll Brothers house." Any reviews on K.Hovanian Homes and Toll Brothers

I've seen interior of some of those Toll Brothers homes in Regency and they seem pretty well built to me. But from looking at pictures of real custom builder, you can see that Toll (and others) may just be cheap, superficial copies of the 1 - 1.5 million custom home most of us (including me) can't afford: ANV Group - Media

[ShannonMilligan]

I take it you don't have a realtor to negotiate the price for you? If you have already registered, it is probably too late to get a realtor. EVERYTHING is negotiable...as to if they will go for it, who knows. I would certainly TRY to get the price down as you won't get anything if you don't ask!