Del Webb Lakewood Ranch (new home, to buy, construction)

[AnnJohnson]

My husband and I have visited the new Del Webb community in Lakewood Ranch and found the area to be beautiful and welcoming. I am not familiar with Del Webb homes (Pulte DiVosta) but from the reviews that I have found, Pulte has some serious issues. Does anyone know the quality of the construction of the homes in the Del Webb Community? Is anyone aware of any issues? I am thankful for any information as we are looking to move within the next few months.

[MattMN]

Originally Posted by DW&LWR

The only thing she did not care for was the attempt at "smooth walls". She said they did not come out well, so stay with textured walls.

Why are textured walls a thing in Florida? Are they a staple elsewhere? I came from the midwest, and all walls were flat. I mean, sheetrock comes flat - how hard is it to keep the wall flat?

My new home here has textured walls. It's fine, I don't mind. I was just surprised at the regional differences.

[Sunshine Rules]

Builders favor the textured walls because of the financial benefit -- for them, time is money. It’s faster to spray texture on a drywall than applying multiple layers of skim coat for a smooth finish.

[beach43ofus]

I was told the laborers here do not have the skills to install the drywall well enough to cover up their mistakes with the mud.
So, the builders would have to hire more costly higher skilled drywallers, or, train the lesser skilled ones they have, or just orange peel right over the mess and sell it. It takes more time and money to do what we get up North, and the builders down here dont want to deal with slowing down builds and adding cost.

I was told if we wanted smooth, we'd need to buy custom, so we shopped custom. Custom started at ~$900k in the areas we were looking. We didn't want to put that much of our cash into a home as we were nearing retirement age, so we dropped the custom builders, and went back to the orange peelers.

Personally, I think orange peel it looks like crap, but for $450,000 in savings, I'm trying my best to live with crap. As Mick says..."you can't always get watcha want".

[Sunshine Rules]

Del Webb just increased the spec home list prices across the board. Increases range from 0.19% to 0.22%. Not a significant increase ($1000 - $5000 per home), but still an increase.

For what it's worth, Taylor Morrison just increased their spec home list prices 2 - 11.5% in Esplanade at Lakewood Ranch
AND
D R Horton has increased some of their spec home list prices in Del Tierra by 0.22 - 0.34% (about $1000).

[bbronston]

I was told a few weeks ago that Mallory Park was going up about the same amount. Apparently, they aren’t worried about interest rate increases or prices being too high.

[Sunshine Rules]

Also learned today that Neal Communities is going to be doing some price increases in the very near future as well. No word yet if it's across the board or for specific models at certain communities.

[Michael Koester]

Del Webb has been pretty good quality wise in my opinion. I've inspected a bunch of homes in there as well as nearly all the other communities in Lakewood Ranch. Del Webb's quality control seems to be a notch above. The fit and finish of the homes is refreshingly good. However just like all new homes, we found groups of issues that benefited from repair before the customers moved in.

[AnnMiller2]

Great great. That puts my mind at ease. I appreciate you taking time to comment

[AnnMiller2]

Ok, thanks for the info. Definitely good information to have