Crystal Falls, Crystal Cove (Taylor Morrison) - What upgrades/cost of home (Howe: sales)

[mmranda]

My husband and I are very interested in purchasing in the Crystal Cove section of Crystal Falls. We've seen a few of the floor plans in person (all by Taylor Morrison), including:

Silverleaf (model)
Baybury
Pinehurst
Esperanza

We have a budget of around 225,000. We really would like to get the Silverleaf (starts at 202,000) We don't care so much about fancy finishes/counters - our main concerns are an appliance upgrade, covered patio, and study addition.

1. I'm curious to see who has purchased in this section and how much upgrades added to your base price/what upgrades you got.

AND

2. If someone has purchased a home with minimal upgrades and your experience.



Just some additional info: I've received the upgrade catalogue for the Silverleaf and it seems our big upgrades would be doable (study addition, appliances, covered porch). It wouldn't leave us with much wiggle room for any other upgrades however. Which is why I'm curious what a less-upgraded home is like.

Thanks in advance for any help!

[FalconheadWest]

Keep in mind that the elevation you pick might be an upgrade. The stone you pick might be an upgrade. Even different brick colors can be an upgrade. You'll definitely want to upgrade your carpet as they usually throw in the upgraded pad when you do. Do you like shiny chrome fixtures instead of brushed nickle? Do you like dated 12" tiles instead of 16-18" tiles? Do you like Oak cabinets instead of Maple or Birch or Cherry, etc...

It's hard to go into a Taylor thinking you're not going to upgrade very much. Yes, they have a lot of things in the home standard compared to other builders, but what kind of "quality" do you want to live with? With rates so low, it's cheaper to roll upgrades into your price and pay a small monthly fee for them rather than paying a lump sum out of pocket after closing...

[riaelise]

Personally, our home (not TM) had only the basic upgrades. Falconhead is right in that so many things (things you might not even think of) are upgrades...In the case of our builder, just about everything was an upgrade. However, we only chose the things that we knew we had to have and would cost a lot of money to do at a later stage. For example, structural things (i.e. room conversions, extra bathrooms, etc.) We did upgrade some of the flooring, and the counters. It was far cheaper to have the builder install the countertops than to do it on our own. Everything else we did on our own timetable. When we had the money, we upgraded. Granted, we did have to put the money upfront vs. having it rolled into the mortgage; we did have to deal with a rather plain house in the process. However, we don't have any second liens on our home, HELOCs, or a bloated mortgage. We opted for "initial pain" vs. "slow burn."

As an aside....CHROME is what's in today?? and oak?? Erk....

[djneph]

We are thinking of buying home in Crystal Falls too. The sales rep gave us a link to a website that let us add different upgrade and it would give us a price for the upgrade. You can select different flooring, counter tops, cabinets, etc. Also, you can ask for a price sheet (big document) that says what a level 2 tile, level 3 tile, etc costs. Lastly, Saturday's TM has the design center open house, you can tour the center and see what tile is included at level 1, or what an upgrade to level 2, level 3, level 8 etc.. would cost.

We did this and were able to figure out what upgrade we would want to do and how much they would costs. The big ticket items are flooring, counter tops, cabinets, etc... You can get a really good idea.

Hope this helps.

[FalconheadWest]

Originally Posted by riaelise

As an aside....CHROME is what's in today?? and oak?? Erk....

These are not what is "in", but what builders use as standards. You have to upgrade from shiny chrome to brushed nickle or bronze, or you have to upgrade from Oak to Cherry... Some builders include higher quality as standards when you're in a higher price point.

[BriansZ]

Your best bet would be to talk with the sales associates over there. They can help you and in my experience they won't push any upgrades on you. We built with Taylor Morrison Crystal Falls last year but across the street from where you are looking.

First of all, I'm sure they are offering some type of incentive, for example 50% off the first $xx,000 in upgrades. If you have room in your budget to have $23k in upgrades and they are offering you 50% on the first $40k, for example, it would make sense to use that. They can give you price sheets for flooring and countertops and you can go to the design center during open house hours (Saturday and Wednesday I believe) and take some time to figure out what you like and what it costs. I'd recommend doing this, because when you have the design center appointments you have a lot to decide in a little time, so it's best to be prepared. Also, the design center is not Taylor Morrison, so the design consultant may be a little more pushy than the sales consultants.

Any structural upgrades you want will be made at the model home and not the design center. IMO these are more important than what you pick in the DC, because these are harder to change later.

To give you an idea of our experience, the total cost of our home after adding structural and DC additions was about 20% more than the base price of the home. However, we added a lot of structural options which were not cheap, and we had a lot premium because we're on a lot that is 20' wider and next to a green space. The biggest structural upgrades were a third car garage, a media room, and a covered patio.

We had a great experience building over here with Taylor Morrison. Enjoy the experience and be upfront with your budget with both the sales and design teams. There are some nice lots over in the Crystal Cove section and my in-laws are even thinking about moving over there.

[mmranda]

Thank you all for the wonderful input and advice! I think we'll have to go ahead and plan a trip down to go to the design center (currently up in OKC finishing up my graduate studies). I definitely like the idea of the bigger structural additions being forefront in priority and then having more cosmetic things be either later on or if we have some extra spending money.

I also didn't know about the discounts! If we're able to snag a deal like that then it would be very helpful

If anyone has additional input/advice, I'm all ears

Thanks again.

[EzPeterson]

Get a realtor.

[BriansZ]

Originally Posted by EzPeterson

Get a realtor.

This is good advice. If you haven't been to the model home and filled out any paperwork, get a realtor before you go in.