Suggestions needed for building home with plantation builders in aliana (cul-de-sac, sales)

[ayyulu]

Hello friend's,

I am new to this forum & this my first post. V r planning to build a home with plantation builders in 'aliana'. V r first time home-owners & the entire process is totally new ASAP v don't have any experiences with the homes here. So, for v have been living in an apt & v r from 'Asia'.
V have picked a cul-de-sac lot, which is like a pie shaped.V have signed the contract & paid earnest money of 3000$. The lot comes with a premium of 8000$. This was the only left out lot in that section. V really liked it , as it is a cul-de-sac & opposite to it is a waterfront(which is like a half mile).

Our upgrades came upto:72000$

Structural:40,000$ (porch, sunroom with covered patio, media , study & bedroom)
cosmetics :32,000$(countertops, ceramic tiles, jaccuzi with shower diverter, wirings ,etc)

The builder's allowance was 28000$ towards upgrade. v paid 20% on the upgrades.

V were not able to negotiate at any point. v r done with the design studio appointment.The pre-construction meeting is about to start in next week.

My questions are as below:

1. Can v still negotiate now or during closing ? What are the costs, which v can negotiate?

2. V actually picked the lot & asked the realtor to join with the sales person meeting. The realtor just introduced us to the "Aliana" & showed us model homes with other builders . The
realtor just spend 2 days of showing model homes. The realtor gets 3% + incentive packages.
So, can v ask for a rebate from the realtor & a builder before closing?

3. Does anybody have experience in the past or working currently with the plantation builders?. Kindly share u r experiences.

Thanks & appreciate u r response very much.

[haudi]

#1 - The time for negotiating is over. Your prices are what you signed in the contract. You might be able to negotiate some of the closing costs or interest rates with your lender, but as far as any additional negotiation with the home builder themselves, not a chance unless something goes horribly wrong.

#2 - It depends. You can ask your realtor but they are under no obligation to rebate that to you. Likewise, the home builder is under no obligation to extend that 3% to you. Never hurts to ask though. Worst they can say is no.

[ayyulu]

Thanks Haudi, for your response. I was really looking for some serious suggestions.

1. We would try to negotiate on closing cost. Is there any sugg. on which items to negotiate during closing & how much we could do it?

2. On the realtor part, We were not asking for full 3% rebate. She introduced us to the community. We would like to be fair, & thinking of asking for 2% or 5o% on her commission. So ,for we are having a good relationship with her. She has joined like 5 meetings with the sales person (i.e. short visit approximately 8 hrs altogether & has spend 10 hrs on the model house tour).
Anyway, since " aliana" is a new development, she gets incentives like 250$ on her first closing + grand prize of cruise for the top winners. We are not actually greedy about her incentives. We feel that, we didn't work for a long time with her, neither giving any useful suggestions like negotiating or valid tips & didn't had the opportunity of visiting a pre-owned house, for a price comparison purpose. We asked few times about negotiation during our earnest money contract & on premium lot. She said, the builder would not agree for it.

Do, we need to talk about the realtor rebate with the realtor first or can the builder help us with this as the closing is not yet done?. Only she has signed the contract for 3% commission.


Really confused & Looking forward for some more responses.

[dd1153]

All this should have been handled before signing any paperwork. Builder & realtor should not and most likely will not renegotiate. You are contractually bound now.

[H-towngreen]

1) It's to late now to go back and negotiate on any part of the deal, closing costs included.

2) You shouldn't ask for the realtors commission. This is their job and a portion of the money they get off the deal goes to their broker, marketing expenses, etc. From the sounds of it you have a good realtor who's put in a lot of work, more than what most realtors do. Would you do your job for 50% of the pay?

[Rip808]

I agree, it is too late to negotiate on closing costs. That is all done in your initial meetings with the builders. We used some of the "upgrade allowance" and had all of my closing costs (except downpayment) taken care of. This was all done in the first meeting when I signed the contract for the home. As soon as you signed on the dotted line that becomes a binding contract.

Oh and its "we", not V.

[TexasTony]

Originally Posted by Rip808

Oh and its "we", not V.

They did mentioned that they were from 'Asia' so lets cut them some slack

[hulio82]

Originally Posted by ayyulu

2. V actually picked the lot & asked the realtor to join with the sales person meeting. The realtor just introduced us to the "Aliana" & showed us model homes with other builders . The
realtor just spend 2 days of showing model homes. The realtor gets 3% + incentive packages.
So, can v ask for a rebate from the realtor & a builder before closing?

I know a couple of friends who did this when they were buying houses (get a rebate back from their realtor) but this was discussed upfront with their realtor. since you haven't, not sure it would be fair to your realtor to bring it up now.

[ayyulu]

Thanks for the serious response, from some of you. I agree, we regret for some of the things that we did not negotiate, while signing the contract, as I first time homeowner.

My question is how to deal with the current situation. What are all the options, now We have before closing.? What to negotiate with builder's lender(F.C. lending co) & builder?

On the realtor part, we did not get any suggestions as a first time home-buyer, what to negotiate & look for in the upgrades offered by the builder. My realtor has a 17+ years of experience with the market & last year, she was offered as "Best realtor" with a cruise trip & other incentives in the same community, which we are looking for. I agree, she might had worked hard & we are not behind her, for all the incentives, etc. She has worked with our builder. Yesterday, we met, her, first time outside the sales assoicate office to discuss about some of our concerns on the process. She keeps saying the market situation is high & the builders are not willing to negotiate as before.
My point is we trusted her so much, explained our financial & job situation etc to her. One of the posters has mentioned here do you work for 50% of the pay. We are expecting the best deal for the money, which we are investing. Anyway, we even talked about the rebate on our recent meet. She said, We should have discussed upfront about is. Honestly speaking, we were not aware of all those as a first time home owner. This is the reason, we employ a realtor.

Even though she is not willing to give back rebate to us. We expect her to talk with the builder for any incentives atleast during closing.


As, I mentioned earlier, am new to the post. There may be some typing errors like' V instead of We'.

[hulio82]

Originally Posted by ayyulu

Thanks for the serious response, from some of you. I agree, we regret for some of the things that we did not negotiate, while signing the contract, as I first time homeowner.

My question is how to deal with the current situation. What are all the options, now We have before closing.? What to negotiate with builder's lender(F.C. lending co) & builder?

On the realtor part, we did not get any suggestions as a first time home-buyer, what to negotiate & look for in the upgrades offered by the builder. My realtor has a 17+ years of experience with the market & last year, she was offered as "Best realtor" with a cruise trip & other incentives in the same community, which we are looking for. I agree, she might had worked hard & we are not behind her, for all the incentives, etc. She has worked with our builder. Yesterday, we met, her, first time outside the sales assoicate office to discuss about some of our concerns on the process. She keeps saying the market situation is high & the builders are not willing to negotiate as before.
My point is we trusted her so much, explained our financial & job situation etc to her. One of the posters has mentioned here do you work for 50% of the pay. We are expecting the best deal for the money, which we are investing. Anyway, we even talked about the rebate on our recent meet. She said, We should have discussed upfront about is. Honestly speaking, we were not aware of all those as a first time home owner. This is the reason, we employ a realtor.

Even though she is not willing to give back rebate to us. We expect her to talk with the builder for any incentives atleast during closing.


As, I mentioned earlier, am new to the post. There may be some typing errors like' V instead of We'.

Part of being a new home owner and buying your first home is learning about the process. We purchased our first home last year and no matter how much research you do upfront, in retrospect- you are always going to find things which could have been done better had you known about it.

Regarding realtor- everyone expects the best deal. We interviewed a few realtors before picking one realtor which was recommended to us by our friends, but even then- i did my own due diligence by asking around and posting on this forum about the process. And yes- she did make some mistakes and overlooked certain things, but you have be prepared for some of that. If the realtor misleads you, then that's another story- but doesn't look like that's the case here.

Regarding negotiations with lender- do you have to use the builder's lender? if not, have you gotten quotes and good faith estimates (GFE) from other lenders? When we were buying, i got GFE's from other lenders and i used their incentives offered to negotiate with the builder's lender.

Since you signed the contract, not sure what much else you can do.