Telfair Inventory Prices (Spring: comparable sales, sales, real estate) - Houston - Texas (TX) - City-Data Forum

Cottonmather0 · 06-15-2009, 06:06 AM

Does anyone have any advice on dealing with the builders in Telfair? Is there a secret password for negotiating with them for inventory?

My wife and I have been waiting all Spring for our house to sell inside the loop and during the course of waiting we've decided that we liked Telfair the best for the location and amenities.

We finally have a contract on our house, but now that we get to shop for real in Telfair, it's like all of the builders have quit making deals.

I'm not going to give away my realtor's confidential information, but since January, inventory houses down there from all builders have been selling at an average of ____% off of list price and $____/sqft depending on the individual section. (Once you run the MLS reports by section, it's amazing how consistent the data are - even the stuff that has closed so far in June)

Just the past week, when we've put in bids on 2 different houses with 2 different builders, the prices that are coming back aren't even close to where the comparable sales are. I understand that both houses are on more expensive lots and that demand is now higher than it was earlier in the year - and we would be willing to pay a little bit more for those reasons - but both builders told us that they're not going to sell for much less than list price for either house, which just seems weird compared to the sales data we have.

The house we looked at yesterday was listed almost $20/sq higher than the stuff the exact same builder sold across the street in May and he says he's not coming off at all.

I guess they're just pretty sure that Tom, Dick, or Mohammed is going to come in and pay up now that it's Summer, but it just feels strange that they're not going to neogotiate at all now even when serious buyers come into the office.

Any advice?

rtdrtd20 · 06-15-2009, 08:09 AM

We recently bought an larger inventory home in Telfair and may be able to shed some light for you -- feel free to PM me.

What builder(s) are you looking at?
What size lot?
What range of price are they offering you?

Cottonmather0 · 06-15-2009, 10:24 AM

PM just sent -

thanks

sugarlandfan · 06-18-2009, 06:44 PM

Dear sir or madam,

I am in a similar boat like you...can you advise what you have heard and the prices you got? I am getting ~$104/sqf on certain homes

mikeyyc · 06-19-2009, 10:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cottonmather0

I guess they're just pretty sure that Tom, Dick, or Mohammed is going to come in and pay up now that it's Summer, but it just feels strange that they're not going to neogotiate at all now even when serious buyers come into the office.

Any advice?

You hit the nail on the head. If you don't buy it right now, which is the peak time of year for prices and purchases, it is likely someone else will. The sales statistics back them up too.

During the winter, they had to throw in incentives to sell a house has there were fewer buyers. Now, lots of buyers, why give away money you don't have to? Welcome to supply side economics.

chris_ut · 06-19-2009, 10:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mikeyyc

Welcome to supply side economics.

You might wanna look up what that term means. Maybe you meant supply and demand?

mikeyyc · 06-19-2009, 12:11 PM

My bad. I'll go with the fact that it's Friday and already over 90 outside. Supply and demand.

aapchad · 06-19-2009, 09:31 PM

I have lived in Telfair since March 2007. We have never seen very many great deals here for new home buyers. Sure the ocassional upgrade or design allowance, but nothing more than maybe 10k. At the same time, values here are flat for existing homes, if not down by 2-3%. There is enough land here for four more years of building so I don't think, short of a real estate collapse, that you'll find the builders will give you anything significant off their list prices.Here is something you can do to maybe get a better deal or get some freebies -- wait until the end of a quarter to push for the purchase of a home. Corporate builders compensate their folks on monthly sales and quarterly sales. We got about 5k in free upgrades because we agreed to accelerate our close by two weeks so that it fell into a specific calendar quarter. It was a pain for us to move earlier than anticipated, but we were happy with the upgrades.

sugarlandfan · 06-20-2009, 10:55 AM

The people are correct. Telfair is a long-term project with completion by 2011. Most of the 13 builders are financially stable or are stabilizing. Secondly, the demand from Asian communities is pretty strong, so there is no shortage of demand. Finally, many builders are offering new floor plans that cost cheaper to build and can drop prices compared to 2006 & 2007. Telfair is going to be community of price neighborhoods: $200-300, $300-400, $400-500, & $500 and greater.
What a consumer should determine is what price range they want to be in and negotiate the best options, very rarely will a $500 worth home will sell in the $300's unless there is a light pole in the back or some buidler built a small home on a large lot...
Finally, on the secondary market, few forclosures and recent purchases in 2006-07 will restrict people from selling at lower prices because they have to take a huge loss and bring thousands of dollars to close the sale...believe I tried hard by bidding low (inline what I could buy from the builder)..they rather let the price decline rather than take a $50k - $100k hit eventhough they are carrying 2 mortgages.
The only way to get lower prices is wait and wait and wait and follow the trend downward...
It would be great if someone could post current $/sq.ft prices as the best proxy for the market...

Cottonmather0 · 06-20-2009, 07:53 PM

Yeah, I understand supply and demand. My economics degree hasn't done much, but I do understand that. LOL

Thing is with real estate, especially in this market, it's hard for any seller (builders included) to expect prices to go up 20-25% in less than 60 days and for their buyers to still be able to pass the bank appraisal and get the mortgage. Certainly since there is more demand this time of year they'll eventually find some guy to walk in off the street and pay asking price, but whether that buyer will actually be able to complete the transaction is a different question. To me, if they wanted to be selling for these high prices now, it seems like they shot themselves in the foot offering all of the incentives discounts on almost the exact same floorplan and options on the same street just a month ago. Maybe it will all go through, and in that case then I agree, it's just good business on their part.

Nonetheless, the conclusion to my story is that after banging our head against the wall with the first two builders for a few days, we happened to find a different builder in Telfair who had a loaded but incomplete bust-out house that they were desperately wanting to offload.They cut us a great deal to take it and we close on July 15. We're actually paying a price that's very close to the same price that we were complaining about with the other two builders, but it's in a different section with larger lots and is still ~$10 less per sq than the other recent sales in the immediate neighborhood.