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short answer, she cannot. First in home buyers are on the short end in this market. In a sellers market, the increased value of her home may have made the difference, but in a buyers market, who would want to purchase a pre-owned home if they can get the same home new with a warranty for the same price. The only way out is she would have to have made significant improvements or have impeccable decore in order to compete , or make the sale price attractive enough to a buyer to compete with a new home.
Ah, the joys of buying a new home in a developing community, or even in a city with continuously opening developments. I, for the life of me cannot understand why folks lock themselves into such a loosing proposition by choosing to buy such a home. The same market of folks that are looking for a new home (as you were) have it in their mind that a new home is really the only choice for them, so a slightly used home will have very little if any attraction to them.
Always better to buy in an established neighborhood in my opinion. The values are much more stable and the folks that are in the market to buy a re-sale home have already come to a conclusion that the attributes of a re-sale home in an established neighborhood which yours will be a part of far outweigh the drawbacks of always having a "used" house in an area of continuing development.
Among other things, you are basically allowing them to finance in improvements that are, or were, personal property. For example, you bought your unit new but then had to spend cash to buy your window coverings. Your buyer is essentially financing those window coverings with their purchase. This really becomes more significant with larger appliances.
Any buyer of new construction will have to need a lot more money for appliances and decorating and they won't be able to roll those costs into their mortgage, yet they will be able to do so if they purchase your unit.
I saw this at one point when we were looking at new construction. Sellers were pretty much screwed. Builders were offering huge concessions and the normal sellers could not complete unless they had a lot of cash to bring to closing.
A perspective from someone who's been there twice. Price is the only thing that will sell it and it has to be low enough to really motivate a buyer. Matching or even within $5k with a new build won't do it. The other thing you've got to do is secret shop the builder from time to time and have them mention your house.
The reason I suggest this is on our first house we couldn't figure out why our house wasn't moving, we were less money than a new build,had upgrades,wood blinds etc. We had a friend come and tell us the agent at the model said "I don't care what they're priced at I will make sure they don't sell first". I then had a shopper go in and she matched my price and tossed in a couple of things.
They've got a fat wallet and tons of "reasons" right at their fingertips why you should buy theirs and not a "used" house. If I were to be in that position again I'd either stay or rent it out until build out was complete.
One thing that will most certainly happen, you'll only be allowed 1 sign on YOUR lawn while the builder will have tons of 'em all over pointing away from you and they WILL make sure you adhere to the limit.
To fight this we decided to tape a huge sign to the side of our van and park it down the street.
My trick is to have stunning landscaping. But if the HOA is doing all the landscaping, that won't work.
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