In the course of house-hunting, have any of you Dopers ever decided to buy the subdivision’s model house when it became available? I’m really curious because one of my neighbors who bought the model house when the subdivision was all built out says he got a terrific deal. Some of the stuff I’ve seen says never buy the model, other stuff I’ve read says do buy the model house but be careful, especially if you want to negotiate to keep the furnishings, blah blah blah.
So tell me - did you buy the model house? Did you get a great deal or do you wish you could go back in time and reverse that purchase?
Not exactly related to the OP, but when I was in school I had a friend who lived next door to the model houses for our subdivision. There were about 3 different model houses, for the various floor plans, and his house was next door.
He said that several times a day strangers would walk into their house, thinking it was another model.
My parents neighbors did, because they were sold a lot that due to local regulations about cutting down trees could not actually be built on, and so they were given an opportunity to "pay the different’ and get the model house. It’s nice in that it has all the extras, but the garage is carpeted because that was the real estate office!
We bought a model home and it worked out great for us. We were moving across country, with two kids and a dog, and both starting new intense jobs. The house was fully decorated, but no furniture, which was ok because we had our own. It came with curtains, valences and on some windows wooden blinds. It also came with bedspreads or comforters in each of the bedrooms, decorater pillows, beds-skirts etc and table-cloths for the breakfast room. The master bedroom linens were Ralph Lauren. All but two rooms were papered with Waverly paper, again something I would never have paid for IRL. The ceiling fans thru-out were Casablancas.
I would never have decorated in such a dramatic style in my real life, but really loved the look.
Lest someone come in and say we paid for all of the above in the purchase price, let me assure you we did not. We negotiated wickedly, and had them remove all the decorating costs from the price. We also had them put in a sidewalk and make several other modifications. Neighbors who built the same model house in our cul-de-sac and moved in on the same day as we did paid thousands more and did not get nearly the amenities we did.
Oh, I almost forgot it also had a 4’ x 4’ stained glass window. We removed that window before we put the house up for sale when moving 10 years later. It’s in our master bathroom in the house we live in now.
And it was fully landscaped with an in-ground sprinkler system (more things we wouldn’t have done do to lack of time).
It sounds like I’m into designer thingies but that’s the furthest thing from the truth. As I said above I would never have split with the cash for the stuff that came with that house.
It worked great because we didn’t have to do any decorating what-so-ever except hang our pictures on the walls. If we had bought a new house it would never have gotten decorated due to how busy we were getting adjusted to new jobs, new schools for the kids etc. To put it in perspective we’ve been in our ‘new’ house for 6 years and still haven’t gotten around to decorating all of it (we have a grass skirt covering the non-stained glass window in our bathroom :o ) and we’re lucky we have grass much less landscaping. :smack:
Sinjin, your story would have been better if your house ended up being like the model house that the Arrested Development family lived in, where half of the stuff was made out of cardboard
We tried, but the model homes were not going to be sold until every single other lot had been sold.
Plus, despite what **sinjin **said, our agent told us that usually model homes cost much more due to the upgrades and “mature” landscaping.
We love going to see model homes on weekends (there are lots and lots of them here in Las Vegas) and I have to admit, it sure would be nice to just pack the suitcase and move into some of them as-is.
We went to something called “Street of Dreams” where they have wildly expensive model homes you tour (for a price). We saw a few that would have been nice - unfortunately, they cost between $2million and $8million…but they sure were nice places. Just saw an ad the other day for a nice model home here in Las Vegas - and then I looked at the price: $28,000,000. A tad out of our price range.
We didn’t, but Razorette’s sister and brother-in-law did, back in the mid-1970s, The house had all the goodies, including rome-to-room intercom, huge laundry room (this was back when separate laundry rooms were a new concept) and other extras. The upside was they got the house at a bargain price because the carpets were ruined from the constant foot traffic and some of the cosmetics were pretty badly battered (wall corners, door moldings, etc.) They had all of the broken and worn-out stuff replaced within a month, and got an otherwise new house for about 2/3 the going price. Sold it for a nice profit 10 years later, too.
We might have gotten a better deal because we didn’t use an agent so there was no RE commission for the builder to pay. Or it could have been due to the fact that this was the 4th house we were purchasing in 12 years and we had a bit more experience in the negotiation process than the typical home buyer. Or it could have been that when the “BIG” boss declined our original offer we politely said thanks but no thanks we’ll look elsewhere and left. This despite the fact that we were ready to commit that day and were going back to New York the following day. They called us at our hotel and said they’d changed their minds. It was probably a combo of all of the above. We went in the following morning, signed the papers with a contingency that our lawyer back in New York had to approve the details, and flew home.
For the record, all of the appliance and hvac warrenties were restarted somehow on the day we moved in, although nothing ever broke. I will admit that the carpeting was not in as new condition. But we had two kids and a labrador retriever, so no big deal. 5 Years later the doggie was in doggie heaven, the kids were older and we tore out the carpeting and put in hard wood floors.
I guess it depends on the circumstances, what your needs/wants are, and how willing the builder is to negotiate. We basically told the builder’s agent that we believed that all of the landscaping and designer stuff was an advertising cost for his business and we weren’t paying for it.
so there was no RE commission for the builder to pay. Or it could have been due to the fact that this was the 4th house we were purchasing in 12 years and we had a bit more experience in the negotiation process than the typical home buyer. Or it could have been that when the “BIG” boss declined our original offer we politely said thanks but no thanks we’ll look elsewhere and left. This despite the fact that we were ready to commit that day and were going back to New York the following day. They called us at our hotel and said they’d changed their minds. It was probably a combo of all of the above. We went in the following morning, signed the papers with a contingency that our lawyer back in New York had to approve the details, and flew home.