After visiting Florida, we were required to have a two week quarantine. During that time, my wife and I were restricted only to our bedroom and office. Anything we needed had to be delivered to us and brought to our room. That is the price we paid for going to Florida to look for a house.
We have been spending our time attempting to narrow down our home builder options. We have collected a lot of data and we have been trying to compare apple to apples between the wide variety of options. We are narrowing our search to the North West of Greater Orlando - into Lake County. Specifically, Minneola around the Turnpike. There are several builders in this area and we are happy with the lots and land we have seen.
As a promising next step, we have explored churches in this area and I had a brief conversation with a member of one of the churches we liked,
When looking at builders, they entice customers by announcing "Houses in the low $x00K", or, they'll show a fantastic house with a $x00K base price. Don't be fooled. All the houses in a particular area (Like Davenport, Clermont, Minneola, etc) will all cost, pretty much, the same per square foot. Some have CDD fees, some base options have more features while others are stripped down. When you get the houses to be comparable, the prices are very close. A house may have a cheaper base price, but that gets made up in the structural changes, the design center, lot costs, and other areas.
One house that stood out from the rest in terms of cost was Highland Homes Wayfair in Highland Meadows. It has a final cost per square feet of approx $106. Before we went to Florida, the Wayfair by Highland Homes was at the top of our list. That changed after visiting the Highland Meadows development.
I still like the Wayfair. But I don't like where it is located, I don't like the high CDD fees ($139/mo), the community area that is a mile away (you'd have to drive to it), and I don't like their down payment process. Highland Homes requires 20% up front non-refundable deposit. They hold that deposit (earning interest) for the 8 +/1 months it takes to build the house before the deposit is applied to your closing. 8 months is a long time, and if something were to change your situation (getting laid off or furloughed, for example), you could loose $65,000 or more. That fact is ridiculous considering houses in Florida sells in days. Highland Homes would pocket your deposit, then sell the house in days to recoup their entire investment plus profit. I sent an email to their regional sales manager that I felt this practice was wrong. Of course, Highland Homes doesn't need to listen to me - they are selling houses faster than they can make them. This problem doesn't appear to bother other people because people are lining up to buy a Highland Home and they have sold something like seven phases just at Highland Meadows. Highland Homes have sold so many houses that the government has had to restrict how many they can sell every week because the government can't keep up with the building requests.
We are waiting on just a little more data from some home builders and then I believe we'll be ready to make a decision. Once we have that, we want to ready through the HOA documents, any CDD documents, lot options, and poor over the house blue prints.
