I should mention that incentives, as well as option prices, vary by community. Since my community was selling really well, they weren't really willing to throw in any "extra" incentives other than the stock incentive program being offered for my community. (By the way, if you're thinking that I fell for the ol' "we're selling really well" ploy, I'll say that I've gone by once a week, sometimes two, and the site map always indicates a new house as sold (yellow house) or on hold (red house)).  The stock incentive program was 20k to use towards some combination of option costs and closing costs. I elected to use the entire 20k towards closing costs. If you're not aware, closing costs on new construction is much higher than on existing homes because the buyer is footing all of the transfer taxes and miscellaneous fees that would normally be split between seller and buyer. The Good Faith Estimate that I got from TBI mortgage showed that I would have closing costs of about 25k.  Luckily, I'm using a realtor from Redin, and they give 1.5% of their commission to their client to use for closing costs, or as a tax free check about 10 days after closing. Even better for me, Toll Brothers pays realtors commission based on the total price, not the base price before options are selected like most builders, so that's more money for my realtor, and ultimately, for me. This pretty much means that I don't have to worry about closing costs, and all of my money can go towards the down payment and not be pissed into the wind (that's what I consider closing costs to be)
I also got the bathroom in the basement finished for free as part of a "private sale" for choosing to get a finished lower level. In my community, this option would cost $7,800. All told, I received a total of $27,800 in incentive money from the builder. 
I should also let you know that the incentives were not tied to me using their lender. That's pretty unusual for a builder, and it's one of the things that made me decide to use Toll Brothers. I figured that that would make their lender be competitive since I could use someone else. I also figured that the builder wasn't going to try to re-coup the cost of incentives or options through his lender's fees or shadiness on the lender's part, again, since I could just not use their lender.



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