FEES can add up in a new home community and make for unhappy homeowners. It can be like pulling teeth to get a complete accounting of all fees and expenses when your clients are among the first buyers, but a recent experience tells me it's worth the effort.
When I have buyers that are looking at a new home community, I always make sure they knew about any capital contribution, homeowners dues and all other common types of expenses. I practically badger the Community Sales Manager to provide all the information my client has a right to expect. When it comes to taxes and utilities, it's understandable perhaps that the builder can't provide accurate numbers and here's where the surprise can come later. Most of the new active adult communities, for example, are not located in areas served by existing town water and sewer. Developers are responsible for providing water and sewer; often they choose between 2 or 3 providers to build a community system with the idea that it will tie into a county system down the road. There is intense competition to land contracts with each new community and even towns and counties are privatizing these services
My husband Bill likes to say that water is the new oil, and today's phone call proved him right!
One of my clients just got their first quarterly water bill and it was a shocking $700! Lots in this community are about a 1/4 acre or less but they have a complete irrigation system. He and his neighbors are now having wells dug to use for their irrigation systems, which should be a big saving. I can only hope that the sales people are now recommending that all buyers put in a well; I will certainly tell all of my buyers to do so.
To all of your clients that want maintenance free living, with irrigation systems and landscaping included, prepare them for the fees they don't see yet. For the clients that are overlooking upgrades to more energy efficient systems before spending everything on granite counter tops, remind them that electricity, gas, propane, oil and water prices are all going up.
Very quickly, we become a source of real information about communities attracting our buyers' interest and that makes us even more valuable.
PS - I know I need to learn HTML, but I didn't want to wait to post this information! Cut me some slack.
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