This is getting out of hand... Florida new homes

For every day you go past closing, we're charging you $1,000. I don't know what we're going to do if we're not able to close on this home. We were definitely getting lied to. All right. Welcome back to more FLA homes. If you are new to the channel, my name is Christian Clay and alongside me is one of our real estate rock stars on the team. Miss Crystal. How are you? I'm doing great. How are you Christian? I am doing great for everybody out there. Buying a new construction home in Florida is not just one big decision. It's a series of a lot of small decisions that can really screw you over or you can do it right and get the home that you absolutely love. Crystal take them home. All right. So this is a buyer that came to us another one moving up from South Florida trying to get a little bit closer to Disney was one of the things on their list. They really wanted to do a four-bedroom three-bathroom home or a lot of people say they're good with a three-bedroom with a flex and that's something that is, you know, both of those are easy to find right now. So we started talking with them in January and I think it took me a couple weeks with them to assign the BBA just just logistics and like hey, we got to get this done. So we actually set up a date for them to come shop in February and this was one of the first neighborhoods that we went to and we checked, you know, the Lake Alfred area all of our typical builders that we'd like to go in there and hit up that we got good relationships with and this neighborhood really had the best value. They were doing offering the best rates and big yards all that sort of thing that they offer here and the first floor plan that we looked at they really liked they decided that they definitely wanted a three-car garage and this was a neighborhood that you can always find that in. No CDD by the way, right? No CDD here. Yes. Yeah, and they were kind of like well, they didn't really care about a community pool at first and we started looking they're like, okay, the community pool would be nice and you have that in this neighborhood and there's no CDD. So that's lovely. Yeah. So we ended up shopping again in March. They liked what they saw. They liked the floor plan, but something was just missing the floor plan that they ended up going under contract on was not one that we originally looked at because it was over that price point, but we were able to get a $50,000 price reduction on their floor plan. We were able to get the appliance and blind package to which they charge about $5,700 for for free. So and we were also able to reduce their down the escrow down payment that they wanted for them by that's so underrated. That's so underrated two things, right? Like when people reach out to us and they're going under contract with the builder. I like to just break it down to the simplest form. You're either going to get this home or you're going to lose this money the builder and you're going to learn as this video goes along. They structure these contracts so they can win they look out for their best interest. I get it right. It's their business. They don't want people walking away after they built this home, right? So if you can lower that escrow payment that deposit, that's a win. That's great job. Yes, and those are things we went in asking for and we were able to get so all together is about $58,000 in savings for this client, which was really exciting. They were able to do it on a contingency of their house selling because the home was not complete yet. It was midway through construction. Okay, so they were they had a little extra time to get. Their house sold. They didn't have it under contract yet. So so their home was probably not in this stage right here, but something like this. It was being built. The builder doesn't need to sell it tomorrow because they can't so they're like, okay, we'll entertain the fact that you need to sell your home. We'll give you some time. We'll go under contract with this so on and so forth. Okay, cool. Yeah, so very exciting. Everything's, you know, going smoothly. Great. It's a beautiful home which you're going to get to see it in a few seconds, but they go home and think about in a couple weeks. They had their house under contract. Great. Everything's just moving along swimmingly. So you feel and we're getting close to closing time and it's middle of May is about when we could close. We ended up closing the first week of June because of delays with the home they were trying to sell and that's where you hold on. We're supposed to be closing in May but because their home that they're selling had a little bit of a hold up for whatever reason you're saying we closed in June, but I was just talking to everybody about the builder looking out for themselves. Oh, yes. Yes. So when they first realize, you know, when you're selling your home, if we're not your listing agent, we generally trust your listing agent is doing their job and they're explaining everything to you thoroughly and all that. But what I found out is oftentimes it's good that you've chosen to work with us because we end up having to help your listing agent sometimes or help you understand what's going on. So it's just part of the experience that we have and that's something we're able to provide. Elaborate on that. So are you saying you had to help them sell their home? You had to just like, okay, hold my beer real quick. I'm going to help your listing agent get your home sold because they're struggling. Not exactly, but we so what happened was there was a delay with the person purchasing their home because they were also selling their home and they were required to get their roof repaired. HOA had to approve that roof repair. For some reason, this meeting didn't happen and the repair request wasn't getting approved until that week that we were supposed to be closing. So obviously closing is not going to happen. I don't think it was really clear to our buyers what was going on and why it was being delayed. So they basically told the builder, well, we can't close them. So the builders like, well, that's not a good enough reason for us. You know, they were kind of under the impression of like, well, it's just inconvenient for them to close now. So what happened was, is they issued a letter which they can do stating that for every day you go past closing, we're charging you a thousand dollars. That one is probably the largest late fee I've ever seen. I've seen like two to three hundred dollars maybe trickling around that four hundred dollar mark that the builders are like every day past closing that you delay. I'm going to charge a thousand dollars a day. I'm just going to pause for a second. Did you just see this hallway? Did you see that beautiful? I do want to point out some features in this home because I'm going to see why like they were so in love with this home and the idea of losing this home was devastating. We told you that they got a huge price reduction on the home, which helped them with the affordability, but they also had a 4.99% interest rate, which was helping with that monthly payment. And if you go too far past a certain point, that rate will expire and you what can you do? Like what do you have to? Yeah. No, this is a great learning moment for everybody. Those rates that we negotiate for that we can get from these builders. They don't last forever. They do once you lock it in and it's fixed, right? But like if you're under contract, there's some due dates that they need to actually sell the home in time in order to get those rates. So were we battling a thousand dollars a day and potentially losing a 4.99? Yes. So you see this beautiful like Butler's pantry. The backsplash is already and you're going to see a gourmet kitchen here in a second. Some really beautiful unique features in this home that they're getting this amazing price on that. They would not be able to afford without this deal. They're absolutely in love with this home and they're being told, you know, you're going to be charged a thousand dollars a day. So also they told me well because our buyer is wanting to extend the closing. We have to pay another mortgage payment for this month that we weren't planning on having to pay because we thought we would be closed on the house. Let me let me just let me give everybody perspective. We're talking about the home that they're selling in South Florida before moving up here. Yeah, they were going to have to pay another month and that's actually a very common question when we're helping people sell homes all the time, right? They're like do I have to pay this month? They had to pay an extra month that they weren't ready for because of the extension. Yeah. So I said tell your listing agent that you want an addendum that states you will extend the closing if they'll pay your mortgage for the month and they're like, oh, well, okay. We'll ask for that and they got it. So, okay, win number one. They've got their mortgage covered for one more month since they've had to extend this closing. Meanwhile, I'm talking to my preferred sales rep that we've been doing this whole deal with that, you know, it is out of their control. This is that they can't close right now. It is not them just not wanting to take the time off work or being lazy and not wanting to drive up. This is an extenuating circumstance that is outside of their control. Who can you talk to to get them to back down a little bit on the threat of charging the speed of them? So we walked through that and you know, got her to get to her management and she was able to talk to them and they said, okay, we'll give them. I think it ended up being one more week. They had one more week to get to closing or their rate would expire and it was going to cost Christian, you know how much it would cost to get the rate back down to where it was. Can I guess? You can. So they were going to go from a 499. Let's just say to like a market rate. Let's just call it 7 6 9 7. Yeah, 7 something. I'm going to guess $7,000 $30,000 $30,000. They said if you could get their buyer to give them another 15,000 they might can get it down to a six something. That's not even a question for us. So what like what's going through our clients head at this time, right? Like they have all of this going on. They don't really understand what's happening down south to their home. You kind of step in you help out a little bit and then they're getting this whole message here. Like, hey, if we don't close in a week, you could you know, your interest rate can go up to market or you got to pay $30,000 like what's going through their mind. How are you dealing with that? They're starting to get pretty emotional pretty stressed out pretty scared that they are going to you know, not be able to sell their home. They're going to back out of selling that home and not get this home and where are they going to end up at that point? I ended up getting to talk to the lender of the person purchasing their home and he gave me a story about the HOA causing the delay and then some other things to do with the interest rate that his person had lost their interest rate as well. And now the buyer was going to have a higher interest rate and I'm like, well, the same thing's going to happen to my people. If you can't get this to the closing table and he told me something about like they were clear to close. But now that they've extended they have to go back into underwriting and they're not clear to close anymore. And I was like, that's the first time I've ever heard of that happening over a couple days extension a week extension. Like that's really weird. That's laziness. That's a laziness. Yeah, something something's going on that he's not telling me. Yeah, and I dig around. I finally get with their listing agent and he has more info than what this lender is telling me. So basically because the buyers had lost their special interest rate that lender was going to have to pay about $11,500 out of pocket to buy their interest rate back down for them to keep the deal. So he decided, well, let's go shop this loan with other lenders. Like let's go shop it out and see if I can get them at lower rates. Because he's a broker, right? So he's going to shop with other companies. What did Crystal do? Show us those blue. I tell everybody all the time like those blue eyes when they lock in on something. Yeah, they get so what you do when I realized that's what was happening. I was in my car actually going to a walkthrough with another buyer. I had a limited amount of time. I called him. I got him on the phone and you've ever seen when someone's driving down the road and their hands are just going. Oh, yeah, you're like they're having fun in that car and you're just like they're letting somebody have it. That was me that day. And I'm just going to say in less than an hour. I got a phone call that his company was going to eat the $11,500. They were going to go back with the original loan. They got the clear to close. We ended up closing one day before my buyers deadline to close on this house. Love that love that and we were able to they were lit the last time. I talked to them on the phone. I could hear their voice echoing through their empty home because they already had the movers come move everything out. He was like on the air matches. He's like crystal. I don't know what we're going to do if we're not able to close on this home. We don't even have our computers anymore to work from home. Like we've got to get back to work. We've got it. So yeah, it we were able to get it done. It was very stressful. I was we were definitely getting lied to. By that lender and that whole situation and it could have really screwed them over financially way bigger than $11,500 for that company. Yeah, I mean good. I mean good for you for stepping in understanding right like being a veteran inside of the field helps a ton because we don't just sell new homes. We're actually cut from a cloth of resale homes and listings, right? So we understand how all of it works, but what we've shown everybody here today or what we spoke about there's a series of little details that goes through the buying process when it comes to new construction, you know, making sure that we have leverage so then we can unlock incentives. We've brushed over what they got here. You were talking about the appliances the $4.99 rate dropping the price all of these things that you negotiated for it. We talk about it on the channel all the time. The biggest thing that I think is most important here is having the insider builder access because you know, we say it all the time. It's the luck of the let's just say, you know, our clients just want to this builder that day and for some reason it wasn't our PSR our preferred sales rep that was in that office or that we got them hooked up with they might have been getting charged that thousand dollars a day right because they just didn't push for us to get that taking care of giving that extra week grace period so many moving part along with all of the things that you've done on, you know, helping them with their exiting home and stuff like that, but for everybody out there, I promise and I tell you what it cost them $0 for our service, which is to me that's the biggest no-brainer there for everybody that might be on the fence of a are we going to do this on our own or are we going to get some representation? It could be your aunt Susan would love for it to be us. But yeah, I mean don't go into the buying process blindly and wing it have some structure have some some systems in play. That's what we have in place for you guys. So email us team at more FLA.com. That's the best way to reach us. We will take great great care of you. I mean these times right here Crystal you and me know like this builds the relationships with our clients, right? Like it's emotional like we don't want it to get that emotional but it happens and the success just feels so much better at the other side. It feels so much better. Yeah. Well, I miss pointing out one of my favorite features of at home to I don't know if you noticed you go right from the master closet into the laundry room. And I don't know if that always happens in this floor plan. They told me that sometimes there's a wall sometimes there's a door but in this home you were able to connect the laundry room and the master closet, which was just really cool. Yeah, let's turn around you'll get so yeah, it's I mean when you get into that stressful situation you lose a little bit of the joy of wow, we found this beautiful home and are getting this amazing deal to it can all be ripped away from you and just a second and one of the things that hit me with talking With my preferred sales rep here because she was very passionate about it too. She said their listing agent is not fighting for them. Yeah, their agent and their listing agent was like the agent on both of the sales like the yeah, they're by your sale of his and like he had a lot to lose too, but I think he really didn't know like what to do and she said he's not fighting for them. I said, well, I'm going to fight. I am going to fight. Oh man, so blessed that we're you know, you cut from that cloth of the resale side and I think a lot of that happens on the new construction side too. I think a lot of people think it's very easy, right? And it's just like hey, you know, this builder is going to take care of you this reps going to take care of you. There's a lot of fighting that has to happen. And so that's our job. That's what we were passionate about doing. I'm obviously we're blessed to have Crystal on the team to be such a rock star and if you want her to be the person that's on the team helping you out, you just state that in your email and we'll definitely get you hooked up. But yeah, no, hey a win here top to bottom like we can even take out the problems and just talk about the deal and it's in itself. It's a freaking win. It's a good win. Yes. So hopefully they're resting pretty and their beautiful home this week and we can get out there and do a celebration video with them. Everything happened so fast. We didn't get to go pop the champagne and everything. So hopefully we'll get to do that with them soon and get a testimony. I know they're very happy and they're very grateful and they've expressed that early so we'll have we'll have something for them for sure. Yeah, they'll be a part of the VIP family. Can't wait for that. I guess a question for everybody out there because these are people that came up from South Florida during our meeting today. I would say, you know, our people that we're working with like right now physically, you know going on appointments with a lot of them are from South Florida. So where is everybody watching from? Are you all watching from South Florida? Are you watching from you know, the Northeast Jersey Pennsylvania? We used to get a lot of people from that area. We still do but it seems like South Florida is becoming a very popular location that people are leaving and coming up to Central Florida. Yeah, it's just so much more affordable here. I mean you remember the first one of the first couples we helped they had a growing family a bunch of little kids and they were in a tiny town home that sold for as much as this huge two-story home. We were able to get for them here. So I remember that this is perfect right here though, like that that was the perfect example of having the right sales rep matters, right? Like the reason we have those preferred sales reps that we hold dearly that can sell in multiple communities is because when you run into a bad sale and we've gone through the experiences for you people, right? We're talking about one of our first sales that we've had together on a team together the rep there. Yeah, we've learned nobody should be using that that is that's going to screw you over people. So hey, we won't harp on it too much. But yeah, all in all I mean great job for our clients out there. We can't wait to see you very soon once you get settled and yeah, you got anything else for him before we hop off. No, just make sure you call us first. It's not going to cost you anything and it could save you a ton. Yeah, save you a ton. I listen every time we talk about it's a no-brainer. It's like why would somebody not but people do it all the time and they'll email us when they're under contract like hey, I don't know what to do. I can't do anything about it people. So reach out first if you made it this far do me a favor hit the like button if you're not subscribed. What the heck are you doing? Catch you guys in the next one.