The candle in the model home
Every model home smells faintly of vanilla, and none of it is an accident. The lighting, the staged desk that makes the flex room read as an office, the candle. New construction is a genuinely good path in this market, and around Charleston it is often the value play, especially out toward Summerville, Moncks Corner, and the Cane Bay corridor. I sell it happily. But buying it is a different country from a resale deal, and almost everything unusual about it lives in the paperwork.
The nice person in the model works for the builder
That is not a criticism. It is a job description. The on-site agent is warm, knowledgeable, and paid by the builder to sell this builder's houses. They are not going to mention the competing community two exits up, or which incentive expires Friday versus which one always gets quietly extended, or which lots back up to the next phase of construction traffic.
Bring your own agent, and bring them to the very first visit. Most builders require your agent to accompany or register you on that first walk-in. Show up alone and many will treat you as unrepresented for the life of the deal, no matter who you hire later. In most local new-construction communities the builder pays your agent's fee, so representation costs you nothing out of pocket and the only way to lose it is bad timing. The decision gets made the moment you walk through the model's front door.
This is not the standard contract
A resale deal here runs on standard forms both agents have read a thousand times. A builder deal runs on the builder's own contract, written by the builder's attorneys and refined over years to protect exactly one party. That is legal and it is normal. It also deserves to be read like the one-sided document it is.
Three places to slow down. First, the deposits: earnest money plus, in many communities, separate design-center deposits, each with refund rules stingier than anything you saw in a resale. Second, the completion date, which the contract will call an estimate and surround with generous room to slide. Your mortgage rate lock does not slide for free, so ask in writing what happens to your deposit and your lock if the house runs ninety days late. Third, the dispute terms. Many builder contracts route disagreements to arbitration on terms the builder chose, and the time to notice that is before there is a disagreement.
The model is the upgrade package
The advertised base price and the house you toured are different products. The model is typically carrying tens of thousands of dollars in design-center upgrades, plus a lot premium you cannot see from the sidewalk. Ask the sales office two questions and get both answers in writing: what does this exact house cost as it sits, and what is actually included at base price. The distance between those numbers is your real budget conversation. Flooring, trim, the tiled shower, sometimes the garage door opener. Assume nothing is included until a document says it is.
Incentives come with strings
That $15,000 in closing help almost always requires the builder's preferred lender and, often, their title company. Sometimes it is still the best deal on the table. Builder lenders can be genuinely competitive when the builder wants a community closed out. But compare the whole loan, rate and points and fees, against one outside quote before you decide. A credit at the closing table attached to a worse rate can cost more over five years than it saved on day one. You are allowed to use any lender you want. The credit just may not follow you.
Quick math habit: divide the incentive by the monthly payment difference between the two loans. If the answer is a number of months you will obviously exceed, the "free" money is the expensive option.
The warranty is three warranties
The ten-year warranty on the brochure is usually a 1-2-10 structure: one year on workmanship, two on major systems, ten on structural defects, with that last piece defined narrowly and often carried by a third party. Nail pops, sticking doors, and cracked grout in year three are yours. So the punch list before closing matters more than the warranty after it. Do the blue-tape walk seriously, get every promised fix in writing before you close, and put an eleven-month warranty inspection on the calendar the day you get keys, so a professional finds the year-one items while the builder still has to fix them.
Yes, you still inspect it
New does not mean checked. County code inspections are pass-fail minimums performed in brief visits. I bring an independent inspector at pre-drywall, when the framing, plumbing, and electrical are still visible, and again before closing. Reputable builders allow this without drama. A builder who refuses is telling you something. The full case for what inspections can and cannot do is installment No. 5.
The HOA belongs to the builder for a while
In a new community, the builder typically controls the HOA until most of the homes are sold. The low dues on the flyer are the builder's opening number, not a track record, and they commonly rise after turnover, when the real maintenance costs land on the homeowners. Read the covenants and the budget before you sign (they will not be sitting on the model's kitchen counter), and plan for the one-time capitalization fee many communities collect at closing.
How to actually protect yourself
- Register your agent on the very first visit. The order of operations is the whole ballgame.
- Get the price of the house as it sits, in writing, next to the base price.
- Compare the preferred lender against one outside quote, whole loan against whole loan.
- Ask what a ninety-day delay does to your deposit and your rate lock, in writing.
- Inspect at pre-drywall, before closing, and at eleven months.
- Read the HOA covenants and the warranty booklet before signing, not at the closing table.
I have walked buyers through builder contracts all over the Charleston area, and the pattern never changes: the deal is rarely bad, but it is never quite what the flyer says. Bring me the contract before you sign it, ideally before you ever walk into the model, and I will show you where your version differs from the brochure version.
A Field Notes series
What They Won’t Tell You
The listing, the paperwork, and the industry itself, read closely by someone who is paid to know better. New installments as the market gives me material.
- No. 1Buying land: what the MLS won’t tell you
- No. 2Reading a listing: what the photos won’t tell you
- No. 3What agents get paid not to say
- No. 4The seller disclosure: what the form won’t tell you
- No. 5The home inspection: what it won’t tell you
- No. 6New construction: what the builder’s contract won’t tell you
- No. 7Complicated is not the same as a bad deal
This post is for general educational purposes only and does not constitute legal, financial, tax, or investment advice. Real estate markets change; past trends do not guarantee future results. All properties are subject to prior sale and change without notice. Jennifer Dane is a licensed REALTOR® in South Carolina with eXp Realty LLC. Equal Housing Opportunity.