New Construction Buyers · Central Ohio
There are 180 brand-new homes for sale in Franklin County. 72 have been sitting over 3 months.
And the builder will not cut the price on a single one of them. Once you understand why, you stop negotiating like everybody else.
10 minutes. If you're buying new construction in the next 6 months, it's the most useful 10 you'll spend on this.
A few quick questions to see if this is a fit. If it is, you'll pick a time on my calendar at the end.
Before you tour anything
Signing that clipboard can cost you your representation.
If you walk into a model home this weekend — just to look, no pressure, you're not serious yet — and you sign in at the front desk, you may have just given up your right to have anyone represent you on that home.
Most builders in Central Ohio have a registration policy. Whoever's name is on that sheet first is who they recognize. If it's just yours, you're unrepresented in that community. Not for a day. For that builder, for that neighborhood, for that purchase.
And here's the part that should actually bother you: you didn't save a dollar by doing it. The builder's incentive budget doesn't shrink because you showed up alone. It's already allocated. It just doesn't get spent on you, because there's nobody in the room whose job is to ask for it.
That's not a scare tactic. Call any builder in Delaware or Union County right now and ask what their registration policy is. Ask what happens if you tour first and bring an agent second.
Why the price never moves
A regular seller owns one house. A builder owns forty lots.
If a normal seller knocks $20,000 off, they lose $20,000. Once. It stings, it's over.
If a builder cuts $20,000 off one house, that sale gets recorded. And that recorded price becomes the comparable the appraiser uses on the next house in that neighborhood. And the one after that.
One discount doesn't cost them $20,000. It can cost them six figures across the rest of the community — and it drags down the appraised value of every home they've already sold to families living there now.
So they hold the sticker price, which makes them look completely inflexible. They are the opposite of inflexible. They just can't pay you in the one currency you're asking for.
What they'll say no to
- A price reduction
- Anything that touches the recorded sale price
- Anything that becomes a comp
What they'll say yes to
- Rate buydowns
- Closing costs
- Upgrade allowances
- Lot premiums waived
- Appliance packages
- Blinds, fencing, finished basements
- Extended warranties
Same house. Same builder. Same afternoon. Different question. You're not asking them for less money — you're asking for it in a form they're actually allowed to give you.
The model home
The person who greets you works for the builder.
That's not an accusation, it's an employment fact. Their job is to sell that community at the best terms for the company that pays them. They're good at it, and they should be.
But when you ask them "is this a good deal," you're asking a question they're structurally incapable of answering honestly. Not because they're dishonest — because there's only one answer their job allows.
And when you ask what incentives are available, you get the published ones. The flyer. The ones everybody gets. You don't get the ones that come out when a spec home has been sitting 140 days and the regional manager is looking at year-end inventory. Those don't get volunteered. Those get asked for.
Yours either way
Three questions to ask, even if we never talk.
Write these down. They're worth more than most buyers get from an agent across an entire transaction.
"How long has this specific home been finished?"
Not how long it's been listed. Finished. A completed spec nobody's bought is costing that builder money every month. That's your leverage, and it's invisible until you ask.
"What's the difference between what you'll do on price and what you'll do on rate?"
This tells them immediately that you understand the comp problem. The conversation changes. Watch their face.
"If I use your preferred lender, can I see the rate and every fee in writing today?"
Take the incentive. Always take the incentive. But make them put it on paper the same day, because sometimes the builder is genuinely subsidizing your rate — and sometimes that $20,000 quietly comes back as a higher rate and padded fees. You can't tell which one you're in until both quotes sit side by side.
Who's talking
I don't need your commission to pay my mortgage.
I run the Columbus Report. If you've seen anything about what's being built in this city in the last year, there's a decent chance it came from me.
But that's not the thing that should matter to you. Here's what should: most of my income doesn't come from selling houses. It comes from revenue share and from coaching other agents.
I'm telling you that because it's the only structural reason to trust anything an agent says. If somebody hasn't closed a deal in eight months and their car payment is due, they are not going to tell you the house you fell in love with is overpriced and backs up to a future arterial road. They can't afford to. I can. That's not a virtue. It's math, and it happens to work in your favor.
I also have direct MLS data access — the kind that lets me pull every new construction listing in this region sorted by exactly how long it's been sitting, what it originally listed for, and every price change since. So when you tell me the community you like, I'm not guessing about leverage.
Read this before you book
I'd rather lose you in 60 seconds than waste your time.
Book a call if
- You're buying new construction in Central Ohio in roughly the next 6 months — Columbus, Dublin, Powell, Westerville, New Albany, Grove City, Delaware, Marysville, Canal Winchester, the whole ring
- You're preapproved, or willing to get preapproved before we tour anything
- You want somebody to tell you when a house is a bad deal
Don't book if
- You're 12 or 18 months out and just want to look around — come back when you're closer, the data will be better
- You want me to send listings and then go to the model home by yourself. That doesn't work, and now you know exactly why
- You want someone to tell you every house is great
- You're not willing to get preapproved
Fifteen minutes. No pitch.
I'll ask you four or five questions and either I'm useful to you, or I'll tell you I'm not and point you somewhere better. Worst case, you use the three questions yourself. Best case, you get somebody in the room whose entire job is asking for money that's already sitting in a budget with your name nowhere near it.
Answer the questions above