01
The on-site agent is not your agent
The person who greets you in the model home is paid by the builder and represents the builder. They are good at their job. Their job is not to get you the best terms.
Charlotte new-construction buyer representation
Buying new construction in Charlotte?Bring your own representation before the first visit.
Jasmine Garcia is a Charlotte Broker / REALTOR®, licensed in North Carolina and South Carolina, with 17 new-construction closings across the metro and the state line. She helps buyers compare builder incentives, lender terms, upgrades, and contract deadlines before the builder’s process limits their options.
The other side of this table
The builder’s rep has negotiated a hundred of these this year.You’ve negotiated none.
A builder’s sales office does this every day, with a contract they wrote, on terms they set. Most buyers walk into that room once in their lives. That gap is the whole problem, and it is fixable.
The record
17 new-construction closings.
Across ten builders in the Charlotte market and across the South Carolina line. Each one runs its contracts, its incentive structure, and its design center differently.
- Copper Builders
- David Weekley
- Vista Homes
- DRB
- Pulte
- Meritage
- Lennar
- DR Horton
- Kolter
- Hopper Communities
One transaction
The builder’s own money.
One new-construction purchase. The base price was not the lever.
- Builder incentives
- $50,000
- Closing costs paid
- 3%
- Refrigerator
- Included
Results vary by property, seller, and market conditions. Past transaction outcomes are not a prediction or guarantee of results in any future transaction.
What they know
Five things the sales office already understands.
02
Incentives are rarely volunteered
Builders protect the published base price because it sets the comp for every remaining home in the community. They will often move on closing costs, upgrades, and rate buydowns instead, but usually only when asked, and usually only at certain points in the sales cycle.
03
The lender tie-in is a negotiation, not a rule
Preferred-lender incentives are real money. Whether they are worth taking depends on the rate and fees behind them, which is a comparison worth running before you sign anything.
04
Upgrade pricing is not fixed
The design center is where a large share of the budget quietly goes. Some upgrades are structural and have to be decided early. Others can wait, and waiting is usually cheaper.
05
Registration rules bind early
Most builders require your agent to be present the first time you walk in. Walk in alone and you can lose representation for that community entirely, before you have asked a single question.
How much of this you can use depends on where you are buying, because builder activity is not spread evenly across the metro. The area guidessay which submarkets are carrying builder inventory, and what it does to the resale priced against it. In Steele Creek, the builder down the road is often the comp a resale has to price under.
Next step
Your first visit is the one that counts.
Representation has to be in place before your first visit at most builders. One call first is the whole difference.
Start here
Which builder are you looking at?
Four questions about the community you’re considering. The answers decide which incentives are even on the table before you walk into the sales office.
Step 2 of 3