Via Lennar Homes
(Disclosure: Rose Law Group represents Ashton Woods Homes, Lennar, Meritage, and Richmond American Homes.)
By Brent Ruffner | Your Valley
Options in the Valley housing market for first-time buyers can be hard to come by nowadays.
Some homebuyers are being pushed out of the market with the median single-family resale home cost of $475,000 in Maricopa County and a mortgage rate of 6.57% on a 30-year fixed rate mortgage as of May 25.
Interest rates increasing means home mortgage payments increase by hundreds per month.
Those prices and mortgage rates mean less opportunity to get first-time buyers into homes, especially for the region’s myriad builders who make their businesses live of sales.
So what are some homebuilders doing? They are adapting and finding ways to make a product for those buyers.
At Lennar, its Premier Homes line looks to give buyers more bang for their buck. The company’s new three-bedroom, two-bath and two car garage Premier Homes have three standardized plans to choose from ranging from 1,250to 1,400-square-feet.
Most of the new homes start around $340,000, said Alan Jones, Phoenix division president of Lennar.
Premier Homes is collaboration between Lennar and its business partners that includes mortgage lenders, trade partners and Realtors.
“(We told them) we are going to accept less margin,” Jones said. “You need to do the same.”
Overall, the new home industry has seen interest in its products start to dry up. As a result, new building permits are plummeting, Jones said. The number of homes built has seen a significant downward trend over the past year. In the second half of 2022, there were 7,785 permits were issued — down from 16,518 permits issued in the first half of the year, according to the Home Builders Association of Central Arizona.
