Reel Homes is terrible to deal with. The minute you start questioning anything, they are so defensive and so hostile. We had the same experience as the pp. The prices they quote are so ridiculously higher than they actually cost. We ended up skipping the upgrades once we realized they were totally scamming us. We'll do it ourselves later. We should have never built with them in the first place and if we could've gotten out of our contract once we realized they were one big headache, we would have done so in a heartbeat. It was a horrible building experience! Now, I am worried about the warranty process based on what I have read. Sounds like most customers had to fix things on their own.

Anonymous wrote:OP here...for the stanley martin and reel homes PPs...did they start off offering any deals or did you have to negotiate for everything from the beginning? Thanks.

Reel Homes poster here. They technically didn't offer deals...it was more like we asked for the price for certain upgrades. They gave us an inflated price and then came back with a "discount" whenever we balked. We realized we were dealing with used car salesman types when we actually looked up some of the items we wanted and saw that they were considerably cheaper on other sites than what they were claiming. We brought it to their attention and they actually accused us fo not trusting them or the item was different (even though it wasn't). They aren't a big builder so they didn't do incentives like the better know ones.

Anonymous wrote:OP here...for the stanley martin and reel homes PPs...did they start off offering any deals or did you have to negotiate for everything from the beginning? Thanks.

Stanley Martin pp here. When we started putting everything together, they were offering a deal to everyone for a free finished basement, or a credit for the value of the basement applied to your project if you didn't plan to finish the basement. The % discount we had to negotiate on our own, and they were willing to do it because we were getting to the end of the fiscal year and they really wanted to get our project on the books for that fiscal year instead of having the contract roll over into the new year.

OP here...for the stanley martin and reel homes PPs...did they start off offering any deals or did you have to negotiate for everything from the beginning? Thanks.

Anonymous wrote:They'll be nicer to you if you don't bring an agent. But just get a rebate agent and take the commission money to spend on your own upgrades.

They may be nice to you walking in like a lamb to the slaughter, yes.
Read up on hoe many people get screwed by builders and then get an agent.

They'll be nicer to you if you don't bring an agent. But just get a rebate agent and take the commission money to spend on your own upgrades.

We used Reel Homes and were able to negotiate down...and then we realized that their mark up was ridiculously high to start with. Even with their "generous discount" we were still paying considerably more than if we bought the same item ourselves. We ended up not upgrading a thing because it felt like such a scam.

Anonymous wrote:OP here...what about custom and semi-custom builders like Stanley Martin Custom Homes, ANV, Classic, etc?

We built with Stanley Martin. We were able to negotiate a % off all options/upgrades, even ones we added after the contract was signed.

OP here...what about custom and semi-custom builders like Stanley Martin Custom Homes, ANV, Classic, etc?

You'll get whatever incentives that the builder is offering at a given time and that's about it.
Builders have to keep prices fairly steady to keep previous buyers in the development from going nuts and keep appraisals steady.

Bring an agent, they have built it into their marketing budget, so you might as well have someone to advocate for you & ensure that you don't get tripped up by the builders contracts, which favor them tremendously.

Has anyone tried to negotiate on the builder's upgrades? If so, do you mind sharing who your builder was and what kind of discount were you able to negotiate? TIA.