Working with a builder? Read this before your first visit.

The first-visit registration rule

Production builders don’t cooperate through the MLS the way resale does. Each one runs its own broker participation policy, which is a private contract between the builder and the cooperating brokerage. Almost all of them hang payment on a single event: the buyer being registered to that agent at or before the buyer’s first contact with that community.

Mechanically it works like this. You walk into a model home or a sales center and sign in on a card or a tablet. That form asks whether you’re working with an agent. Your answer creates a timestamped record tied to that community — registration is usually per-community, not per-builder. Toll Brothers says so explicitly: registration happens on the client’s first visit to each Toll Brothers community. Registrations then expire, commonly after 30, 60 or 90 days, and have to be renewed in writing before they lapse.

Two things catch people out:

• A virtual visit or an online inquiry can start the clock. Lennar’s policy expressly covers visits “whether in person or virtually” and instructs agents to register a client during their initial contact. Filling in an online sales counselor’s form can be the triggering event.
• Whether your agent gets paid and whether your agent can help are two different questions. No Florida statute stops you hiring an agent at any point. What the registration rule controls is whether the builder compensates them. In practice, if the builder won’t pay, most agents step away — and you end up unrepresented on the largest purchase of your life.

So the operative instruction is one sentence: name your agent before you fill in anything — the sign-in card, the online form, the QR code at the model.

What each builder actually says

Most agent websites assert “bring your agent to the first visit.” Very few quote the builders saying it. Here is what these builders publish themselves, with an honest note on how confident we are in each.

Quotations are from each builder’s own public agent or consumer pages, reviewed September 2026. Builder policies change, and divisions differ. Treat this table as a reason to ask the question, not as the final word — always confirm the current policy with the specific community before you visit.

If you already went without an agent

There are narrow paths that sometimes work. None of them is a right; all of them are discretion:

1. Registration expiry. Builder-side registrations lapse too — 30 days at Richmond American, 90 at Toll. Some divisions will honor a new agent registration once the prior record has expired and you’ve gone cold.
2. Sales-manager discretion. Builders value their REALTOR® relationships and will occasionally make an exception to protect one. Ask the sales manager, not the on-site rep, and ask before you write anything.
3. A different community. Registration is typically per-community. Burned at one, you can still register properly at the same builder’s community down the road.
4. A different builder. Often the cleanest fix, and in this market there is a lot of inventory to choose from.
5. Meritage. Their published policy is the one designed to work in exactly this situation.
6. Hire representation directly. If no co-op is available, an agent can still be engaged on a flat fee for contract review, inspection coordination, design-center strategy, and walkthrough advocacy. That’s an honest offer, not a consolation prize.

Who the on-site agent represents

This matters more than it sounds. Under section 475.278 of the Florida Statutes, all licensees are presumed to operate as transaction brokers unless a single-agent or no-brokerage relationship is established in writing — and Florida prohibits dual agency outright. Under “no brokerage relationship,” the licensee owes you exactly three duties: deal honestly and fairly, disclose known material facts about the property that aren’t readily observable, and account for funds. Nothing about loyalty. Nothing about confidentiality. Nothing about advocating on your price.

So the accurate framing is this: the person in the model home may be a licensed Florida professional and completely honest, and still be legally barred from telling you that the builder would take less, or which lot is the problem lot. That isn’t a character judgment. It’s the statutory relationship.

Builder contract vs. Florida resale contract

The standard FAR/BAR contracts assume the home already exists. Builder contracts are proprietary documents drafted by the builder’s counsel, and they routinely differ in ways that cost real money.

What actually moves, and what never does

Usually negotiable: incentive dollars (closing-cost credits, design-center allowance, rate buydown), which spec home, lot premium on slow-moving lots, appliance and blind packages, timeline commitments, escrow holdback for punch-list items, and a written addendum preserving your right to a third-party inspection.

Usually not: the architecture of the form itself — arbitration, material-substitution rights, the builder’s warranty program, the required closing agent, and the base price. Builders defend base price hardest, because it sets the appraisal comparables for the rest of the community.

The deposit clause worth reading twice

Price escalation clauses

Clauses passing through material cost increases between signing and ordering appeared during the 2021–22 supply shock and have not gone away. What to negotiate is a percentage cap above which you can either accept the increase or void and get your deposit back. A 5% cap on a $600,000 contract means up to $30,000 flows through automatically before you get any say. Ask for the materials list priced as of the contract date.

Rate buydowns and the preferred lender

The magnitude in 2026 is genuinely large. Lennar reported an average incentive of $54,947 per home in Q2 2026 — 12.9% of sales price, against $12,074 in Q3 2022. Nationally, the NAHB/Wells Fargo survey found 63% of builders using sales incentives in August 2026, with 35% cutting prices outright by an average of 6%.

But a 5.25% rate from a builder’s lender when the open market is near 6.76% is not free money. It’s prepaid interest, funded by the builder, recovered in the price. Five things to check before you decide:

1. Permanent or temporary? A 2-1 or 3-2-1 buydown lowers your payment for two or three years then resets to the note rate. A permanent buydown lowers it for the life of the loan. They get marketed with the same headline number. Get the answer in writing on the Loan Estimate.
2. Run it apples to apples. Get a Loan Estimate from the builder’s lender and one outside lender, same lock period, same credit. Compare note rate, lender credits and points, APR, and cash to close — then subtract the forfeited incentive from the outside scenario.
3. It doesn’t lower the recorded price. The house closes at full price with a credit. That sets the comparable. Your buydown does not transfer to the next buyer.
4. Watch the deadline. Buydown blocks are tied to specific inventory and hard contract windows. That’s where the pressure comes from.
5. Check the stack. Builders often also steer title and closing to an affiliate, and shift the owner’s policy and doc stamps to you.

Upgrades: what holds value and what doesn’t

The line that matters is pre-construction versus post-construction. Structural options must be chosen before permitting and slab, and are effectively irreversible: elevation, extended or bonus rooms, an extra bedroom or bath, third-car or tandem garage, lanai extension and whether it’s under truss, pool and gas stubs, summer-kitchen rough-in, ceiling height, window and slider placement, electrical rough-in (ceiling fan boxes, floor outlets, an EV-ready 240V circuit), plumbing locations, and impact glass versus shutters.

Lot selection is the other irreversible decision — orientation (west-facing rear glass in Florida is a real cooling-load and lanai-usability problem), retention-pond and conservation adjacency, whether the lot backs a future phase or a future road, and whether the premium is recoverable.

The rule of thumb: buy the things drywall covers. Buy the rest at retail later. Design-center dollars are typically marked up well above retail and then financed at your mortgage rate for thirty years. The arithmetic changes completely when you’re spending the builder’s credit rather than your own money — which is exactly the calculation your agent should be running with you in the room.

Inspecting a brand-new house

Roughly $850–$1,300 all in, against findings that commonly run into the thousands. The recurring Florida issues are duct leakage, insulation gaps, stucco cracking and window-flashing detail, hurricane strap and fastener defects, and improper grading on flat lots. Cost and finding figures come from inspection-industry sources — treat them as typical ranges, not guarantees.

Some builders resist, and pre-closing the legal footing is theirs — it’s their property until title transfers, so they control site access. Documented tactics include refusing pre-drywall access, demanding very high liability limits from the inspector, or allowing observation only. Which is precisely why this is a contract issue, not a walkthrough issue: inspection access needs to be written into an addendum at signing. That single addendum is one of the most concrete things a buyer’s agent adds on a new build.

What the warranty really covers

The private “1-2-10” structure, administered by third parties like 2-10 HBW or StrucSure or self-administered by the builder, works out as:

• Year 1 — workmanship and materials. Where essentially all real-world complaints live: drywall, paint, trim, tile, doors, grading, cosmetic issues.
• Years 1–2 — distribution systems. The wiring, piping and ductwork. Note: the ductwork and piping, not the equipment — your air handler and condenser are covered by manufacturer warranty.
• Years 3–10 — major structural defects only. Load-bearing elements, at a threshold typically requiring the defect to make the home unsafe or unlivable.

So a ten-year warranty is not ten years of coverage on your house. It is ten years on the skeleton, and years one and two carry everything a homeowner actually calls about.

One more thing worth knowing: Florida’s statute of repose for construction defect claims dropped from ten years to seven under SB 360, effective 1 July 2024, and the clock now runs from the earliest of temporary CO, CO, certificate of completion, or abandonment. Your window to bring a defect claim is shorter than the brochure’s “10-year warranty” suggests, and it starts before you move in.

CDD fees, explained properly

The assessment has two parts, and conflating them is the most common mistake in consumer content:

In Central Florida’s growth corridors — Horizon West, Lake Nona, ChampionsGate, much of Osceola and Polk — single-family CDD assessments commonly run $1,500 to $3,000 a year, on top of HOA dues. Established neighborhoods like Winter Park, Isleworth, Keene’s Pointe and Heathrow generally have none.

Why buyers get blindsided, even though disclosure is mandatory

This is the sharp irony. Section 190.048 of the Florida Statutes requires that the contract for the initial sale of a home inside a CDD carry, in boldfaced conspicuous type immediately before the signature line, a notice that the district “may impose and levy taxes or assessments” that are “in addition to county and other local governmental taxes and assessments.”

So why the surprise? Because the disclosure names no dollar amount. It’s a legal notice, not a budget. You sign it on the day you pick your lot, inside a forty-page package, and meet the actual number a year later when the tax bill arrives. Three more traps compound it:

• Escrow shock. Your lender escrows for “taxes,” and the CDD sits inside that number. The estimated payment you shopped with on a portal usually models ad valorem taxes only.
• Year one is artificially low. The first bill is often partial-year, or still assessed on unimproved land value, before homestead exemption and the Save Our Homes cap apply. Years two and three are the real number.
• Non-payment is treated like unpaid property taxes, not like an HOA late fee — meaning the tax-certificate process, not a collections letter.

What to get in writing before you sign: the district name, the current-year debt service and O&M amounts for that specific lot, the bond maturity year, the payoff amount, and whether O&M has risen over the last three budget cycles. All of it is public record from the district manager. Lot-level amounts can vary by $500–$2,500 within the same community, because debt is allocated by lot size and product type — which is why the only number worth trusting is the one for your actual parcel. Pulling that is a concrete, checkable thing your agent should do for you.

Is 2026 a good time to buy new construction?

The supporting numbers, as of mid-2026: new homes for sale nationally hit 488,000 units — 9.6 months’ supply in July 2026 against a historically balanced level around six, with the South alone holding 301,000 of them and 101,000 already completed. The NAHB/Wells Fargo builder confidence index sat at 35 in August 2026, its 16th consecutive month below 40, with the South at 31.

But two risks belong in the same breath:

1. You’re buying into a community where the builder next door is still discounting. Incentives don’t reduce the recorded sale price — a buydown closes at full price with a credit, so it sets the comp. If you buy into a phase with 200 lots left, you’re competing with the builder’s 2027 and 2028 pricing when you go to resell. Which community, which phase, how many lots remain, and whether the builder is still discounting there is the single highest-value question — and it’s one the on-site rep is structurally unable to answer against their own interest.
2. The incentive is the negotiation. Base price is defended. Go after the buydown, the closing credit, the design allowance, closing-cost allocation, and a completed spec — in that order.