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Neighborhoods near the Tournament Players Club of Myrtle Beach are included in the Centex promotion. 

 

    As you can tell from the article below, I am not a fan of complicated offers that potentially set buyer against seller.  The price protection scheme being offered by some builders lasts only a few months at most, between deposit and closing, and sets up a potential argument between buyer and seller over true market value.  Who needs that kind of grief?
    Better is the straight-out discount, where a builder simply drops the price and you, the buyer, can figure out whether he has dropped it enough.  An offer of that sort arrived in our mailbox today from Centex.  This is by no means an endorsement of Centex or its homes, but we do find the offer - and the fine print - to be easier to deal with than price protection.
    Centex is offering its new homes at up to $50,000 off previous prices during its Centextravaganza event the weekend of February 16 - 18 in the Myrtle Beach area.  Along with the discounts on homes that begin in the $200s, Centex has arranged fixed interest loans at 4.875% APR through a local mortgage company.  If you don't have any plans for either of the next two weekends, Centex has a $99 Discovery Getaway package available for a three-night stay (and the obligatory tour of the Centex neighborhoods).  And if you purchase a Centex home during the event, they will reimburse to you at closing up to $1,000 in airfare of what it cost to fly to Myrtle Beach.
    The Centex homes are not at the high end of the market, beginning at under $200,000 and topping out in the $400s.  But some are in favored golf course communities, like the Barefoot Resort in North Myrtle Beach and Linksbrook in Prince Creek, home to the excellent Tom Fazio-designed TPC of Myrtle Beach in Murrell's Inlet, at the south end of the Grand Strand.  You will find more details and the ubiquitous fine print at the Centex web site.

    KB Home, the Ryland Group and other residential home construction companies think they may have found the hook to start selling homes again.  They are using a twist on a marketing ploy long favored by electronics retailers and others, aka the "price protection" guarantee.  Buy a television or stereo unit today and find it somewhere else within 30 days at a lower price, and you get it for that price and, sometimes, up to 10% of the difference as well.
    Homebuilders are desperate, as this new twist appears to demonstrate.  They are offering to protect you
You must purchase a home exactly like your neighbors' on exactly the same size flat piece of property.

against a loss of market value in the home you buy between the time you give them a deposit and the time you close on the house.  If you settle on a contract to buy a $300,000 home today, and the market value of your home drops to, say, $280,000 before closing, KB and Ryland will tear up the contract and give you a new one for the lower price.
    But wait.  The legal footnotes for the KB Home price protection offer (see their web site) indicate that, "Price Protection applies only to KB Home's advertised base price for the same floor plan, elevation and model in the same community." In other words, you must purchase a home exactly like your neighbors' on exactly the same size flat piece of property.  If you want the builder to, say, extend the master bedroom another two feet, or build a pantry into the footprint of the kitchen, forget about price protection.
    Let's say that, for some reason, you are fine with an exact duplicate of your neighbor's house, then who gets into the peeing matching with the builder about the market value of your home, you or your lawyer?  And how much extra will that cost?  And if you and the builder disagree on the market value of your home at closing, is there an out clause that gives you your deposit back?
    This promotion comes with more strings than Pinocchio.  I prefer the free big screen TV, the extra homeowner warranty protection and a no thank you.