The Builder’s Price Cut Doesn’t Show Up in the Comps. Yours Does.
PulteGroup is the third largest homebuilder in the country and Florida is its strongest market. Last quarter it handed back 10.4 percent of the sales price to get houses closed. In what the company calls normal times, that number is 3.0 to 3.5 percent.
That’s not somebody’s estimate from the outside. Pulte’s chief financial officer, Jim Ossowski, said it on the company’s earnings call on July 22.
Here’s why it matters to a Florida homeowner who’s trying to sell, and why it matters a lot more if you owe more than the house is worth.
An Incentive Is a Price Cut That Doesn’t Look Like One
A builder usually won’t drop the sticker price. They pay for something else instead.
They buy the buyer’s mortgage rate down. They cover closing costs. They put upgrades in the house, the flooring or the counters or the lot.
The buyer walks away paying less in real terms. Sometimes a lot less. But the number that goes on the record is the sticker.
So a new construction closing lands on the books at what reads like full price, when the actual deal was tens of thousands cheaper than that.
The Number Has Been Climbing for Two Years
Same company, same measure every time, incentives as a share of the gross sales price.
Around 3.0 to 3.5 percent in normal times. 6.3 percent in the second quarter of 2024. 8.0 percent in the first quarter of 2025. 10.9 percent in the first quarter of this year. And 10.4 percent last quarter.
That last one came down half a point. Pulte said itself it isn’t expecting a sharp improvement from where it’s sitting, so nobody should read that half point as the thing turning around.
Run 10.4 percent against a round $500,000 sale and you get about $52,000. That’s arithmetic on a round number, not a figure Pulte reported. It’s there to give the percentage a size.
A Regular Seller Doesn’t Have That Lever
A builder has a forward commitment with a lender and can buy a rate down with it. You don’t have one of those. And if you’re underwater, there’s nothing to hand across the table at closing either.
The asking price is the only lever you’ve got.
So you cut, and you cut out in the open, and your cut is the one that lands in the record. The builder’s cut doesn’t.
Where This Lands on a Short Sale
A short sale doesn’t turn on what you think the house is worth. It turns on a number your lender picks.
The lender orders a valuation, usually an appraisal or a broker price opinion, and whoever does that work builds the number off recent sales nearby.
Those recent sales are the comps. If the new construction sales around you went on the books at prices nobody really paid, the comp set reads higher than the market actually is. The lender’s number comes back too high. The offer sitting on your table looks too low against it. And the file stalls.
That’s not a theory. That’s the room where these deals get argued.
The Concessions Are Usually Somewhere in the Record
Concessions don’t change the recorded price, but they do generally get disclosed somewhere in the transaction record. Which means they can be found.
Might be worth asking whoever’s representing you to pull the concessions on any new construction comp before that sheet goes to the appraiser or the BPO agent. A comp with $50,000 of buydown sitting inside it isn’t the same house as a comp without one.
That doesn’t guarantee anything. The valuation is the lender’s call and it stays the lender’s call. But an argument built on the transaction record is a different conversation than an argument built on an opinion.
Florida Is Where the Competition Is Heaviest
Pulte’s orders were up 19 percent year over year in Florida last quarter, and Ossowski credited part of the quarter’s better margin to “a greater mix of closings from higher-margin Florida markets.”
So the incentives are working here, the volume is here, and this is where a resale seller is going up against a builder who can pay a buyer’s way in.
One caution before anybody runs with 10.4 percent. That’s one public company reporting on its own business. It’s a big company selling a lot of houses in this state, and it still isn’t a measure of your street, your neighborhood or your county. Don’t take it as a number that describes your market.
Your Options Are the Same Ones They Were
A market number doesn’t change the list, and it never has.
A regular sale, if there’s enough equity left to cover what you owe and the cost of selling. A short sale, which needs your lender’s approval, and nobody can promise you that approval. A deed in lieu. Loss mitigation with your servicer, which might come out as a modification or a repayment plan. Or letting it run to foreclosure.
Each of those lands somewhere different on your credit, on your taxes, and on what you might still owe when it’s over. Florida is a recourse state, so a lender can come after a shortfall here in a way it can’t everywhere. And the tax exclusion on forgiven mortgage debt expired on January 1 of this year, which moved the tax side for a lot of people.
Which one is right for you comes down to legal, tax and credit questions. I’m not your attorney and I’m not your CPA. Those answers belong with people who are.
Falling behind is usually life landing hard on somebody who was fine a year ago. A builder’s incentive budget didn’t cause that and it isn’t going to fix it. It just makes the comps read wrong on the way out, and that’s worth knowing before you’re in the middle of it.
I’m based in Jacksonville and licensed in Florida. Questions come in from other states, and those go back out through the SFR referral network, because I don’t represent anybody outside Florida.
If you’ve got a question, email JimArmstrong904@gmail.com or call or text (904) 671-4161. No obligation, and nothing waiting on the other end of it.
Jim Armstrong, REALTOR - Momentum Realty - SFR (Short Sales and Foreclosure Resource) certified. This is general information, not legal, tax, or financial advice.
Momentum Realty is not associated with the government, and our service is not approved by the government or your lender.
