Matthew Sodel: Who I Represent and What I Can Show You

A builder's on-site sales consultant is paid by the builder and owes their duty to the builder. That isn't a criticism, it's the job description. My side of a new-construction commission is paid at closing out of the builder's marketing budget, which is set whether or not a buyer brings an advisor. Nothing you pay changes because I'm at the table.

What changes is who reads the contract for you. A builder purchase agreement is the builder's own paper, not a state-promulgated form, and the clauses that decide how much risk you carry are the ones people skim: construction delay language, material substitution and price escalation, the deposit forfeiture schedule, binding arbitration, and what the warranty actually excludes.

There is also a sequencing rule that catches people. Most builders will only recognize a buyer's agent if that agent registers you at or before your first visit. Walk into a model home alone on a Saturday and you can lose the ability to bring anyone in later, for that community, permanently. That is worth reading about before you tour anything.

Every claim on this site is meant to resolve to a document you can look at. These are the ones I actually build for buyers.

The Real All-In Cost worksheet reconstructs what a builder's advertised starting price leaves out: lot premium, structural options that must be decided before framing, design center spend, CDD or similar assessments, HOA dues, and the insurance and property tax figures that relocating buyers routinely estimate wrong in both directions.

The Lot Premium Review takes the community site map and works out what you are paying for on one specific homesite, and whether that premium buys something a future buyer will also pay for.

The Upgrade Scorecard sorts design center options into three groups: the ones that are structurally impossible or ruinous to add later, the ones that hold value at resale, and the ones a trade will do for less after closing.

The Floor Plan Worksheet compares plans across builders on measurements that are actually comparable, rather than on marketing square footage that different builders calculate differently.

The Builder Comparison puts Toll Brothers next to the other builders competing for the same buyer in the same corridor, on the criteria that genuinely differ between them.

None of these require you to sign anything with me first.

I spent twenty years working real estate in Boca Raton and Delray Beach before moving to St. Johns County. I made this relocation myself, which means the comparison a South Florida buyer needs is one I have run on my own numbers rather than one I read somewhere.

The surprises are consistent. Homeowners insurance behaves differently here than it does in Palm Beach or Broward County, and the gap is often large enough to change what you can comfortably afford. Property tax runs on the same statewide framework, but portability, the Save Our Homes cap, and a new-construction reassessment that lands after your first year mean the figure quoted at contract is not the figure you pay in year two. CDD assessments are ordinary in master-planned communities up here and rare where you are coming from, and they sit outside the HOA dues rather than inside them.

None of that is an argument against moving. It is an argument for having the arithmetic in front of you before you fall for a floor plan.

I don't publish builder pricing, incentives, or availability that I have not verified. Anything I give you is dated and I will tell you when I checked it. A price band that was accurate in March is a liability by August.

I don't have a favorite builder and I keep no preferred list. If Toll Brothers is the right answer for your situation, I will say so. If a plan from another builder solves the same problem for less, I will say that instead.

I don't forecast the market. Nobody can tell you what rates or St. Johns County prices will do next year, and anyone who claims they can is telling you something about themselves rather than about the market.

I'm not your lender, your CPA, your insurance agent, or your attorney. I will tell you when a question belongs to one of them, which I would rather do than guess in front of you.

Florida real estate license SL3216518, held under Highlight Realty. You can verify it yourself through the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation's public license search. You should not have to take my word for it, and you should run the same check on any agent you are considering.

Certified New Home Specialist. This is a training designation covering builder contracts, construction sequencing, and how a new-home transaction differs from a resale. It is worth being precise about what it is not: it is not a state credential, and no builder awards, endorses, or accredits it. What it means is that I was trained for the new-construction transaction rather than treating it as a resale with a longer closing.

Twenty years working South Florida real estate before St. Johns County.

Buyer representation only in new construction. I hold no builder listings, and I am not the site agent for any community described on this website.

If you have not toured anything yet, this is the simple version. Call or text 561-504-4798, or email matthew@newhomesjax.com, and we will spend twenty minutes on which communities are genuinely in play for what you want to spend, and on what registering does and does not commit you to.

If you have already registered somewhere, tell me where and when. It is not always fatal, and it is far better to find out now than at contract.

If you are still in South Florida, we can do the first pass by phone and screen share. I have run this comparison from that end many times.

Page last reviewed August 12, 2026. Builder policies, community details, and cost structures change, so anything time-sensitive on this site carries its own check date.