New Construction or Resale in Central Florida: Run the Monthly Payment Math Before You Decide

By Brenden Rendo, Realtor · Updated August 28, 2026

Walk into a model home in Clermont or Horizon West this month and the sales office will show you a rate that starts with a 4 or a low 5. Drive ten minutes to a resale neighborhood and your lender quotes you something near 6.66%. Same buyer, same month, two very different monthly payments. That spread is the real story in Central Florida right now, and most buyers are comparing sticker prices when they should be comparing payments. Here is the math, worked all the way through.

1. The Sticker-Price Gap Has Mostly Closed

For decades the rule of thumb was that new construction cost meaningfully more than a comparable resale home. That rule is broken in 2026. Per the U.S. Census Bureau and HUD Monthly New Residential Sales report, the median sales price of a new home sold in July 2026 was $393,800, down 0.9% from a year earlier and the lowest reading in roughly five years. The national existing-home median has run above the new-home median for four consecutive quarters.

Here is why. Builders responded to slow demand by shrinking floor plans, building further out, and discounting through incentives rather than list price. New single-family sales ran at a 607,000 annual pace in July, soft enough that builders are competing for the same rate-squeezed buyer the resale market wants.

Locally, the comparison is community by community. Orlando-area MLS trackers put the metro resale median around $408,000 in mid-August 2026, down a bit over 2.00% year over year. New-build base prices in the growth corridors, Clermont and Minneola along US-27, Horizon West and Apopka in Orange County, and the Deltona-DeBary corridor in Volusia, frequently start below that number. Seminole County is the outlier: it is mostly built out, new supply is infill and limited, and the county remains primarily a resale market.

2. The Worked Example: Payment Math Side by Side

Take two real-world scenarios I see weekly. A buyer is choosing between a $400,000 resale home in Winter Springs or Deltona at the open-market rate, and a $420,000 new build in Clermont where the builder's lender offers a permanent buydown to 5.49%. Both put 10% down. Principal and interest only:

The home that costs $20,000 more carries a payment roughly $170 per month lower. That is the entire argument for shopping payments instead of prices. It is also why builders advertise rates instead of price cuts: a buydown moves the monthly number without moving the comp set their appraisers and future buyers will see.

3. What a Builder Buydown Is Actually Worth

The data backs up how large this lever has become. Optimal Blue rate-lock data reported in the mortgage trade press shows borrowers using builder-affiliated lenders locking at a weighted average near 5.23%, roughly 137 basis points below the average at non-builder lenders. Against the Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey average of 6.66% for the week of August 27, 2026, that spread on a $360,000 loan is worth approximately $272 per month, or on the order of $98,000 in payments over a full 30-year hold.

Two checks before you take it. First, confirm whether the buydown is permanent or temporary. A permanent buydown holds for the life of the loan. A 2-1 temporary buydown cuts the rate two points in year one and one point in year two, then resets to the full note rate in year three. If your budget only works at the year-one payment, the loan does not actually fit. Second, price the incentive against a price reduction. A builder paying roughly $15,000 to $25,000 in points to buy your rate down is spending real money; sometimes taking the same dollars off the price, then refinancing later if rates fall, is the stronger position. Which wins depends on how long you plan to hold, so run both.

4. The Costs the Sales Office Does Not Lead With

CDD assessments. Most large new communities in the four-county area fund their roads, utilities, and amenities with Community Development District bonds. The repayment rides on your property tax bill, commonly $1,000 to $3,000 per year in the newer master-planned communities around Horizon West, Clermont, Minneola, and Deltona, and many CDD schedules run 20 to 30 years. That is $85 to $250 per month that never appears in the model-home payment flyer.

The year-two tax jump. In Florida, a new build's first tax bill is often assessed on the land alone because the home was not complete on January 1. Your lender sets the escrow off that artificially low bill. In year two the county assesses the full improved value, the escrow account comes up short, and the monthly payment can jump by several hundred dollars. This is the single most common payment shock I see new-construction buyers hit, and it is entirely predictable.

The base price is not the sale price. Lot premiums, design-center upgrades, and window coverings, landscaping, and appliances that resale homes simply include can add 5% to 15% to the advertised base. Comp the finished spec against finished resale, not base price against list price.

One cost that favors new construction: insurance. A home built to the current Florida building code with a brand-new roof typically earns meaningful wind mitigation credits, while a resale home with a 15-year-old roof can struggle to place coverage at all. In an insurance market like ours, that difference can run well over $100 per month, and it partially offsets the CDD drag. Get real quotes on both properties before you compare.

5. Where Resale Wins the Math

Negotiating leverage is the resale market's version of a buydown. Orlando sat at 4.4 months of supply in July 2026 per the Orlando Regional REALTOR® Association, and the metro median is down a little over 2.00% year over year. Sellers of homes past 60 days on market are cutting prices and paying concessions. A seller-paid concession can fund your own permanent buydown: the same $15,000 that a builder spends on points can come out of a motivated resale seller instead. Browse the current Orange County, Seminole County, Volusia County, and Lake County price-reduction pages to see where that leverage sits this week.

Location is usually structural, not cosmetic. Resale inventory dominates the established school zones and commute corridors: Lake Mary, Oviedo, Winter Park, Tuscawilla, Altamonte Springs. New construction at a comparable price generally means more driving, and in Seminole County there is often no new-build alternative at all.

Carrying costs are leaner. Older neighborhoods frequently carry HOA dues under $50 per month and no CDD. Against a new community charging $120 in HOA plus $150 in CDD, the resale home starts each month roughly $200 ahead before the rate spread is counted.

The honest offset is the repair reserve. A 20-year-old home needs a budget line for the roof, HVAC, and water heater. The standard planning figure of about 1% of home value per year, roughly $333 per month on a $400,000 house, is a fair number to carry in the comparison, and a 4-Point inspection will tell you whether the big-ticket items are near end of life before you write the offer.

6. What Buyers, Sellers, and Investors Should Do With This

Buyers: price both paths as complete monthly payments, not sticker prices. That means principal and interest at the actual quoted rate, taxes at the full year-two assessment, real insurance quotes on both structures, plus HOA, CDD, and a repair reserve on the resale side. Get pre-approved with an outside lender first so the builder lender's offer has a benchmark. The payment table above flips in either direction depending on those inputs, which is exactly why the work is worth doing.

Sellers: if your home competes with a new-construction corridor, in Clermont, Apopka, Deltona, or anywhere along US-27, you are competing against a 5.23% average builder rate, not just against list prices. Answer it the way builders do: offer a concession earmarked for the buyer's rate buydown instead of an equivalent price cut. It targets the number buyers actually shop on. Start with an honest read of your value from our home value estimator, then price to close in 30 days, not to test the market.

Investors: CDD assessments come straight out of cash flow for the life of the bond, and they do not care what your rent roll looks like. A resale purchase in an established no-CDD neighborhood, bought with a price reduction and a seller concession, will usually underwrite better than a new build with a teaser rate, unless the builder incentive is large enough to clear the spread. Run the deal at the year-two tax bill, never year one.

For the broader context behind these numbers, county-level pricing, inventory, and rate trends, the Central Florida housing market hub stays current month to month.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are new construction homes cheaper than resale homes in 2026?

On sticker price, the historic gap has mostly closed. The U.S. median new-home price was $393,800 in July 2026 per the Census Bureau, which is below the national existing-home median. In Central Florida the comparison depends on the community: base prices in Clermont, Deltona, or Apopka can undercut nearby resale, but lot premiums, upgrades, CDD fees, and closing costs can push the all-in number back above a comparable resale home. Run the monthly payment, not the sticker price.

How much does a builder rate buydown actually save per month?

Rate-lock data shows builder-affiliated lenders averaging roughly 5.23%, about 137 basis points below the market average near 6.66% (Freddie Mac, week of August 27, 2026). On a $360,000 loan, that spread is worth approximately $272 per month in principal and interest. Verify whether the buydown is permanent or temporary, and compare it against taking a price reduction instead.

What is a CDD fee and which Central Florida communities have them?

A CDD (Community Development District) fee repays the bonds that funded a new community's roads, utilities, and amenities. It appears on your property tax bill on top of regular taxes and HOA dues, commonly $1,000 to $3,000 per year in newer master-planned communities around Horizon West, Clermont, Minneola, and the Deltona corridor. Many CDD assessments run 20 to 30 years. Older resale neighborhoods in Seminole County frequently have no CDD at all.

Should I use the builder's preferred lender?

Usually the incentive is tied to it, so start there but do not stop there. Get the builder lender's full loan estimate, then have an outside lender quote the same scenario. If the outside lender beats the builder's effective rate by more than the incentive is worth, the incentive is not really an incentive. I spent years on the lending side, and the loan estimate comparison takes one afternoon and can save five figures.