New Construction · D.R. Horton
Who’s on your side of the table?
D.R. Horton builds a great deal of what this coast actually needs. Buying one is simply a different process from buying a resale — and the agent in the model home works for them.
First, the fair part
D.R. Horton builds what this market actually needs
They are the largest homebuilder in the country, and they are building right across this coast — 440 homes for sale as we write this, from Panama City and Panama City Beach through Freeport and Port St. Joe, and west into Crestview, Milton and Gulf Breeze.
What they do well is build to the market rather than above it. In a region where the coast has priced a lot of working families out, that matters. Their incentives are usually real money too — rate buydowns and help with closing costs that an individual seller can rarely match.
We have sold several of their homes and we know their system. The houses are not what surprises people. The process is. It runs on the builder’s own contract rather than the standard Florida form, and it has four moments where a door quietly closes.
Where they are building
Find a D.R. Horton home in your area
Every one of these is live from the MLS and updates itself. Pick the town you are looking in, or see the whole list.
Gulf County
Okaloosa County
Santa Rosa County
Walton County
Washington County
Moment One · Before you write an offer
The agent in the model home works for the builder
This is not a criticism and it is not hidden — D.R. Horton’s purchase agreement states it plainly. The seller acts as its own broker, and its sales agents represent the seller only. They are good at their jobs. They are simply not on your side of the table.
D.R. Horton will pay a co-broker fee to an agent representing you, but only where two things are already in place: a buyer brokerage agreement between you and that agent, and a Co-Broker Addendum signed by all three parties. There is a box on the contract that reads Co-Broker or No Co-Broker.
Which box gets ticked is decided before you ever sit down to write an offer. Bring us with you to the first visit and it is settled correctly, at no cost to you.
Talk to us before your first visitIt costs you nothing — on a D.R. Horton purchase the co-broker fee is paid by the builder.
Moment Two · While it is being built
You cannot simply drop by, even under contract
This surprises nearly everyone. Once your home is under way you do not have free run of it — visits are by appointment, arranged through the builder.
There is a straightforward reason. It is an active job site with trades working in it, and the agreement treats unauthorized entry onto the lot as a material breach of your contract. If you want your own contractor to look at something, they need a liability policy naming the builder as additional insured.
None of that is the builder being difficult; it is how any construction site has to run. It does mean that seeing your own house takes planning — and that scheduling is part of what we do.
Moment Three · Before closing
Hire a home inspector anyway
People think: it is brand new, what is there to inspect? Plenty. New homes have problems too — a hundred trades pass through a house before it is finished — and a good inspector finds them.
Here is the part worth knowing, and it is to D.R. Horton’s credit: they will normally fix what an inspector turns up, provided it is not purely cosmetic. A few hundred dollars for an inspection turns into a list of repairs completed before the house is yours.
Remember the appointment rule above. An inspection has to be booked in, which means deciding early rather than the week of closing.
Moment Four · The walkthrough
The list you make that day is the list
Just before closing you walk the finished house with the builder, and together you write a Punch List of what will be corrected. D.R. Horton’s obligation to complete those items survives closing, and in our experience they honor it.
The contract is just as clear the other way. They are not required to correct anything that is not on a signed Punch List. Closing will not be delayed for punch items, no money is held back at closing against them, and if you do not attend the walkthrough you are still obliged to close.
So take your time, and bring your inspector back with you if you can. Anything that fails in the first year is covered by the one-year warranty, which is a separate thing and a real one. But anything you can see — a scuff, a gap, a door that does not sit right — goes on the list that day, or it is yours.
What we actually do
Four moments, and we are there for all of them
We come with you to the first visit, so representation is settled before it becomes a question. We handle the paperwork that has to exist for it — the brokerage agreement and the Co-Broker Addendum — and we read the addenda attached to your contract rather than initialing past them.
We book the site visits and the inspection, and we tell you which findings are worth pressing and which are not. And we walk the house with you before closing, slowly, with the contract in mind, because that is the last hour in which anything cosmetic gets added to the fix list.
None of this costs you anything. On a D.R. Horton purchase the co-broker fee is paid by the builder — provided the paperwork was done at the start.
D.R. Horton on the Emerald Coast
Have a look, then let us walk it with you
Every D.R. Horton home currently on the market across our five counties, straight from the MLS. Tell us which ones you want to see and we will set it up — and we will be with you from the first visit to the punch list.
Listing counts come from the Emerald Coast MLS and change daily. Descriptions of the purchase process are drawn from D.R. Horton’s own contract documents and from our experience selling their homes; they are general guidance rather than legal advice, and your own contract governs your purchase. We are transaction brokers.