A Chatham-Kent homebuilder has taken a bold step to help put the brakes on rising house prices, which has also made some new home buyers very happy.
To help spur growth, Maple City Homes is freezing prices on the new houses it builds this year in The Meadows subdivision in Chatham while giving rebates of as much as $80,000 on 14 homes previously sold above the new fixed price of $599,900.
“Our mandate when we started this was to maintain our young population and attract more labor forces here so more businesses would come,” said Robb Nelson, partner and president of Maple City Homes.
The first thing to do in order to help the broader community stay strong and flourish is provide housing at the right price, he added.
After selling 14 homes over its new fixed price of $599,900, the company did some market studies and realized that soaring home prices wouldn’t help “attract people here to Chatham-Kent,” Nelson said.
“We’re not going to be competitive,” he said. “We’ve agreed with the market. You can’t be more expensive than this. This is the top end – let’s stop all this – and somebody had to lead it and we thought that position was us at the moment.”
Nelson said fixed pricing means buyers can know exactly what they can afford while avoiding bidding wars or other unforeseen costs.
Megan Canniff, a realtor with Keller Williams Lifestyle Realty that works exclusively with Maple City Homes, was given the fun task of informing the 14 homebuyers they were getting a rebate on their purchase price.
“Those are definitely phone calls you enjoy making,” she said.
She said an email was first sent to the purchasers, prompting a few phone calls from people asking: “Is this for real? Is this actually happening?”
Canniff said people were happy, describing their shocked responses as “extreme gratitude.”
The price freeze will last until the end of the year and possibly longer.
Nelson said looking to the foreseeable future, “we still see there are enough margins there to say, ‘We can hold our pricing for quite some time.’”
He added Maple City Homes has the advantage of owning the land it’s developing while enjoying a strong relationship with the local skilled trades.
Recent economic development announcements locally and in the region have positioned Chatham-Kent well for future growth, so Nelson said homes are going to be in high demand.
He said Maple City Homes intends to implement the same pricing model for a planned subdivision on the north side of Park Avenue West in Chatham that will feature a mix of less expensive homes as well as a planned condominium development in Blenheim.
“We hope to see this concept spread throughout other communities – it’s the right thing to do,” said Nelson. “It makes sense for us and our partners to work together to keep our communities thriving so that everyone can benefit from growth.”