My family is in real estate, so I'll just disclose that up front. My experience with new homes bought from builders, you're going to buy in in "phases". The earlier you buy in a development, the lower your price. Of course, that lower price comes with risk-- near my work, there was a development where they sold out the first phase but never finished the neighborhood. By "never finished", I mean that the sewers in the neighborhood don't function and many of the streets were never paved (the builder fled the country and the buyers are SOL.) Builders do plan their phases so they coincide with the traditional real estate calendar (ie, everyone wants to buy and sell in the spring and summer) but in my experience, there's not a lot of wiggle room on price as with a traditional home. The "wiggle room" usually comes in the model you pick, options you select and so on.