Published August 30, 2026 · By Chris Nevada, Nevada Real Estate Group · NV License S.181401
A builder model home is not a house for sale. It is a sales tool, professionally staged, fully optioned, and built to make you feel something before you have read a single line of a contract. That is not a criticism — it is the job the building was designed to do.
The problem is that most buyers tour one, fall for it, and then sign a purchase agreement believing they are buying what they walked through. They are not. In the video above we walk Woodside Homes' Haven Plan 4 at Dove Rock in Summerlin West and stop at every point where the model diverges from what a buyer actually receives.
A Las Vegas model home typically carries $60,000 to $150,000 in options that are not in the base price, disclosed only on a printed features list most buyers never ask for. The base house usually excludes the refrigerator, washer, dryer, window coverings, backyard landscaping and most flooring upgrades. You also owe a lot premium, HOA dues, and in most Summerlin West neighborhoods a SID or LID assessment that follows the parcel.
- Ask for the model's option sheet in writing before you tour — it lists every upgrade and its price.
- Refrigerator, washer, dryer and window coverings are excluded by most Las Vegas builders.
- Backyard landscaping runs $15,000 to $45,000 and is almost never in the base price.
- Summerlin West and Cadence parcels commonly carry SID or LID balances of $8,000 to $30,000.
- Lot premiums of $25,000 to $100,000 are quoted separately from the plan price.
What Does a Model Home Actually Include in the Price?
Almost none of what makes it feel special.
Every production builder in the Las Vegas valley builds its models to the top of the option list. That is a rational marketing decision — a model finished to base spec would sell nothing — but it creates a systematic gap between what a buyer sees and what a buyer buys. The gap is not hidden, exactly. It is disclosed on a document called the option sheet or included-features list, and in our experience most buyers never ask for it and are never handed it unprompted.
Walk into a model and the things that produce the emotional reaction are, in rough order: the flooring, the kitchen backsplash and countertop, the cabinetry height and finish, the lighting package, the built-ins, the paint, and the staged furniture. Of those seven, the furniture is not for sale at all, and five of the remaining six are usually options.
| What you saw in the model | Usually in the base price? | Typical cost to add |
|---|---|---|
| Upgraded flooring throughout | No — base is often carpet with tile in wet areas | $8,000 – $25,000 |
| Quartz counters and full backsplash | Counters sometimes; backsplash rarely | $3,500 – $12,000 |
| Double-stacked or ceiling-height cabinetry | No | $4,000 – $15,000 |
| Premium appliance package | Range and dishwasher yes; refrigerator no | $2,500 – $18,000 |
| Washer and dryer | No | $1,600 – $4,000 |
| Window coverings | No | $3,000 – $9,000 |
| Backyard landscaping and hardscape | No | $15,000 – $45,000 |
| Staged furniture and art | Not for sale | Not applicable |
Add the middle column up and a fully-optioned Las Vegas model routinely sits $60,000 to $150,000 above its own base price. On a $600,000 plan that is a 10% to 25% difference between the house you fell in love with and the house on the contract.
Why Do Builders Not Simply Include These Things?
Because the base price is the number that has to win the online search, and every buyer comparison starts there.
When a shopper filters new construction by price, the builder that shows $549,900 gets the click and the builder that shows $624,900 does not — even if the second number includes flooring, blinds and a refrigerator and the first does not. According to the National Association of Home Builders, option and upgrade revenue is a standard and significant component of production-builder margin, which means the incentive to keep the advertised base lean is structural rather than deceptive.
That distinction matters for how you should behave. Nobody is lying to you. The information is in the documents. But the documents are only produced if you ask, and the sales office is not organized around volunteering them.
The single most useful sentence you can say in a model home is: "Can I have the option sheet for this model and the included-features list for the base plan?" Both exist as printed documents. Asking for them costs nothing and changes the entire conversation, because you are now comparing two written lists instead of a memory of granite you touched twenty minutes ago.
What Did the Haven Plan 4 Tour Actually Reveal?
The tour at the top of this page is a useful worked example because Dove Rock is a current Summerlin West community and the plan is a mainstream, mid-size product rather than a luxury outlier.
Haven Plan 4 by Woodside Homes runs roughly 2,200 square feet with three to four bedrooms, two and a half baths, a two-car garage and an optional upstairs loft. Its distinguishing feature is an unusual site layout — the garage sits toward the front and the private home entry toward the back, which produces a more secluded front door than a standard tract elevation.
The buyer-relevant findings from walking it:
- The kitchen photographs as premium — quartz counters, Monogram appliances, double-stacked cabinetry. Verify each of those individually against the included-features list rather than as a package.
- The loft is optional, not standard. A flexible upstairs space is one of the most common option-versus-standard confusions in two-story Las Vegas plans, because the model is always built with it.
- The primary suite includes dual closets and a private balcony. Balconies in particular are frequently elevation-dependent, meaning they exist on some exterior styles and not others at the same plan and price.
- Sideyard delivery is a defined term. How the builder finishes the side of the house — gravel, pavers, or nothing at all — is specified in the contract and is a common source of post-close surprise.
- Washer, dryer and refrigerator were excluded, which is the industry norm in this valley and not specific to this builder.
Everything in that list is knowable before you write an offer. None of it is knowable from the walkthrough alone.
How Much Do Lot Premiums Add in Summerlin West?
More than most buyers budget for, and they are quoted separately from the plan price.
A lot premium is what the builder charges for a homesite that is better than the worst homesite in the release — bigger, a corner, a view corridor, backing open space instead of another house's block wall. In Summerlin and Summerlin West specifically, premiums commonly run $25,000 to $100,000, and view lots in the higher villages can exceed that.
Two things to understand about them:
- The premium persists into resale. A buyer three years from now will also pay more for the same view, so a lot premium is closer to an investment than an upgrade. This is the opposite of most design-center spending.
- The premium is not financed differently. It is part of the purchase price, so it is inside the mortgage and inside the appraisal — which also means the appraiser has to support it.
What Are SIDs and LIDs and Why Do They Follow the House?
They are the Las Vegas cost that out-of-state buyers almost never see coming.
Special Improvement Districts and Local Improvement Districts finance infrastructure — roads, sewer, streetlights, flood control — across many valley master plans, including much of Summerlin West and Henderson. The critical mechanic is that the balance attaches to the parcel, not the owner. Buy the house and you inherit the remaining assessment.
A typical unpaid balance runs $8,000 to $30,000, repaid through an annual installment that functions like a second tax bill. According to the Nevada Department of Taxation, these assessments are levied under a statutory framework distinct from ordinary ad valorem property tax, and according to the Clark County Assessor, parcel records are the place to confirm what is attached to a specific lot.
What to do about it, in order:
- Ask the sales office for the SID/LID balance on your specific lot, in writing. Not the community average — your parcel.
- Ask whether the builder is paying it off at closing as an incentive. Some do in slow releases; it is a real and negotiable concession.
- Decide whether to pay it off yourself. Paying it down removes a monthly obligation but the money is not recoverable at resale the way a lot premium is.
What Does the HOA Actually Cost in a Summerlin West Village?
Usually more than one number, because there is usually more than one association.
Summerlin West communities frequently carry a master association covering the broader master plan plus a sub-association covering the individual village, and a buyer owes both. Each is disclosed separately, and the sales office will often quote whichever is smaller when asked casually for "the HOA."
Ask instead: "What is my total monthly obligation across every association, and what is the current reserve study status for each?" The reserve question matters because an underfunded association is a future special assessment, and according to Nevada Revised Statutes Chapter 116, Nevada common-interest communities operate under specific reserve-study and disclosure requirements you are entitled to review during your resale-package window.
What Should You Ask Before You Sign a Builder Contract?
Nine questions, all answerable in one sales-office visit.
| Ask this | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| May I have the option sheet for this model? | Converts everything you admired into a priced list |
| May I have the included-features list for the base plan? | The other half of the same comparison |
| What is the lot premium on the specific homesite? | Quoted separately; can be $25,000 to $100,000 |
| What is the SID or LID balance on this parcel? | Follows the property, not the seller |
| What is the total monthly HOA across all associations? | Master plus sub-association is the norm here |
| How is the sideyard delivered? | A defined contract term and a common post-close surprise |
| Are the refrigerator, washer and dryer included? | Usually not; budget $4,100 to $22,000 |
| Is the backyard landscaped or delivered as dirt? | $15,000 to $45,000 that is rarely in the base |
| Is the incentive tied to using the builder's lender? | Determines whether the rate buydown is really free |
Are Builder Incentives Worth Taking?
Frequently yes, and they are the most misunderstood number in a new-build transaction.
In the current rate environment, most Las Vegas builders push incentive money toward a rate buydown routed through their affiliated lender rather than toward a price cut. Buyers often read that as a worse deal because the sale price does not move. Run the arithmetic and it usually is not.
A buydown that lowers a $500,000 loan from 6.75% to 5.5% saves roughly $400 a month, which is about $144,000 across a 30-year term and far more than the $15,000 to $25,000 price concession the same builder would resist giving. According to Freddie Mac, rate movements of that magnitude dominate monthly-payment math in a way headline price reductions rarely match.
The catch worth checking. Incentives are almost always conditioned on financing through the builder's lender, whose base rate may start higher than what an outside lender quotes. The honest comparison is the builder's bought-down rate against an outside lender's market rate, on the same loan amount, with both sets of closing costs — not the buydown against a headline advertised rate. According to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, you are entitled to a Loan Estimate from any lender, which is the document that makes that comparison apples-to-apples.
Which Upgrades Are Worth Buying Through the Builder?
The ones that are structural, hidden, or genuinely painful to retrofit.
The rule that holds up across the 9,600+ closings Nevada Real Estate Group has represented statewide, including 789 transactions in 2025: buy anything through the builder that lives inside a wall, under a slab, or in the roof structure. Buy almost nothing that could be installed by a contractor after you move in.
- Worth it through the builder — additional electrical and data runs, a structural loft or bedroom option, plumbing rough-ins, an extended patio slab, garage service doors, upgraded insulation, anything altering the footprint.
- Usually cheaper after close — window coverings, ceiling fans and light fixtures, backsplash, epoxy garage floors, closet organizers, landscaping, appliances.
Flooring is the honest exception. It is technically retrofittable, but replacing it after move-in means emptying the house, so most buyers should treat it as a builder purchase even though the markup is real. Our design center budgeting guide works through where the money goes once you are past that decision, and our new construction hub tracks which valley builders are currently offering what.
How Does a Buyer's Agent Change a New-Build Transaction?
By representing you in a room where everyone else is already represented.
The person at the desk in the sales office is a licensed agent working for the builder. They are typically professional and often genuinely helpful, and they have a fiduciary duty to the seller. There is no version of that arrangement in which they also represent you.
The practical difference shows up in specifics: reading the purchase agreement before it is signed rather than after, knowing which line items a given builder has actually moved on in recent releases, catching that a balcony is elevation-dependent, and being present at the walkthrough with a list rather than a phone camera.
Register your agent on the first visit. Nearly every Las Vegas builder requires that a buyer's agent accompany or be named at first registration for representation to apply, and once you have toured unaccompanied the builder may decline it entirely. That single procedural detail costs more buyers representation than any other.
What Is the Realistic All-In Number on a Plan Like This?
Take the advertised base and add four categories before you call anything affordable.
| Line | Typical range | In the advertised price? |
|---|---|---|
| Advertised base plan price | $550,000 – $650,000 | Yes |
| Lot premium | $25,000 – $100,000 | No |
| Design-center options | $30,000 – $80,000 | No |
| Appliances and window coverings | $7,100 – $31,000 | No |
| Backyard landscaping | $15,000 – $45,000 | No |
| SID/LID balance on the parcel | $8,000 – $30,000 | No |
The advertised number and the move-in-ready number are commonly $85,000 to $286,000 apart. That is not a scandal and it is not unique to any one builder — it is how production homebuilding is priced nationally. It is simply a gap you should be looking at in writing before you are emotionally committed, rather than discovering it one line item at a time across a six-month build.
What Happens Between Signing and Closing on a Las Vegas Build?
Six to twelve months in which the price is fixed and almost nothing else is.
Buyers who have only ever bought resale are used to a 30-to-45-day escrow. A production build runs far longer, and the intervening period has its own sequence of decisions and its own opportunities to be surprised.
The typical order:
- Contract and earnest money. Deposits on a Las Vegas new build commonly run 3% to 5% of the purchase price, materially more than the $5,000 to $10,000 typical in a resale, and builder contracts are generally far less forgiving about its return.
- Design center appointment, usually within 2 to 4 weeks. This is where the base price becomes the real price, and it is nearly always a hard deadline — miss it and you take builder-standard selections.
- Pre-drywall walkthrough. The single most valuable inspection window in the entire build, because everything inside the wall is still visible. Hire an independent inspector for it. According to the Nevada State Contractors Board, you can verify any inspector's or contractor's license status before hiring them.
- Final walkthrough and punch list, a few days before close.
- Closing, then a warranty period that typically runs one year on workmanship, two on systems and ten on structure.
Two things that catch buyers in that window. First, your rate lock has to survive the build — an extended lock or a float-down is a separate negotiation and a real cost, and a build that slips two months past a 90-day lock can undo the entire benefit of a buydown. Second, builders routinely reserve the right to substitute materials of equal or greater value, which is reasonable in a supply-constrained market and also means the exact finish you selected is not guaranteed to be the one installed.
How Does Dove Rock Fit Into Summerlin West?
It sits in the newer western expansion, which is where most current Summerlin inventory now is.
Summerlin has been building westward for years, and the villages opening now — Dove Rock among them — are further from the mature eastern amenities and closer to the Red Rock escarpment. That trade is the central Summerlin West decision: newer product and better views against longer drives to established retail and schools.
| Consideration | Established eastern villages | Summerlin West villages |
|---|---|---|
| Housing stock | Mostly resale, 1990s to 2010s | Mostly new construction |
| Views | Limited; interior lots common | Strip and Red Rock views more available |
| Amenity maturity | Established parks, retail, trails | Phased in as villages complete |
| SID/LID exposure | Often paid down or retired | Typically active balances |
| Landscaping | Mature, already installed | Your cost after close |
That last pair is the honest cost of buying new out west, and it is exactly what this article is about: a resale in an eastern village arrives with the yard in, the blinds up, the fridge running and the assessment often retired. A new build in the west arrives with none of those, and the price difference between the two is smaller than the sticker suggests once you finish the western house.
For a fuller comparison of the newer villages and how they differ from one another, our Kestrel and Redpoint buyers guide covers the western expansion village by village, and the Summerlin community guide covers the master plan as a whole. Buyers weighing new against resale more broadly should also look at what is currently listed across the valley, because a well-kept 2018 resale with landscaping and window coverings already installed is a genuine competitor to a base-price new build once you total the four categories above.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are model home upgrades included in the price of a new construction home?
No. Model homes are built to the top of the option list to show the plan at its best, and the upgrades typically add $60,000 to $150,000 over the base price. The builder will provide an option sheet listing every upgrade in the model and its cost, but you generally have to ask for it. Compare that against the included-features list for the base plan.
Is the refrigerator included in a new Las Vegas home?
Usually not. Most production builders in the valley include the range, dishwasher and microwave but exclude the refrigerator, washer and dryer. Budget roughly $4,100 to $22,000 for the three depending on the finish level you want, and confirm it in writing rather than assuming, since a minority of builders do include them as a promotion.
What is a SID or LID on a Summerlin West home?
A Special or Local Improvement District assessment that financed the infrastructure serving your neighborhood — roads, sewer, streetlights, flood control. The unpaid balance attaches to the parcel rather than the owner, so it transfers to you at closing, typically $8,000 to $30,000, repaid as an annual installment. Ask for the balance on your specific lot, not the community average.
How much is the lot premium in Summerlin West?
Commonly $25,000 to $100,000, quoted separately from the plan price, with view and open-space lots at the upper end or beyond. Unlike design-center upgrades, a lot premium generally holds value at resale because the next buyer is also paying for the same view or position — it behaves more like an investment than a finish choice.
Should I use the builder's lender to get the incentive?
Often yes, but verify it rather than assuming. Builder incentives are usually conditioned on their affiliated lender, whose starting rate may be higher than an outside quote. Compare the builder's bought-down rate against an outside lender's market rate on the same loan amount with both sets of closing costs, using each lender's Loan Estimate. The buydown frequently wins, but not always.
Do I need a real estate agent to buy new construction?
You do not need one, but the sales agent in the model home represents the builder, not you. If you want representation you must generally register your agent on your very first visit — most Las Vegas builders will not allow it retroactively once you have toured alone. The builder pays the buyer-agent commission from its marketing budget, so representation does not raise your price.
Is the backyard landscaped in a new Las Vegas build?
Almost never. Most valley builders deliver the backyard as graded dirt, sometimes with a basic perimeter wall. Full landscaping and hardscape runs $15,000 to $45,000 depending on size and whether you add a covered patio, and some HOAs impose a completion deadline after close, which makes it an obligation rather than an option.
What is sideyard delivery and why does it matter?
It is how the builder finishes the narrow strip along the side of the house — gravel, pavers, or bare dirt. It is a defined term in the purchase agreement, it varies by builder and even by lot, and it is one of the most common post-close surprises because buyers rarely think to look at it during a model tour where the sideyard is already finished.
Ready to Walk a Model With Someone on Your Side?
If you are touring new construction anywhere in Summerlin West, Henderson or the north valley, we will come with you, ask for the documents above, and read the purchase agreement before you sign rather than after. There is no cost to you — the builder pays buyer-agent commission out of its marketing budget — but you must register us on your first visit for it to apply.
Call or text (702) 637-1759, browse current Las Vegas homes for sale, or contact us with the community you are looking at and we will tell you what that builder has actually been moving on lately.
Which Sources Inform This New Construction Guide?
Cost ranges reflect current Las Vegas valley builder pricing observed across the new-construction transactions in our 9,600+ closings statewide, and are presented as ranges precisely because they vary by builder, release and lot. Verify every figure against the specific community's own documents before relying on it.
- National Association of Home Builders — production-builder option and margin structure
- Nevada Department of Taxation — special assessment framework
- Clark County Assessor — parcel records and assessed values
- Nevada Revised Statutes Chapter 116 — common-interest community reserves and disclosure
- Nevada Revised Statutes Chapter 645 — real estate licensing and agency duties
- Nevada Real Estate Division — licensee standards and agency disclosure
- Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — Loan Estimate and lender comparison
- Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey — weekly mortgage rate series
- Nevada State Contractors Board — licensed contractor verification
- Las Vegas REALTORS — Southern Nevada market statistics
- U.S. Census Bureau — new residential sales data
- HUD — housing market conditions and fair housing guidance
