What to Check Before Closing on a New Construction Home at Avenir

The Walk Before Drywall Is the One Most Buyers Skip

Once drywall is hung, the house stops telling you anything. Every wire, pipe, strap, brace and block of framing that you would want to look at is behind a finished wall, and from then on you are inspecting paint. The pre-drywall walk is the only point where the house is still readable, and it is the walk buyers most often give up because nobody told them to ask for it.

Steve has a construction engineering degree from Purdue and spent seventeen years managing commercial construction before he joined me, so when we built our own home he walked it constantly. That is how we caught things. Not dramatic things, mostly small ones, but small ones that would have been permanent. Being present during construction is the single piece of advice I give every buyer who is building here, and it is worth far more than any upgrade you could put in the house.

What to do at that walk: photograph every wall from floor to ceiling before insulation goes in, so you have a record of where the studs, blocking and rough plumbing actually sit. Count the outlets, switches and data drops against your approved plan rather than against your memory of the design meeting. Stand where the television, the range hood and the pool equipment will go and ask what has been run to those points. Check that the openings for windows and sliders match the plan dimensions. If something does not match, that is a conversation you can still have cheaply.

Get Your Specification in Writing Before Anything Is Framed

The document that decides what you actually receive is not the brochure and not the model. It is the specification attached to your contract for your plan and your elevation, and most buyers never read it line by line. That is the one piece of paper your pre-drywall walk is measured against, so you need it before the trades arrive rather than after.

Ask for it as a list, item by item, with each entry marked as included or purchased. Then reconcile it against your design studio selections, because those are two separate documents generated by two separate parts of the same company and they do not always agree. Where they disagree, get the correction in writing before framing starts. I have watched that single reconciliation step save buyers a long argument months later.

There is a trap here that is particular to Avenir. Several builders are working inside the same gates, and over the time we have lived here that has included GL Homes, Toll Brothers, Kolter, DiVosta and Akel. Each writes its own base specification and sets its own list of included items, so an item that comes standard in one neighborhood at Avenir can be a paid option two neighborhoods away. When a neighbor tells you what their builder included, that is information about their contract and not about yours.

Spend Where the Decision Is Permanent, Not Where It Is Pretty

The useful way to sort a design studio list is not by price. It is by whether the decision can be undone later. Anything that has to happen before drywall is effectively permanent: plumbing and electrical rough-in, the pool pre-plumb and conduit, slab penetrations, structural openings, where the hose bibs and exterior outlets land. Anything that sits on the surface, including light fixtures, mirrors, cabinet hardware, paint and landscaping, you can change in year three without touching the structure.

We put our money into the kitchen and the pool and saved on the third bathroom, and every one of those calls was made with resale in mind rather than with how we felt that afternoon. Our style is coastal, but the big items, the flooring, the cabinets, the wet area in the primary bath with both a shower and a freestanding tub, were chosen because they appeal to a wide range of buyers later.

Here is where I got it wrong. We did not buy the pool heater up front. It seemed easy to add. Adding it afterward meant bringing a crew back to a finished yard and a finished pool deck, and it cost more and took longer than it would have during construction. That is the test: if adding it later means cutting into something that is already finished, buy it now. If adding it later means a truck, a delivery and an afternoon, you can wait.

Treat the Orientation as a Working Meeting, Not a Tour

Shortly before closing the builder will walk you through the finished house. This is where the punch list gets written, and it is the most consequential hour of the whole process for how your first year goes. Go in slowly. Bring painter's tape and a phone, and mark and photograph everything you find, down to the scuffs.

The questions that actually change the outcome: which of these items will be corrected before closing and which become warranty work afterward, who signs the list so both sides have the same copy, what the timeline is for each item, and what happens if something on the list is not done by the closing date. Open every window and slider. Run every faucet and flush every toilet. Turn on the air handler and check that every room is getting air. Open and close every interior door. None of this is adversarial. The builder's field team would much rather fix a list than argue about it in February.

You Can Hire Your Own Inspector on a Brand New Home

Buyers regularly tell me they assumed an inspection was unnecessary because the house is new and was inspected by the city. Those are two different things. A municipal inspection confirms that the work meets code at the points the inspector looks at. It does not confirm workmanship, it does not check whether the house matches the plan you signed, and it is not working on your behalf.

You can hire your own inspector, and the strongest version is two visits: once at pre-drywall and once before the orientation. What a private inspection tends to surface on new homes here is not catastrophic, it is cumulative. Missing or loose strapping, a bath fan venting into the attic instead of outside, duct runs crimped behind a chase, grading that sends water toward the slab instead of away, an attic access that was never sealed. Each one is small and each one is far cheaper to fix while the trades are still on site.

If your contract limits when and how an inspector can be on the property, read that clause before you sign rather than after, because it is one of the few terms in a builder contract where the answer genuinely varies.

Walk the House Again Before the First Year Is Up

The third walk is the one almost nobody does, and it is free. Builders typically provide a warranty covering the first year, with longer coverage on some systems and structural components. Confirm your builder's exact terms in your own contract, because they are not identical across the builders working at Avenir. Then put a reminder on your calendar for about eleven months after closing and walk the house as if you were buying it.

A Florida house gives you a full wet season and a full dry season in that first year, and that is when the honest problems show themselves. Nail pops and settlement cracks at door corners. Doors that have fallen out of adjustment. Grout and caulk lines that have opened. Irrigation heads that turn out to be watering the driveway. Low spots in the yard that hold water after a heavy afternoon. Submit the whole list in writing before the window closes, keep a copy, and do not rely on having mentioned it to someone.

Why Oversight Works Differently at a Community Still Under Construction

Avenir is being built around homes that are already finished and occupied, and that is the local condition that changes how you run your own oversight. When a builder is turning over many homes at once across several neighborhoods, one field superintendent is usually carrying several houses at the same stage, and the trades move between them on a schedule that is not organized around your questions.

So ask three things early and write down the answers. Who is the field superintendent assigned to your house, and how many other homes are they running right now. What is the notification process for your pre-drywall walk, meaning how many days of warning you will get and who calls you. And what happens to your walk if the drywall crew arrives ahead of schedule, which in a community at this pace is not a hypothetical. A buyer who has those answers in writing gets the walk. A buyer who assumed someone would call usually hears about the drywall afterward.

Our own house was in that environment and it worked out, but it worked out because Steve was there. If you cannot be on site regularly yourself, decide in advance who is going in your place, whether that is your agent, a private inspector on a schedule, or someone you trust with a checklist and a phone camera. Deciding that at the contract stage is the difference between oversight and hoping.

Two related questions belong on separate pages rather than this one. The lot itself, and which premiums are worth paying, I covered in which Avenir lot premiums are worth it. The carrying costs, including the community development district assessment that catches people coming from a resale neighborhood, are broken down in HOA and CDD fees at Avenir. If you are still weighing whether to build here at all rather than how to manage the build, I answered that one from our own side of it in why we chose Avenir as our next home, and you can see what else is on the market across the city on our Palm Beach Gardens home search.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I hire my own home inspector on a new construction home at Avenir?

Yes. A municipal inspection confirms that the work meets code at the points the inspector looks at, but it does not check workmanship, it does not verify that the house matches the plan you signed, and it is not working on your behalf. The strongest approach is two private inspections, one at pre-drywall and one before the builder orientation. Read your builder contract first, because the terms covering when an inspector may be on the property vary from builder to builder.

What should I look at during a pre-drywall walk?

Photograph every wall from floor to ceiling before insulation goes in so you have a record of where studs, blocking and rough plumbing sit. Count outlets, switches and data drops against your approved plan rather than from memory. Stand where the television, range hood and pool equipment will go and ask what has been run to those points. Check that window and slider openings match the plan dimensions.

What document decides what is actually included in my new construction home?

The specification attached to your contract for your specific plan and elevation, not the brochure and not the model. Ask for it as an item by item list marked included or purchased, then reconcile it against your design studio selections, because those are two separate documents and they do not always agree. Get any correction in writing before framing starts. At Avenir this matters more than usual, because several builders work inside the same gates and each sets its own list of included items, so an item that is standard in one neighborhood can be a paid option in another.

Which new construction upgrades should I pay for during the build instead of adding later?

Sort the list by whether the decision can be undone rather than by price. Anything that happens before drywall is effectively permanent, including plumbing and electrical rough-in, the pool pre-plumb and conduit, slab penetrations and structural openings. Surface items like light fixtures, mirrors, hardware, paint and landscaping can be changed later. The test is simple: if adding it later means cutting into something already finished, buy it during the build. We skipped the pool heater and adding it afterward cost more and took longer.

How long do I have to report builder warranty items?

Builders typically provide a warranty covering the first year, with longer coverage on some systems and structural components, and the exact terms are not identical across the builders working at Avenir, so confirm yours in your own contract. The practical step is to walk the house at about eleven months after closing, when a full wet season and dry season have revealed settlement cracks, doors out of adjustment, open caulk lines and grading or irrigation problems, and to submit the full list in writing before the window closes.