Twin Cities Builders Are Slashing Prices, but Only on Certain Homes
One Twin Cities builder just cut more than $50,000 off a home in Lino Lakes. Most people hear that and assume the market is falling apart. It isn’t. The reason is simpler: finished homes cost builders money every month they sit, and homes that aren’t built yet don’t. Knowing that is how buyers find the real deals.
Examples are as of my video above (October 2026). Builder offers change almost weekly, so always confirm what’s current.
Why builders cut prices
Say a $500,000 finished home sits for six months: that’s six months of interest, taxes, insurance and upkeep before it sells. Taking a smaller profit often beats paying to hold an empty house.
Nationally, at the end of last year about 4 in 10 builders cut prices, the average cut was about 5%, and about two-thirds offered incentives. Rates matter too: they started 2025 near 7%, fell to about 6.15% by year’s end, then climbed back to 7% to 7.25%, the highest since early 2025. That keeps buyers on the sidelines, so builders like Lennar and Pulte are discounting here, and M/I Homes offers its own rate buydowns.
The key: discounts land on finished spec or inventory homes. A home you order and wait for hasn’t cost the builder much yet, so it usually doesn’t get the same cut. Know which one you’re looking at.
Three kinds of builder deals
- A straight price cut. The price drops for good, which lowers your loan amount and can lower your down payment.
- A rate buydown. The builder pays to lower your rate or payment, sometimes for a year or two and sometimes for the life of the loan. Your loan amount stays the same.
- A flexible credit. A set dollar amount toward closing costs or upgrades. It typically doesn’t add equity.
(More on how these compare in 5 types of homes that can be risky investments and what is a 2-1 buydown.)
Examples we found
- Lino Lakes, Lennar’s Watermark community (plans from just under $470,000 to about $650,000): a finished four-bedroom, 3.5-bath “Donovan” of about 2,645 square feet was cut by about $52,000, to just under $500,000. At the time’s rates, that’s roughly $350 a month less, more than $120,000 over a 30-year loan.
- Hanover, Lennar’s Crow River Heights (low $400,000s to low $500,000s): a four-bedroom “Lewis” of about 2,693 square feet was cut by about $39,000, to just under $540,000, roughly $260 a month less.
- Rosemount, Pulte’s Amber Fields (townhomes and single-family, high $300,000s into the $600,000s): a four-bedroom “Continental” of about 2,873 square feet dropped from just over $670,000 to about $635,000, nearly $38,000 off, about $250 a month. Pulte also offers Flex Cash on select homes for closing costs or a buydown, but don’t assume it stacks with a price cut.
Lennar’s perks run through Lennar Mortgage, and some Pulte rate offers require Pulte’s lender. Confirm which offers apply to which home before you visit.
Lennar’s latest annual filing shows its average incentive per home nationally rose to about $62,700, from $48,800 the year before. That’s real value for buyers.
What’s not discounted
Base floor plans you choose before they’re built. At Watermark, a to-be-built “Landmark Lewis” was around $565,000 with no discount; at Crow River Heights, the “Walker” sat just under $426,000, unchanged. And the resale market isn’t seeing cuts like these: in August, Twin Cities homes sold for about 98% of asking, about $8,000 off a $400,000 home, compared with $52,000 off a new build.
So don’t walk into a sales office expecting a huge cut across the board. These deals are tied to specific finished, unsold homes, not a builder-wide policy. Builder deals also rarely show up in a Google search.
Don’t forget the extras
New homes often don’t include a deck, landscaping, blinds or a sprinkler system, which can add $10,000 to $25,000. Factor that in, and compare the builder’s loan with an outside lender side by side.
Want us to check a specific community? Tell us which one and we’ll find out what the builder is offering right now. See also Lino Lakes, Hanover and Rosemount.
