New Haven Manor, TX: Comparing DRB, Chesmar and Weston Homes by Price

What if you could walk one street in Manor, Texas and compare three completely different home builders with prices ranging from $330,000 to over $650,000? That is exactly what New Haven offers. One street, three front doors, three budgets, and a decision you need to make before you even pick a floor plan: do you want a 50-foot-wide lot or a 60-foot-wide lot? That choice narrows your builder list by itself.

We live eight minutes from New Haven. We know Manor because it is our hometown, and we have walked every model home in this community so you do not have to guess what you are getting. This is not a generic suburb tour. This is a builder-by-builder breakdown of what each one costs, what the monthly extras add up to, and which floor plan makes sense if you work from home, hate stairs, or need a media room for movie night.

Manor is the closest Austin suburb to downtown. Most people skip it because they have never heard of it, but that is changing fast. New Haven is planned for 261 homes on about 90 acres, and it is filling up. Two builders have already dropped prices by tens of thousands of dollars, and we are going to show you exactly where those deals are.

Table of Contents

• New Haven: 3 Builders, 2 Lot Widths, and the Monthly Extras You Pay After Closing
• DRB Homes: One-Story Living Starting at $330K on 50-Foot Lots
• Chesmar Homes: The 1.5-Story Owen Plan and Why You Pay $60K More to Skip the Stairs
• Weston Homes: Luxury Builds Over $630K with Recent Price Drops Up to $76K
• 50-Foot vs 60-Foot Lots: How 10 Feet of Width Decides Your Builder
• What New Haven Does Not Have: No Pool, High Taxes, and Friday Night Football Noise
• Manor Commute and Location: 18 Miles to Downtown Austin, 10 Minutes to H-E-B
• Which Builder Should You Choose?
• Conclusion

New Haven: 3 Builders, 2 Lot Widths, and the Monthly Extras You Pay After Closing

New Haven sits north of Highway 290 in Manor, off Highway 973 on Gregg Lane. The community is planned for 261 homes on roughly 90 acres, and right now it is in phase one of four. Construction is ongoing, so if you buy here, expect to see dirt and framing for a while. No one has confirmed a completion date yet, but that just means more opportunities for us to help clients lock in deals before the neighborhood fills up.

Three builders are active here: DRB Homes , Chesmar Homes , and Weston Homes . All three have their model homes on the same street, and the price spread is enormous. DRB starts around $330,000. Chesmar starts just under $400,000. Weston starts just over $630,000. You can walk from the cheapest door to the most expensive in about two minutes.

Before we get into the builders, you need to understand the two costs that show up every month on top of your mortgage and property tax. The first is the homeowners association fee, which is $102 a month. That covers 500 megabit internet, which is a big deal if you work from home like we do. The second is a PID, which stands for Public Improvement District. That is a yearly charge on every lot that pays back the cost of the roads and utilities. It runs through 2055, and you can pay it off early if you want.

How much you pay for the PID depends on your lot width. A 50-foot-wide lot costs about $115 a month. A 60-foot-wide lot costs about $155 a month. That is a $40 difference every month for 10 extra feet of width. Every lot in New Haven is 120 feet deep, so the only variable is how wide your lot is.

Add the HOA and the PID together and you get $217 a month on a 50-foot lot or $257 a month on a 60-foot lot. That is before property tax, which we will cover in a minute. You also pay $1,900 in association fees when you close. That is a one-time cost, not monthly, but it still shows up on your closing statement.

The property tax rate here is about 2.63 percent. That includes the PID mixed in, so the combined effective rate is close to 3 percent. On a $400,000 home, you are looking at roughly $10,500 a year before exemptions. New Haven is inside Manor city limits, so you pay city tax on top of the county and school district rates. The annual PID alone runs anywhere from $1,400 to $1,900 depending on your lot size.

Now let's walk the street.

DRB Homes: One-Story Living Starting at $330K on 50-Foot Lots

DRB Homes is stop one, and this is where the street starts at around $330,000. That price is for the smallest plan, which is about 1,850 square feet on one story. The model we toured is the Oleander plan, which starts at around $370,000. One story, four bedrooms, three baths, just over 2,200 square feet. A home with the same floor plan just went under contract with an asking price of $399,990. That is less than $181 a square foot, which is a solid number for new construction in Manor right now.

The front of the house has a bedroom and a full bath right by the entry. That is a guest suite or office number two, depending on how you use it. Around the hall is a flex room. You can keep it open for a second living room or add doors for a private office. If you work from home, I would go with the doors. Sometimes you need to close out the rest of the house, and everything is on one floor, so no running upstairs when you forget your phone. We have two dogs, Hunter and Dexter, and they like to bark, especially when we are on client calls over Zoom. That is when they want to talk to us. A door helps.

The middle of the house is one big room: kitchen, dining room, and great room. We love that layout. The kitchen opens up to the living room, and there is a dining area right in the middle of the space, so you can be getting dinner ready and still talk to everyone hanging out. You can add a buffet right along the wall across from the kitchen, perfect for putting out food when you have people over, or drinks if you have people over. Any excuse to bring out food or beverages works.

The wet bar caught my attention. It is tucked over in its own space, so someone can grab a drink without getting in the way of who is cooking. Matt can have all of his soft drinks in the cooler there if he wants. Sprite Zero, water, or alcoholic beverages if you prefer. I am staying out of the kitchen.

The primary bedroom is at the back of the house, away from the other three, so you do have privacy. The bathroom comes with two sinks, a separate tub and shower, and a huge walk-in closet. On this plan, you have the option to upgrade to a Roman shower with a bench seat. I use that bench to shave my legs without slipping and busting my head open because I am very clumsy. A Roman shower is a big open shower that you step into with a glass enclosure, just a very large shower.

Out back is a covered patio and a nice-sized yard for your dogs to run around and play. DRB offers 50-foot-wide lots that are roughly 120 feet deep, so you are looking at about 6,000 square feet on the lot size. How much backyard you will have really depends on the floor plan you choose.

DRB had three homes ready when we filmed this. The lowest was below $375,000 for just under 2,000 square feet. Available homes top out around $435,000 for a two-story with 2,500 square feet. There was a larger one with over 3,000 square feet listed at $465,000, but it just went under contract. New Haven is exploding. Somebody snagged that one up quick.

The extras on a 50-foot lot are a $102 HOA fee plus $115 a month for the PID, so that brings the total extra cost to about $217 a month. Right now, DRB is offering up to $20,000 in flex cash towards closing costs, upgrades, or buying your rate down. That is a good starting point, and it is a very important conversation right now with how high the rates are. Make sure you reach out to us before you visit the sales office. We will put those incentives to work for you and negotiate more, because what do we love to do more than anything? Negotiate.

Both of these move-in-ready homes are priced lower than they were just a couple of months ago. That is probably because of the interest rates too. At this stop, the builder is already putting money on the table, and that is before we start negotiating for you.

Chesmar Homes: The 1.5-Story Owen Plan and Why You Pay $60K More to Skip the Stairs

Stop two is next door. Chesmar Homes starting just under $400,000. Chesmar has 16 floor plans here from about 1,950 square feet to more than 3,200. The model is the Owen and it is the reason to stop here. It is just over 3,000 square feet and most of it is on one floor. This one has a bonus half story. Four bedrooms, 3.5 baths, on a 60-foot lot. It starts in the high $400s, and there is actually an Owen in this community right now that is priced at just under $525,000.

The island in the kitchen is huge. This is a party house for sure. You could have all the food on the island and places for people to sit. After your agents get you an awesome deal, you are going to have to invite us for a party or dinner. Open house party, that is right.

The ceiling heights in this model are enormous. That must be 12 feet or more. It makes it very airy and spacious in here. You definitely have to see this model home. The kitchen and the island could be office space, party space, you could almost put a bed in here. This thing is huge. But the rooms are amazing in their own right. With 3.5 baths, a guest never shares one with you.

There is a nice French door that goes out to the patio. It is covered, you can put a ceiling fan up there, and then it goes back to the yard. If you have your dogs like we do, you can just let them out, you can chill on the patio, and then come back in when the spoiled boys want to come back in. This model does sit on a 60-foot lot, so that will give you an idea of how large that is.

Chesmar builds on both 50-foot and 60-foot lots, so you have got options there. This is the crowded part of the street. Remember the DRB home at about $465,000? Two stories, just over 3,000 square feet on a 50-foot lot. The Owen is the same size on 1.5 floors on a wider lot for just under $525,000. So the question on this stop is, what would you pay to rarely, if ever, have to climb stairs?

Looking at their inventory, they have three homes on the 60-foot lots starting from $480,000 all the way up to $525,000. On the 50-foot lot series, one already sold. They have six available starting at $385,000 to $475,000. So you have some price flexibility with Chesmar.

Extras are $217 a month on a 50-foot lot, $257 a month on a 60-foot lot. The current offer here is different depending on the home. The builder rep actually told us that the incentive is different depending on which home you are interested in, so it is really important to have an agent so we can ask those questions before you visit the model home.

Weston Homes: Luxury Builds Over $630K with Recent Price Drops Up to $76K

Stop three just got its front door. This is Weston Homes . The model is under construction, and it is a Collins floor plan. It was nearly finished at the time we shot this video. The Collins is two stories, about 3,400 square feet, four bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms. We actually have a client who really loves this floor plan. They are looking at it in Georgetown at the Nolina neighborhood. Earlier this year, we got clients a home in Nolina. They bought a Chesmar home and they love it. We got them equity at the start.

Back to the plan. Two of those bedrooms are downstairs. One is the primary and it has two walk-in closets. The bigger one would be mine. There is a study down there too, so office number one never has to climb the stairs. Upstairs is a game room and a media room. Office number two can take either one. We would definitely keep the media room. Big screen TV, seven-point surround sound system, speakers in the ceiling, the walls, the floor. Subwoofers. You can throw your significant other upstairs if they are getting on your nerves, or who knows, maybe you will just make it like a she room. Your partner, or if you are by yourself, you can do whatever you want with it. Or the dogs can have their own special room. The dogs can have their own playroom. I have a friend from law school who actually does have a room in her house reserved just for her dogs. Not kidding. For fur parents, it is an option.

The garage holds three cars in tandem. A tandem is two doors but one bay is extra deep so two cars park nose to tail. Make sure that fits how you park because we have a rental property in Colorado and my GMC Sierra Denali cannot fit in the garage.

Weston starts just over $630,000, and that is about $300,000 above the first stop. Its price list shows 11 plans here from around 3,400 square feet to nearly 3,900 square feet. Most have five bedrooms. One even has a four-car garage. Everyone sits on a 60-foot lot, and some lots cost extra. Weston's lot premiums run from zero dollars to $25,000, and Alicia and I always try to negotiate the lot premium down or zero it out. That is the goal, zero it out. You do not know unless you ask, and sometimes they absolutely say no. But we did actually negotiate a lot premium down $4,000 on a client that we just had close in Mustang Valley in Manor. They were charging $16,000 for this huge corner lot, and we got them down to $12,000. So it is possible, you just have to ask.

Now the part that surprised us: two Weston homes are finished and ready right now. The bigger one is about 3,900 square feet. Weston priced it at just over $726,000. That is super high. But we have got good news. Today it is priced under $650,000, a drop of more than $76,000. If you are looking for a more upscale home in New Haven, Weston is worth a look. And once you work with us, that $650,000 is just the starting point. We are going to go down, down, down.

The other one is about 3,800 square feet with just over $65,000 off. Now it is just under $655,000. Remember the DRB homes priced lower than a couple months ago? Same idea here with a bigger number, a much bigger number. Extras on these lots are $257 a month, same as any 60-foot lot here. That includes the $102 a month HOA fee. When the Collins model opens, we will walk it for you.

50-Foot vs 60-Foot Lots: How 10 Feet of Width Decides Your Builder

Two lot widths keep coming up here, so here they are on the ground. 50 feet wide. 174 of the 261 lots are this wide. And 60 feet wide. There are 87 of those. Every lot is 120 feet deep, so the only difference is these 10 feet in width.

Here is what 10 feet gets you: a wider house and room for a bigger garage. It also gets you a bigger PID, about $40 more a month. And it decides your builder. Weston only builds on 60-foot lots. DRB builds only on 50-foot lots. So that kind of answers the question about which lot size you want. Pick the lot width first. The builder list gets shorter by itself.

We tell our clients, do not fall in love with the model home until you really decide the size that you want. Lot width is a choice, and it eliminates options before you even walk in the door.

What New Haven Does Not Have: No Pool, High Taxes, and Friday Night Football Noise

Lot width is a choice. These next things are not. Start with a pool. New Haven will not have a pool. The planned amenities are a park and trails. What are you going to do on these hot Texas summer days? Well, if you have a 60-foot lot, you can put a pool in your backyard. You just have to get HOA approval first and city approval and permit approval, but it does happen.

Right now it does not come with a finished park yet, but one is planned for next year. New Haven is just getting started, so only Chesmar and DRB have models open to tour. Weston's model is still under construction, and once they finish, we are definitely going to walk you through it. Weston builds beautiful homes.

One thing to consider is the high school stadium next door. It means Friday night football noise in the fall. In Texas, Friday Night Lights, basically Texas high school football is professional football everywhere else. It is pretty cool to go to. Texans love their football.

The neighborhood is in the first of four phases, so construction will continue with no confirmed completion date just yet. That is just a lot of houses we can help our clients buy.

Another cost to keep in mind is property taxes. New Haven is inside Manor city limits, so you pay city tax. The actual tax rate here is about 2.63 percent. That is roughly $10,500 a year on a $400,000 home, but that is before exemptions. The annual PID is anywhere from $1,400 to $1,900 depending on the lot you choose. The combined tax rate is pretty close to 3 percent. Ouch.

Here is what it does have: a nature preserve of about 12.5 acres on Wilbarger Creek. A park of nearly four acres in the middle, a smaller one by the entrance, and a trail that links them. For your fur babies, that preserve beats a pool, unless dogs just really like water. Our dogs do not. They are scared of it. They do not like water. They are dainty little boys.

The HOA fee also covers 500 megabit internet. With two home offices, that counts. The site plan also shows a commercial corner near the entrance. Nobody has said what goes there yet, but when someone does, you will be the first to know. Alicia loves to look at permits. I am going to do some sleuthing.

Manor Commute and Location: 18 Miles to Downtown Austin, 10 Minutes to H-E-B

One more thing you cannot change after closing: the drive. New Haven is north of Highway 290, off Highway 973 on Gregg Lane. Almost every trip starts by going south to 290 unless you know the shortcuts like us. The H-E-B took us about 10 minutes depending on traffic. Samsung on Palmer Lane and Tesla off Highway 130 take between 20 and 30 minutes. Downtown Austin is about 18 miles, and it took about 30 minutes on a weekday morning.

One thing that we love about Manor that most people do not highlight is it is the closest suburb to downtown Austin. Alicia and I go to downtown Austin all the time for concerts, restaurants. Usually if we go to concerts at the Moody Center, it is not really that far away. We take a Lyft. We also pay anywhere from $30 to $45 for the Lyft each way, depending on when it is. To us it is worth it to not have to deal with the traffic, and you are going to have to pay for parking probably anyway. Or if you do not pay for it, you have to walk a mile to get to the Moody Center. That is not cool whenever you sweat and you do not want to be stinky. You do not want to be stinky when you are in a concert. Bring extra clothes and bring deodorant.

We have parked for free before, and we actually took a rickshaw to the Moody Center. The poor guy, he was sweating so hard. That rickshaw was electric. These rickshaws now, they do not even ride regular bikes anymore, they ride the electric ones. Hey, do we sound old right now? Back to the show.

Depending on traffic, any of those drives could take longer. Drive your own commute route from this entrance before you pick a floor plan. The west edge of New Haven is the Pflugerville city line, but the address and the schools are Manor.

Which Builder Should You Choose?

So which door would we knock on? We each pick one. Our clients typically like to have two home offices, have at least one dog, and zero interest in stairs.

I would start at stop two in the Owen. Daily life stays downstairs. The stairs just lead up to a game room and a guest suite. You pay about $60,000 more than the DRB two-story at the same square footage, but you rarely climb stairs. For us, that trade-off makes sense.

I would start at stop one. The Oleander gets you two offices for about $400,000 with the lowest extras on the street and a builder who is already dealing. DRB is offering up to $20,000 in flex cash, and homes are priced lower than they were a couple of months ago. That is a lot of room to negotiate.

Stop three is for the luxury buyers. Five bedrooms, three-car garage, and a budget past $630,000. If that is you, reach out and we will walk the Collins when it opens. We can ask about those two finished homes before they go. Weston dropped one by more than $76,000, so the builder is motivated.

Here is how to decide:

• Choose DRB if you want the lowest price on the street, the smallest monthly extras, and you are okay with a two-story layout or a smaller one-story plan.
• Choose Chesmar if you want most of your square footage on one floor without giving up size, and you are willing to pay for a 60-foot lot to get it.
• Choose Weston if you need five bedrooms, luxury finishes, and a budget over $630,000, and you want to take advantage of recent price drops.

Whichever door you pick, the extras come with it. $217 or $257 a month, plus a 2.63 percent tax rate, a PID, and about $1,900 in association fees when you close.

Conclusion

That is New Haven. Three builders, one street, and a decision you make before you even walk in the door: 50-foot lot or 60-foot lot. That choice narrows your builder list by itself, and it changes your monthly PID by $40. DRB only builds on 50-foot lots. Weston only builds on 60-foot lots. Chesmar builds on both.

If you are interested in any of those homes we showed you today, reach out whether you are buying in 10 days or 10 months. We specialize in guiding buyers through the new construction market in the northeast Austin suburbs, including our hometown of Manor, Texas. We live eight minutes from New Haven, and we know every builder, every floor plan, and every incentive they are offering right now.

Call, text, or email us, or scan the QR code on our website to book a call. We do these community tours because we like you and we want you to know what it is really like to live in one of these communities. Let us show you the Wilson way.