Calculator · Clark County, WA & SW Washington
Builder incentives, run honestly
Two buyers get offered the same $35,000. One takes a rate buydown, one takes closing-cost help — and only one made the right call for their situation. That’s because an incentive isn’t a number; it’s a menu. The same dollars wear five disguises — a lower rate, a cheaper close, a smaller loan, nicer counters — and each one solves a different problem.
This calculator takes the incentive in front of you and deploys it all five ways, side by side: what each does to your monthly payment, what each does to your cash at closing, and what each is actually worth over the years you’ll own the home. It also checks the number nobody at the sales office mentions — how much of the offer your loan can legally absorb.
The deal
These two reorder the whole ranking. Small changes flip the answer — which is the point.
Of the $35,000 offered, all of it fits your loan.
Your cap: $45,000 (6% on a conventional loan with 20% down).
Your cap is set upstream — Fannie and Freddie won’t buy an over-cap loan, so it was never the loan officer’s call.
New rate ≈ 5.04%. 1 point ≈ 0.25% off — an approximation; enter your offered rate for the real number.
Cap-exempt — a price cut isn't a concession. The value grows past face value with the interest the smaller loan never accrues.
You can only absorb $11,250 of this credit at the table — a credit can't exceed what you actually owe at closing. The rest routes to a price cut.
The 2-1 only costs $13,656 of your $35,000 — the remaining $11,250 rides along as flex cash at closing.
The 3-2-1 only costs $26,833 of your $35,000 — the remaining $8,167 rides along as flex cash at closing.
An allowance is the only option on this menu that isn’t money — it’s a budget you can only spend at the design center, at the builder’s prices. Resale data on finishes is unkind: most upgrades return roughly fifty to sixty cents on the dollar when you sell. If the upgrades are things you’d have paid cash for anyway, drag this toward 100. If they’re things the design center talked you into, drag it down.
Same house, same builder dollars. What changes under each option — and what stays exactly the same.
| Line item | Baseno incentive | Price cut | Permanent buydown | 2-1 buydown | 3-2-1 buydown | Closing credit | Upgrade allowance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rate (year 1) | 6.5% | 6.5% | 5.04% | 4.5% | 3.5% | 6.5% | 6.5% |
| Loan amount | $600,000 | $565,000 | $600,000 | $600,000 | $600,000 | $576,250 | $600,000 |
| Monthly P&I (year 1) | $3,792 | $3,571 | $3,236 | $3,040 | $2,694 | $3,642 | $3,792 |
| Payment saved / mo (year 1) | — | $221 | $556 | $752 | $1,098 | $150 | — |
| Cash to close | $161,250 | $161,250 | $161,250 | $150,000 | $153,083 | $150,000 | $161,250 |
| Cash saved at closing | — | — | — | $11,250 | $8,167 | $11,250 | — |
| Taken as price cut | — | $35,000 | — | $10,094 | — | $23,750 | — |
| Value kept at year 7 | — | $50,228 | $61,100 | $39,392 | $35,000 | $45,334 | $21,000 |
Where this model refuses to cheat
The cap comes first. Every loan type has a federal ceiling on what a seller can contribute — 3% on a conventional loan with 5% down. A $40,000 offer on a $600,000 home doesn’t fit; $22,000 of it evaporates unless it’s restructured. This calculator gates every option through your cap before comparing anything, because an incentive you can’t legally take isn’t an incentive.
Nothing here is free. The incentive budget is already in the base price. This model doesn’t compare options to some imaginary no-incentive world — it compares them to each other, which is the only comparison you actually get to make.
A credit is capped twice. Beyond the lending cap, a closing credit can’t exceed what you actually owe at the table. Builders will happily let an oversized credit quietly shrink; this model shows you the overflow and routes it somewhere useful.
An allowance isn’t money. A design-center budget spends only at the design center, at the builder’s prices, and most of it doesn’t come back at resale. We default upgrades to sixty cents on the dollar and let you argue with us — the slider is right there.
The recorded price is a data point, not a floor. Builders will tell you that taking an incentive instead of a price cut “protects your resale value” by keeping the comps up. It’s a real dynamic — and an oversold one. Buyers around here are reselling three- and four-year-old new construction below what they paid for it. Take the option that fits how long you’ll stay and what’s squeezing you, not the one that flatters the builder’s comp set.
Weighing new construction against renting or a resale home? Run the same honest math in our rent vs. buy calculator, or browse new construction communities in Clark County.
Sources: NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (June 2026); Fannie Mae Selling Guide B3-4.1-02. This is a model, not lending advice — defaults are editable assumptions, and small changes flip the answer, which is the point. A loan officer confirms your actual cap.
© 2026 The Tartan Team · Real Broker, LLC. This calculator and the model behind it are original work of The Tartan Team.
Builder incentives in Clark County: common questions
As of mid-2026, 62% of builders nationally are offering sales incentives — the fifteenth straight month above 60% (NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index, June 2026). Locally the menu is the same one this calculator models: temporary and permanent rate buydowns, closing-cost credits, design-center allowances, and — more selectively — price cuts. Specific offers change weekly and by community, so treat anything you read online as stale; the structure of the offer matters more than the headline number.
It tracks builder type more than builder name. National builders — Lennar, Toll Brothers, David Weekley — carry the deepest menu: large buydowns and credits funded through affiliated lenders, with the least flexibility on price. Regional builders like New Tradition Homes, Pacific Lifestyle Homes, and Holt Homes have no earnings call to answer to, so they'll often flex on price and incentive with fewer strings. Local and boutique builders — Manor Homes, Generation Northwest, Urban Northwest Homes, Cascade West, Kingston Homes — have the least incentive budget; with them, the room is in the price and the allowances, not the rate. Across all of them, the richest offers sit on finished, standing homes near the end of a quarter.
Rarely, and by design — a price cut hits the recorded comps for every future sale in the community, so nationals protect the base price and give through the incentive menu instead. The practical move isn't to fight that; it's to direct the incentive toward the option this calculator ranks highest for your hold period, and to look hardest at completed inventory, where carrying costs make builders genuinely motivated.
Conventional loans cap seller contributions at 3%, 6%, or 9% of the price depending on your down payment — 5% down means a 3% cap, so $18,000 on a $600,000 home. FHA and USDA cap at 6%. VA caps true concessions at 4% but lets normal closing costs sit outside the cap. Cash has no cap at all. If the offer exceeds your cap, it can usually be restructured — more down, a different loan type, or the overflow taken as a price cut — but it has to happen before the offer is written.
Often, yes — many builders will let you divide the credit: part toward a buydown, part toward closing costs. This calculator already does one split automatically — when an offer exceeds your loan's contribution cap, the capped portion deploys as the option you're comparing and the overflow routes to a price cut. Once you know which lever moves the needle for your hold period, a blend can be structured with your lender before the offer is written.
Sometimes — but never blindly. Most large builders own their mortgage company and tie the incentive to using it, which can be a genuinely good deal or a rate a half-point above market hiding behind a credit. Price your own loan with an outside lender anyway and compare the all-in numbers, not the incentive. If the preferred lender's package still wins after that, take it with a clear conscience.
That's the pitch: an incentive keeps the recorded sale price high, which keeps the comps high, which protects you at resale. There's something to it — and it's oversold. The recorded price doesn't set a floor under your home; the market does. Some Clark County buyers who purchased new construction three or four years ago are reselling below their original price today. Choose the incentive that fits your hold period and your budget pressure, and let the comps take care of themselves.
Want these numbers run against a real offer?
The defaults are a starting point. On a free strategy call we’ll plug in the actual offer sheet — the rate, the fine print, the buydown agreement — and talk through what the model can’t know. One warning worth hearing first: most builders make your agent register on your first visit. Bring representation to the model home, or lose it for that community.
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