LAKE MOSES – Homes in Polo Ridge are being built and sold quickly.
Polo Ridge is Hayden Homes’ newest project in Moses Lake, just down the road from Park Orchard Elementary School. When completed, it will include about 60 homes, with about half of them under construction and sold, according to Senior Marketing Manager Gina Donangelo Barnecut.
Hayden’s progress was on display Tuesday at a special “Business After Hours” event hosted by the Moses Lake Chamber of Commerce at the newly completed model home in Polo Ridge.
“We built a model home that buyers can walk through so they can imagine themselves in the home and see what options they can add to the home,” said Holly Anderson, marketing coordinator at Hayden. “Because when you’re building a home, sometimes it’s hard to envision it without seeing everything.”
The show home, furnished and decorated for visitors, follows Hayden’s Hudson floor plan. It is a 1,500 square foot home with three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a large open kitchen and dining area that can be customized to the buyer’s wishes.
“We offer laminate flooring, which we have here,” Anderson said, pointing to the model kitchen. “We offer a range of cabinet colors and stains, brushed nickel fixtures and a quartz countertop. We wanted to be careful not to offer too many options for the (model) home and make it look realistic to what people would put in their home at an affordable price.”
According to Hayden’s website, the Hudson starts at $359,990, not including options. That’s about the same as the median home price in Grant County, which is $343,495, and well below the median price in Washington state of $650,000. Since the median includes all homes – new, used and those in need of renovation – that’s a reasonable price for a new, custom-built home.
“Every home we build here is pretty affordable for the first-time buyer in this area,” Anderson said. “And then we also have some buyers who are relocating, people who may be looking to downsize or just looking for something different.”
According to real estate agent Mark Fancher, who handles sales for Hayden in Moses Lake, Hayden Homes places a strong emphasis on affordability in its new construction projects.
“Hayden is a leader in recognizing that buyers need a little help, so they have good incentive plans to make it easier for people to move into their homes,” Fancher said.
The interest rate trend isn’t very conducive to homebuyers right now. According to Freddie Mac, average rates for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages in 2021 were 2.96%, and this week they were 6.59%. That jump makes a big difference for a homebuyer, especially younger people buying their first home. Hayden offers help with that too, Fancher said, underwriting up to $25,000 of an FHA loan for closing costs, upgrades or to lower the interest rate under a buydown program, where the buyer puts up more money up front in exchange for a lower interest rate, which then lowers the owner’s monthly payment.
“This program is what we call a 3-2-1 program,” Fancher said. “So in the first year it could be 2.49%. In the second year it will go up by one percent. That’s still much better than today’s rate. And in the third year it will go up by another one percent.”
After the three years, the interest rate increases by another percentage point, in this case to 5.49%, and remains unchanged at this value according to Hayden’s literature.
“But that’s the way it is,” Fancher said. “The total savings over those three years is much less than the $25,000. It’s much higher. (The problem is) often the monthly payment for the home buyer. We have people who get their pre-approval letter, they’re qualified for $350,000, let’s say, and then they see their monthly payment and think, ‘I’m not going to afford that. Even though I’m qualified, I’m not doing it.'”
“People are very conscious of their finances,” Barnecut said. “Many of our buyers are first-time buyers. So it’s a big investment. They’re reaching their threshold. And interest rates have a big impact on that.”
The lower payments, even in the first year, could make all the difference for many buyers, Fancher explained, because even if the payments increase later, their income is likely to increase as well as their careers.
The model home will also serve as a reference for Hayden’s two other under-construction projects in Moses Lake, Maple Ridge and Maple Landing, because the floor plans are the same in all of them, Anderson said, and Hayden won’t be finished building in Moses Lake anytime soon.
“It doesn’t make much sense to build a model home if we only have 25 or 50 lots and in a year all the lots are sold out,” Anderson said. “We knew we were going to be here for quite a while.”
Members of the Moses Lake Chamber of Commerce gather for a special “Business After Hours” event in the backyard of the Polo Ridge model home. 
The living room of the Polo Ridge model home. Hayden Homes staff furnished and decorated it to give potential buyers a feel for what it would be like to live in such a home.
The front of the model home at Polo Ridge. According to Senior Marketing Manager Gina Donangelo Barnecut, the development is already half sold.