Crosswind Ranch: Spacious Living by West Bay in Parrish, Florida

In this episode of Jim Sells the Suncoast, Jim welcomes Rhett Fisher from Homes by West Bay, who shares insights on the Crosswind Ranch community in Parrish. Explore larger lot sizes, diverse floor plans, and a range of customization options in a serene, nature-focused setting.

Key Highlights:

• Home Sizes & Options: Single-family homes from ~2,100 to 4,850+ sq. ft., with 3 to 7 bedrooms, two different series (Artisan & Innovation), and optional pools.
• Pricing & Personalization: Base prices start around $499K up to the $800Ks (lot premiums, design, and structural choices extra). Buyers get up to 6% in incentives for closing costs, rate buy-downs, or price flex when using West Bay’s preferred lender.
• Community Amenities & Fees: Planned resort-style pool, lap pool, splash pad, pickleball courts, dog park, and low monthly HOA ($15/mo). CDD ranges $2,800–$3,300/year.
• Location Perks: Quick access to Tampa, Sarasota, and St. Pete while staying away from the high-traffic hubs. Enjoy gas utilities (rare in the area) and lots of green space.
• Warranty & Build Time: 1-year general warranty, 10-year structural coverage, and 5–6 months for new construction.

What’s Next?
Ready to explore Crosswind Ranch or learn more about living on the Suncoast? Email Jim at jim.ahearn@gmail.com or visit Jim Sells the Suncoast.

A Personal Note from Jim:

Hey there, I’m Jim Ahearn, your go-to real estate guide and host of Jim Sells The Suncoast podcast! 🎙️✨ Dreaming of Florida life? I’ve got you covered! As your dedicated buyer's agent, I’ll handle everything from walk-throughs to closing, making your home-buying journey as smooth as a Florida breeze.

Whether you're local or tuning in from afar, I’ll bring the Suncoast to you with virtual tours and expert advice. Let’s chat about your dream home and I'll connect you with all the right people to make it happen.

Ready to move to paradise? Drop me a line – I can’t wait to help! 🌴🏡

Transcript

Jim: 0:53

Greetings all and I'd like to introduce today, Rhett Fisher, who is joining me from Crosswind Ranch and West Bay Builders. He's been in real estate for about eight years selling new homes. He's been with West Bay for about a year, coming out of New Jersey. Welcome. Glad to have you here.

Rhett: 1:10

Thanks, Jim. Glad to be here.

Jim: 1:12

Can you give me an overview of that whole development? What's going on there?

Rhett: 1:16

Crosswind Ranch started about 2 years ago now, a little over 2 years. It's all developed by homes by West Bay. So it's all single family homes. As you drive through the community with the barrel tile roofs and some larger homes there's a lot of space between homes. We've got a lot of natural scenery and wildlife. We didn't just come in here and flatten it out and build homes. There's a lot of good vegetation. Absolutely.

Jim: 1:47

I think some of that green area, when you can put the homes, maybe in one section, it opens up. So you have a lot of that room to grow or, and, bike or walk or trail or whatever it is. That's a big deal. I do like that a little bit of space in the lots. I know, every place has its own niche, right? Then, if you need a smaller home, you're getting in there. Perfect downsize and go into it. But this gives you a little bit of room, which is bucking the trend of some of the areas that I've seen in along that parish quarter, we talked about the single family homes. What kind of what size ranges are we talking about here? What's the, what's the choices for your so really we're anywhere

Rhett: 2:24

from 2100 square feet to we go all the way to 48 50 now Wow, yeah, that's our 70 foot lots that we just released.

Jim: 2:37

And most of these are going i'm assuming three bedroom to start with and then going up to five

Rhett: 2:43

three bedroom to actually all the way to seven bedrooms.

Jim: 2:46

Wow. So tell me a little bit about the difference in the homes multi level two or three car garage. what are the options or choices just from, a basic viewpoint on that?

Rhett: 2:57

Yeah. So we go from our 2100 square foot floor plan is a two car garage. We'll go up to our three car garage, one story and two story homes. We have two different series in here as well. It's called the artisan series. You can really do a lot with design when you get into our design center. Where Homes by West Bay really you can really personalize the inside of your home. You sit down with an interior designer for eight hours. You do your floors, you do your cabinets, you do your countertops. You can build a pool with us. It's very customizable on the interior of our homes. So that's our artisan series. When you get into our innovation series, you can do the same. There's not as many choices. but it is still very personable inside the home and

Jim: 3:45

I spoke with somebody and they really two ways, right? You can either personalize or you can customize it. I know it's short of changing the actual floor plan. You got a lot of customizable choices and options you could put together. The other one kind of saying, Hey, that's how we save a little bit on cost. Here's some choices. It's limited. Here's what we can do. Really being able to open it up for both buyers and one development. And the fact that it's just West Bay in that development, a lot of them down here have multiple builders in there. And sometimes you have some styles that go swing a little wild. So it's nice when you go in and you have that cohesion, that feeling of, community.

Rhett: 4:22

Which is a big deal as well for holding values of homes. The same look, same feel, same builder quality is really our big deal. We're homes by West Bay is a private builder that started in Tampa in 2009 which is sounds funny. A builder started in 2009, but they took that as their opportunity, right? And they've just grown from there. The resilience of the company is unbelievable.

Jim: 4:46

2009 sounds like it was just the other day, but it's really 15, almost 16 years ago. And the different things we've gone through between, the housing crisis of oh, eight and then everything we've gone through up and through COVID. They've weathered a lot. So if they're still out there building that great product, that's probably a Testament to what they've got going. What are the starting prices? What's the price points for the homes in here?

Rhett: 5:10

So base price wise, we range anywhere from four 99, nine 90 all the way up to eight 28, nine nine. To unravel that a little bit more, base price does not include a lot premium. It doesn't include your structural or your design options. Which is nice because you can personalize it. Like we said, you have a wide range of price points for the same floor plan, right? a home that starts at 617, 990. I've had customers build that home for 700, 000 out the door. I've had customers build that home for 1. 4 million out the door. It's just, it's very personal, but even at that 700, 000 price point. The bones you have on our house with the 12th of ceilings and just the floor plan itself is beautiful and it's still a beautiful home when you get in

Jim: 6:03

Yeah. The amazes me that you have seven bedroom homes in there with multi gen being a huge growing component of the market. That seems like it might be a little bit tailor fit right for them to go in there with enough homes and rooms. to handle, one or two generations or three.

Rhett: 6:22

And we are really seeing a good amount of that whether it be parents in laws or whether it's kids that haven't left, they went through college and they need to start somewhere. And a lot of our floor plans actually, we say we don't move walls and things like that, but we have pre planned structural options. where you can take a home and you can create, say you pull the den together with a bedroom and you can create a second master, a junior suite, or, Just a bedroom with its own bathroom, full bath in it. So that gives that opportunity without. Changing the home too much.

Jim: 6:57

So they can really, what do they need for their family and what's going to make it work? They can look at that basic structure and go from there. What are the, what other costs are there? When we look at HOA fees or CDD fees. And what is included in that cost?

Rhett: 7:13

So our CDD the amenities are all in our CDD costs. Our innovation series, you're 2, 800 for the year. And then our artisan, you're 3, 300 for the year. But we do have low HOA fees. Those are 15 a month. Speaking of amenities, we've just started moving dirt on our first amenity center in here. We're all very excited. It's going to be a huge resort style pool a lap pool that is attached to the resort style pool. That will have a splash pad for pickleball courts. We all know that's huge. That was and then they'll have a dog park and a playground.

Jim: 7:48

Okay. So really you're talking 315 bucks a month, a monthly total between the two, which is not bad at all. For access to all of that and in maintenance, as far as the community, no maintenance, they responsible for their yard.

Rhett: 8:04

You are responsible for your yard. We provide the irrigation water the front sides and back of the homes have irrigation water. Underground irrigation pipe, then that's reclaimed. But maintenance wise, yeah. Landscaping is all in the homeowner. Most people would grab somebody for, 80 bucks, whatever it is. And those guys, they get 30 people in a row and they just hit everyone.

Jim: 8:25

Yeah.

Rhett: 8:26

Yeah.

Jim: 8:27

And you said earlier pools are an option, so they can come in.

Rhett: 8:30

Yeah. so that's our artisan series home. If you come in and you want to put a pool on the back of your artisan series home, we can build a pool simultaneously with your build so that when you close, you've got a pool. We subcontract it to Coast Pools, awesome pool builder. You sit down, you design the pool with them and they'll build it along with the build.

Jim: 8:53

And they have some options so you can stylize that to match your house.

Rhett: 8:56

They may have less options because they're doing a higher volume. Say if you went outside and did a pool. after your home, but the is awesome. You can b to go.

Jim: 9:09

Yeah. So how big is the, crosswind as far as actually

Rhett: 9:14

only in the first phase of seven. So it's going to be a quite large community. We control about 2000 lots.

Jim: 9:24

What's the construction timeline?

Rhett: 9:27

time is yeah. our cycle time has really Shortened over this past year where we can actually build a home about five to six months

Jim: 9:39

So what then is the projected and how many homes are built now?

Rhett: 9:44

So right now we're out about 200 homes built. So that's about 10 percent of the community.

Jim: 9:52

How is West Bay handling warranties and post sale support for homeowners?

Rhett: 9:57

So we have a one year warranty. HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and then we have a 10 year structural warranty.

Jim: 10:06

Okay. What, tell me a little bit about the area around Crosswind. I know that is a growing community up Parrish, Ellington that whole corner. What's going to be available for your new home buyers? I know when we look at the airports, we're pretty close. You're probably 40 minutes from Sarasota and 40 minutes from Tampa. Lakewood Ranch to the south is only 20 to 30 minutes with all the restaurants and dining as well as what's growing on mocks and wallow That whole area

Rhett: 10:38

is just a boomtown right now. So I think the beauty of really cross branch is to not be in the middle of all of that,

Jim: 10:45

right?

Rhett: 10:45

There's a lot of people that hate. We want a house in the middle of it. There's a lot of people that don't, people don't wanna be around the traffic and getting out of their community when school's getting out. So I think being a little off of that and just about five minutes to it is a great thing because you can breathe, you can. Get to Lake Orange through the back way through Rye Road. You don't have to go into the town, into 301, onto Moxon Wallow and wait for that traffic getting to 75, because it is growing. Let's say Moxon Wallow quarter is 26, 000 homes coming in. This gives you a little breathing room, an opportunity to be away from that.

Jim: 11:22

It's access to everything without being in it,

Rhett: 11:24

Yeah.

Jim: 11:26

What kind of incentives or special offers are you offering currently for any potential homebuyers?

Rhett: 11:34

So currently what we're doing is on our to be built homes. We offer 6 percent of whatever you price out the home to be at contract, right? So at contract, we will sit down we'll go through the floor plan. We'll go through the pre planned structural options that we have. Like we talked about, if you want a bedroom with a bathroom inside of it, if you want 16 foot sliders, if you want 24 foot sliders, those items we set. At contract especially because they have to go through permitting. And we don't have to wait for you to do your design appointment and figure out your customizable stuff inside the house. But we do that. So you get your floor plan, base price, you add your lot premium, you add your structural, and then we come up with a design budget for you, depending on where we think you're going to be. From that number, we take 15% deposit. And then from that number, we give you a 6% incentive. So in most cases it's 40, 50,$60,000. They can use for closing costs or. rate buy downs or just flex money off the price.

Jim: 12:40

Okay. And do you have a vertical integration with or preferred lender title insurance?

Rhett: 12:47

We have service contracts with, which they can actually go to their banks and get us better rates or better pricing for our customers. And then we actually do require you to use them if you're going to take advantage of our incentive.

Jim: 13:02

Okay. When we look at Crosswind in West Bay, it has actually gotten pretty big in the area. What kind of environmental considerations were taken into account as we go through the planning and construction phase? Anything specific that was set out for Crosswind?

Rhett: 13:18

When you're sitting on your lot or you're looking out your back window, there's a lot of greenery, a lot of conservation. We kept a lot of the look of the land, per se. And it's more like community roads through that.

Jim: 13:32

Yeah. As opposed to some of the developments that come in clear everything and you're like, Oh, the trees will look great in 25 years.

Rhett: 13:39

I think that's also a big part of. Us not having the 2000 homes laid out perfectly is right. You want to, as we build, keep that aesthetic. So it's easier to do, or if you run into something where you have to change something,

Jim: 13:55

Any restrictions or guidelines homeowners should be aware of? Any kind of pet policy or rental restrictions within the community?

Rhett: 14:02

HOA docs very similar to pretty much every community six, seven month rentals. We don't do any short term. So that kind of protects our homeowners. Pet restrictions are no more than four very typical things. There's nothing outlandish when you look in those docs that would really have you avoid purchasing a home in here, unless you're someone that doesn't like an HOA, which we get that too,

Jim: 14:30

How has the real estate market in this area impacted the sales and pricing of the development?

Rhett: 14:36

We haven't seen much of hit on pricing. there's some inventory homes and ones that you'd like to get off the books. So we had extra incentive for things like that. But we really try to hold our price point for the value for our buyers and for our appraisals. So as a builder, you still want to always keep going. You want to always keep making money. It is a business.

Jim: 14:56

Yep. You're passing that value on to the people who bought it because if it bottoms out, all of a sudden their equity and value is gone.

Rhett: 15:02

So you want to

Jim: 15:03

maintain

Rhett: 15:03

And that's the goal for us is to not hurt our homeowners or anyone really around us.

Jim: 15:09

Can you share any success stories or testimonials from current residents that highlight their experience living in development?

Rhett: 15:15

When I started with West Bay, I opened a brand new community down in Venice.

Jim: 15:19

Absolutely.

Rhett: 15:19

So I live in a West Bay home and that's

Jim: 15:23

pretty strong testimony right there.

Rhett: 15:25

Yeah. And even better. I didn't work for West Bay. when I purchased my home I worked for another builder, but at the same time, I had such a great experience with my build and my walkthrough and my construction manager. And. I remember going through my walk and saying, man, this house is so beautiful. I think the construction manager put up more tape than I did because I was like, dude, I love this house. So much so that after I was done, I went to the management team and asked if they had a position and it took a few months, but they got me to Come over from a different builder. And that's just super testimony to the product.

Jim: 16:06

Absolutely. Someone comes in and says, would you recommend any testers go? As a matter of fact, they can, let me show you mine.

Rhett: 16:12

Awesome. And most actually there's a lot of our agents do live in a West Bay for that reason.

Jim: 16:20

That's awesome to hear. What else would you like to share with listeners about coming out and checking out Crosswind, looking in the area and West Bay?

Rhett: 16:29

I think Paris is just a great spot for there's a wide variety, whether it's West Bay or not West Bay. Paris itself is just so exploding with new homes and value and. families It opportunity to be out her specifically if you don't in the middle of hustle b some scenery. You kno to be. The homes look gre gas community, which is another tough thing. Oh yeah. Place in parish itself. There's a few but it's tough. And a lot of our northeast buyers, I'm from the Northeast. We like gas food, we like gas stove tops. It's just a nicer, nicer way to cook. I think personally, I think, anyway. But yeah, I think parish itself is just the new thing. You're so centrally located. Like we talked about to Sarah, so St. Pete. To Tampa it's very easy to get to any major hub without having to spend that real high premium. Now, is the pricing getting there? Yeah, it's getting there. We'd like to urge people to move to Paris sooner than later some value. And even seeing homes by West Bay here now having a good strong hold, we do have a higher end, higher price point product. And as we open more communities, all we're going to do is drive the value up of every other product in the area. Seeing that ticket item in this area is a huge testimony to Parrish.

Jim: 17:56

Thank you for coming on and joining me today. I appreciate you spending that time with me today,

Rhett: 18:00

Jim, thank you so much.