"Our new Saltgrass at Heron Bay community will offer residents the rare opportunity to build a new construction home within the well-established Heron Bay master-planned community and highly desirable Parkland area."
Jonathan Carter, Toll Brothers' division president for Southeast Florida, said that at a groundbreaking ceremony in September 2025, standing on a 20.9-acre parcel that used to be part of the Heron Bay golf course. He was right about the rarity. New construction inside an established, gated master plan in built-out north Broward doesn't come along often. What he didn't say, because builders never do at a groundbreaking, is that the price attached to that opportunity would move at least twice before a single buyer signed a binding contract.
If you're looking at Saltgrass at Heron Bay right now, the price you see is not a fixed fact. It's a snapshot of a number that has already changed once in public, and the sales process itself is built to let it change again after you've put money down.
The Price Has a Paper Trail
Toll Brothers put three different numbers on this community in less than a year, each one a matter of public record.
| When | What Toll Brothers said | Home sizes cited |
|---|---|---|
| September 2025, groundbreaking | Pricing "anticipated to start from $1.6 million" | 2,635 to over 4,600 sq ft |
| June 2026, grand opening | "Priced from $1.3 million" | About 2,632 to over 4,000 sq ft |
| July 2026, sales coverage | Single-family homes "priced from $1.36 million to $1.67 million" | 2,632 to 4,750 sq ft |
None of these are lies. They're snapshots of a release schedule, and the size range narrowed a little each time, which is part of the story. The largest floor plans from the original announcement, the ones pushing past 4,600 square feet, aren't the ones anchoring the current "from" price. A lower starting number with a smaller footprint isn't a discount. It's a different plan being used to advertise the entry point.
This matters because a buyer who remembers the $1.6 million figure from last fall and sees $1.3 million today might reasonably assume the market softened or Toll Brothers is running an incentive. Neither is necessarily true. The floor moved because the plan mix in the current release moved.
How the "From" Price Actually Gets Set
Toll Brothers' own annual report explains the mechanics plainly. The company tracks deposit rates on a weekly basis across every community to gauge demand. When demand is strong in a given neighborhood, the company evaluates whether to raise base prices. When it's weak, it evaluates incentives and discounts. The starting price you see this week is a live output of that tracking, not a number the company committed to for the life of the community.
That's worth sitting with before you fall in love with a figure you saw in a press release, an ad, or a friend's text message from a model home tour. The number is real at the moment it's published. It is not a promise about the number you'll be quoted when you actually sit down to select a homesite.
What the Deposit Locks, and What It Doesn't
Toll Brothers uses a two-step sales process, and understanding the difference between the steps is the single most useful thing a buyer here can know before visiting a sales office.
- A small, refundable reservation deposit. This reserves a specific homesite or unit for a short period and locks in that unit's base price. Because it's non-binding, it isn't recorded as a signed contract.
- A binding agreement of sale, signed roughly three weeks later after the buyer completes a financial questionnaire. At this stage, the buyer provides a larger cash down payment that is generally non-refundable. Across all Toll Brothers communities in fiscal year 2024, those cash down payments averaged about 8 percent of the total purchase price.
Compare that to a typical Florida resale contract, where an earnest money deposit is usually refundable during a defined inspection period. In a builder deal, the protection window is much narrower and closes earlier. Once you've moved from the reservation into the binding agreement, you're carrying real, non-refundable money against a home that may still be months from a foundation pour.
The Premium You're Not Seeing on the Sign
The advertised "from" price also isn't the full price of a home you could actually build. At least one current listing for the community's Nautilus floor plan, a 4,197-square-foot design priced at roughly $1.5 million, states explicitly that the price shown does not include the homesite premium. In earlier Heron Bay build-out phases, homesite premiums have run from about $10,000 to $60,000 depending on lot size and view. Saltgrass hasn't published its own premium schedule publicly, so treat that older range as context, not a quote, and ask for the current number in writing before you fall for a specific lot. Add personalization at the Design Studio, where buyers select finishes, structural changes, and upgrades, and the number on the sign and the number on the closing statement can be two very different figures.
None of this makes Saltgrass a bad opportunity. It makes the advertised price a starting reference, not a budget.
What the Same Money Buys Next Door
Heron Bay itself is not a single price point. It's a 3,000-plus home master plan spanning roughly 35 subdivisions built out around an 18-hole TPC golf course, with recent resale listings across the community ranging from about $495,000 to more than $3 million depending on size, water view, and how custom the estate is. As of early July 2026, active listings across Heron Bay's Parkland and Coral Springs sections carried a median list price around $964,000, with homes spending an average of about 52 days on the market. A separate twelve-month look at completed sales in Heron Bay put the median sale price closer to $927,500, down about 2 percent from the prior year, with homes there taking an average of 77 days to sell.
Set those figures next to Saltgrass's current entry point in the mid-$1.3 millions, and the gap is roughly 35 to 40 percent above the broader neighborhood's resale median. That gap isn't evidence that Heron Bay values are rising to meet new construction. The trailing twelve-month data suggests the opposite, a market that's flat to slightly softer. The gap is the premium a buyer pays specifically for being first owner in a brand-new home, on a freshly formed HOA, inside an otherwise mature and already-known community.
The Land Itself Has a History Worth Knowing
Saltgrass exists because the City of Parkland agreed in 2023 to sell this specific 20.9-acre former golf course site to Toll Brothers for $19.5 million, roughly two years before the builder broke ground in September 2025. According to the deed included in that sale, Toll Brothers must adhere to the development plan the city had already approved, which is part of why Carter called this a rare opportunity rather than routine infill. A city selling parkland to a national builder, with development terms attached to the deed, is a meaningfully different origin story than a typical spec-built subdivision, and it's worth understanding before you assume the amenities and layout will evolve the way a private developer's plan might.
A Short Checklist Before You Sign
- Ask for the current release's homesite premium schedule for any lot you're seriously considering, not just the base plan price.
- Get the binding contract's deposit schedule in writing, including what happens to money already spent on structural or Design Studio selections if you need to step back.
- Bring your own representation to the first visit and confirm in writing who is actually representing your interests versus the builder's.
- Compare the community against dated, recent Heron Bay resale activity rather than the amenity list, since amenities describe lifestyle, not price support.
Quick Answers
Does the on-site sales team represent me as the buyer? No. On-site new-construction sales staff represent the builder. Their job is to sell Toll Brothers homes at Toll Brothers terms, which is a different role than a buyer's agent negotiating on your behalf.
Will the price move again before I close? It can. Toll Brothers ties its pricing decisions to weekly demand tracking in each community, so a strong sales pace can push prices up on remaining homesites just as easily as a slow pace can bring incentives.
Is the homesite premium negotiable? It isn't typically published until you've selected a specific plan and lot, so ask for that number in writing before you calculate what the home will actually cost you.
New construction inside an established master plan is genuinely rare in this part of Parkland, and Saltgrass earns the attention it's getting. Just don't let the number on the announcement be the number you plan around. If you want a second set of eyes on a specific homesite, a specific premium, or how a Saltgrass contract compares to what's actually moving in Heron Bay's resale market right now, Deborah Carr is happy to walk through it with you. Let's Connect.
