Is The Oaks of Davie Worth It? An Honest Look at Rhino Homes's Davie Community

If you’re asking whether The Oaks of Davie is worth it, here’s the direct answer: it’s worth it if you want a fully custom-built estate home in a small, gated, low-density community and you’re not price-sensitive between 1.5 and 2 million dollars. It’s not worth it if lot size, HOA amenities, or getting the most square footage per dollar matter more to you than exclusivity and a smaller footprint of neighbors. That’s the honest split, and the rest of this article walks through exactly why.

Rhino Homes is building just 12 custom estate residences at 1275 SW 130th Ave in Davie, and as of this writing the community is marketed as nearly sold out. That scarcity changes how you should evaluate it. You’re not comparing this to a 200-home master-planned community with a resort pool and a lazy river. You’re comparing it to a boutique street of a dozen houses, and that comparison requires a different set of questions.

What The Oaks of Davie Actually Is

The Oaks of Davie is a gated, 12-home community built by Rhino Homes, a builder that markets over 30 years in South Florida construction. This isn’t a production builder pumping out the same three elevations across five counties. It’s a small-batch custom build, which is the first thing you need to understand before you evaluate the price tag.

There are five floor plans:

• Siena: 4 bed, 3 bath, roughly 3,094 A/C sq ft (about 3,533 total)
• Lugano: 4 bed, 4 bath, roughly 3,079 A/C sq ft (about 4,004 total)
• Norkita: 4 bed, 4.5 bath, roughly 3,356 A/C sq ft (about 3,852 total)
• Turin: 5 bed, 5 bath, roughly 3,628 A/C sq ft (about 4,486 total)
• White Oak: 5 bed, 5.5 bath, roughly 3,446 A/C sq ft (about 4,708 total), the flagship plan

Pricing starts from 1,499,000 on the entry plan and moves up to 1,550,000 and beyond depending on plan and lot. All of these are two-story homes with impact windows and doors, smart-home technology, porcelain tile, and gourmet kitchens with oversized islands and stone counters. Because it’s a custom build, buyers get real input on finishes rather than picking from three predetermined packages.

For the full plan-by-plan breakdown, read our Oaks of Davie Floor Plans Explained piece, and for the complete pricing and construction overview, see The Oaks of Davie New Construction Guide.

Is The Oaks of Davie Worth It? The Honest Case For

Here’s where the community actually earns its price tag.

You’re buying scarcity, not just square footage

Twelve homes is not a neighborhood in the traditional sense. It’s a private cul-de-sac feel inside a gated entry. If you’ve toured larger new construction communities in Davie or Southwest Ranches and felt like you were buying a house on a production line, The Oaks of Davie is the opposite experience. Fewer neighbors, fewer cars, fewer strangers walking dogs past your front door at 7am. For buyers who specifically want low density and don’t want to explain to friends why they live in “the community with 400 identical roofs,” that scarcity has real value, even if it’s hard to put a dollar figure on it.

Custom build flexibility

Because Rhino Homes builds in small batches, buyers get more say in interior finishes than they would with a national production builder. If you’ve ever gone through a Pulte or Lennar design center and felt boxed into three tiers of upgrades, this is a meaningfully different process. You’re closer to a semi-custom build than a cookie-cutter one.

Location inside the Davie/Plantation corridor

The property sits in Davie with a mailing address, but the builder’s own materials cite Plantation Elementary, Plantation Middle, and Plantation High as the zoned schools, not Davie schools. That’s worth pausing on. Plantation schools carry a solid reputation in Broward County, and this pocket of Davie sits close enough to the Plantation border that daily errands, shopping, and commute patterns often lean toward Plantation and the Pine Island Road corridor rather than downtown Davie. If your kids will attend those Plantation schools, that’s a real asset. If school zoning matters to your decision, verify it directly with Broward County Public Schools before you write a contract, because addresses near county and city lines shift zoning more often than buyers expect.

Land use in a build-out market

Broward County is running out of large parcels for new residential construction. Davie, Southwest Ranches, and the western edges of Plantation are some of the last pockets where builders can still assemble land for anything resembling estate-style homes. When a builder secures a 12-lot parcel in that environment, the land itself becomes part of what you’re paying for. That scarcity isn’t artificial marketing, it reflects an actual shrinking supply of buildable land in this part of Broward.

The Honest Case Against

Now the other side, because a real evaluation has to include it.

You’re not getting Estates by Turnberry lot sizes

If lot size is your priority, The Oaks of Davie is not the community for you. Estates by Turnberry sits on 20,000 to 25,000-plus square foot homesites and starts around 1.7 million, running up toward 2.2 million. The Oaks of Davie does not compete on land size. You’re paying a premium closer to Estates by Turnberry pricing without the acreage that justifies that premium there. If a big yard, room for a pool house, or genuine separation from your neighbor’s windows is the point of moving to Davie in the first place, this community will disappoint you.

The price gap versus Marigold is real money

Marigold, built by Pulte Homes in Davie, starts from 1,335,990. That’s roughly 215,000 less than the entry price at The Oaks of Davie for a home in the same city, built by a national production builder with an established track record and a much larger community around it (amenities, HOA management infrastructure, more resale comparables). Two hundred fifteen thousand dollars is not a rounding error. It’s a real down payment, a rate buydown, or years of reserve fund. If you’re stretching to afford The Oaks of Davie, that gap should give you pause. We break down whether Marigold makes more sense for most buyers in Is Marigold Worth It? and the exact monthly HOA and CDD numbers in Marigold HOA & CDD Fees.

Twelve homes means thin resale comparables

This cuts both ways. Scarcity is an asset when you’re buying, but it becomes a liability when you’re selling. With only 12 homes in the community, there will rarely be an active comp sitting inside The Oaks of Davie itself when you go to list. Appraisers and buyers will pull comps from nearby Davie and Plantation neighborhoods instead, which may not reflect the custom finishes or gated exclusivity you paid for. In a larger community like Marigold, with hundreds of homes trading over time, resale data is richer and appraisals tend to be more predictable. In a 12-home community, you’re more exposed to whatever the two or three most recent sales happened to look like, for better or worse.

HOA and CDD structure needs direct verification

Gated communities of this size typically carry an HOA to cover the gate, common landscaping, and any shared infrastructure, and depending on how the parcel was developed, a CDD (Community Development District) may also apply to fund infrastructure like roads and drainage. Rhino Homes has not published a detailed, itemized HOA and CDD fee schedule in its public marketing the way larger production builders do. Before you go under contract, get the exact HOA dues, any CDD assessment, and the reserve study directly from sales agent Yaneth Jara or the sales office. Do not assume a small community means small fees. With only 12 homes splitting the cost of gate maintenance and any shared amenities, per-household HOA dues can actually run higher than in a 300-home community where those same fixed costs are spread across many more owners. That math works against you in a boutique community, and it’s the single most important number to nail down before you commit.

What You’re Really Paying For

Strip away the marketing language and here’s what the premium at The Oaks of Davie buys you relative to Marigold: fewer neighbors, more design flexibility, and a builder with a longer regional track record on custom work. Here’s what it does not buy you relative to Estates by Turnberry: bigger lots, a guest casita option, or meaningfully more space per dollar.

If you think about it as three tiers in the Davie new construction market:

1. Marigold (from 1,335,990): production-built, largest community, most resale data, lowest entry price
2. The Oaks of Davie (from 1,499,000 to 1,550,000+): boutique custom build, 12 homes, gated, standard-size lots for the price point
3. Estates by Turnberry (roughly 1.7 to 2.2 million): largest lots (20,000-25,000+ sq ft), guest casita option, highest price ceiling

The Oaks of Davie sits in the middle price tier without the land size that would typically justify that middle position. What justifies it instead is the custom build process and the sheer scarcity of only 12 homes. If that trade makes sense for how you actually live, it’s worth it. If you’re paying that premium mainly because you assumed “gated and new” automatically means “better value,” slow down and run the comparison yourself.

For a full deep dive on the community’s pricing tiers, HOA, and CDD specifics, read The Oaks of Davie Review, which pulls together everything in one place.

HOA, CDD, and the Real Monthly Math

Before you sign anything, get these five numbers in writing from the sales office:

1. Monthly or quarterly HOA dues, and what specifically they cover (gate, landscaping of common areas, insurance on shared structures)
2. Whether a CDD applies, and if so, the current assessment amount and the amortization schedule (CDD bonds typically run 15-30 years and the payoff balance affects your total cost of ownership)
3. Reserve fund status, since a brand-new 12-home HOA has no sale history to draw on, so ask how reserves are being funded in year one
4. Any builder-to-HOA handoff timeline, meaning when control of the HOA transfers from Rhino Homes to the homeowners themselves, since builder-controlled HOAs and owner-controlled HOAs can set different priorities
5. Insurance requirements, since gated communities sometimes carry a master policy for common areas separate from your individual homeowner’s policy, and you want to know which is which

None of these numbers are things you should estimate or guess at based on comparable communities. With only 12 homes, the math is genuinely different from a 300-home HOA, and it can swing in either direction. Get it in writing before you’re under contract, not after.

Location and Commute Reality

The Davie address puts you close to I-595 and the Interstate 75/Sawgrass Expressway interchange, both of which matter if your commute runs toward Fort Lauderdale, Plantation’s office corridors, or west toward Sunrise and Weston. Nova Southeastern University and the broader Davie college corridor are a short drive away, which some buyers value for community amenities and others simply note as a traffic consideration during the school year.

Because the zoned schools cited by the builder are Plantation schools, not Davie schools, your daily school run, PTA involvement, and after-school activities may functionally tie you into Plantation more than Davie proper, even though your mailing address and property taxes say Davie. That’s not a downside inherently, Plantation has strong schools and established neighborhoods, but it’s a detail that changes how “Davie” this purchase actually feels day to day. If you’re relocating specifically for Davie’s identity, western horse-country feel, or proximity to Southwest Ranches, confirm how far this parcel actually sits from that character versus how much it functions as western Plantation with a Davie mailing address.

For buyers who want that true western Broward, low-density, larger-lot feel without the price ceiling of Estates by Turnberry, it’s worth touring Vineyards as another Davie option before finalizing a decision, alongside a direct visit to The Oaks of Davie itself.

Resale Considerations Worth Thinking Through Now

Buying in a 12-home community means thinking about your exit before you’ve even closed on your entry. A few honest questions to ask yourself:

How long do you plan to stay? If this is a 3 to 5 year hold, thin resale comps and a newly formed HOA with no track record add risk you don’t fully control. If this is a 10-plus year hold or a forever home, that risk matters less because the community and its comp history will mature around you.

Who is the next buyer likely to be? In a scarce, high-end custom community, your eventual buyer pool skews smaller than in a 300-home production community. Fewer buyers actively searching specifically for a 12-home gated Davie community means longer marketing times are possible, even if the eventual sale price holds up well.

Will your finishes age well or read as “personalized”? Custom build flexibility cuts both ways at resale. Highly personalized finish choices that suited your taste may need to be softened or partially undone for the broadest resale appeal. Builders offering more standardized finish packages, like Marigold’s, tend to produce homes that show more “neutral” to the next buyer without extra work.

None of this means don’t buy here. It means go in with eyes open about what a 12-home community means for your exit strategy, not just your move-in day.

Who The Oaks of Davie Actually Serves

Based on everything above, this community makes the most sense for:

• Move-up buyers from elsewhere in Broward or Miami-Dade who have sold a previous home with substantial equity and are not stretching to make the 1.5 million-plus entry point
• Buyers who specifically value low density and are willing to pay a premium to have only 11 other households in the entire community
• Families targeting Plantation schools while wanting a newer-construction home rather than an older Plantation resale
• Buyers who want design input during construction rather than picking from a limited set of pre-built options
• Long-term holders who aren’t worried about thin resale comps in years 3 to 5 because they plan to stay well past that window

It makes less sense for buyers chasing the most square footage or lot size per dollar (look at Estates by Turnberry instead), buyers who are budget-sensitive at the 1.5 million mark (look at Marigold instead, where the entry price is meaningfully lower), or buyers who prioritize a large, established HOA with more amenities and deeper resale data.

The Bottom Line

The Oaks of Davie is worth it for a specific kind of buyer: someone who wants a custom-built estate home, values scarcity and low density over acreage, isn’t stretching on the 1.5 to 1.6 million-plus entry price, and plans to hold long enough that thin resale comps in a brand-new 12-home HOA aren’t a real concern. It is not the value play in this corridor, Marigold is, and it is not the lot-size play either, Estates by Turnberry is. It occupies a specific middle position that only makes sense once you know exactly what you’re buying and what you’re not.

Before you write an offer, get the exact HOA dues, confirm whether a CDD applies and its payoff schedule, and verify school zoning directly with Broward County Public Schools rather than relying on the builder’s brochure. Those three numbers, more than anything in the marketing materials, will tell you whether this specific home, on this specific lot, at this specific price, is the wise decision for your family.

If you want a second set of eyes on how The Oaks of Davie stacks up against Marigold, Estates by Turnberry, or Vineyards for your specific budget and priorities, reach out and we’ll walk through the real numbers together before you commit to anything.