Purchase the book "A Field Guide to American Houses" by Virginia and Lee McAlester. Read at least the chapter titled "Neoeclectic", and then you can tell us.

Athena, are you searching for a house to buy?

Eventually! Will be moving and am confused by the common style of houses at the new location - what the heck are these?

These are all neo-eclectic but people will rarely use that term. Only the brick one is vaguely neo-colonial, neo-georgian but realty listings in my area would call them all "colonial" because they are not "contemporary", although they may try to be current and call the grey one "modern farmhouse"-which it isn't. I think it's a futile effort to try to categorize this style of houses in some sort of historical context. I would communicate with the realtor with pictures of houses you like.

There was a time when real estate agents called everything a Cape Cod.

Does the name someone attaches to it matter?

Agreed - mostly that looks like late 80's through 90's mid-south / south suburbia, thus the neoeclectic nomenclature.

FEELS like the homes that were built as the planned unit developments were in full swing - lots of time with several builders in a large, fairly sprawling dvelopment on the "outskirts" of town (which have likely grown dramatically in the ensuing years). Different than the large megabuilder / single tract builder communities of today, but not the "one off buy some land a build" of old.

I agree they are architecturally confused contemporary homes with some colonial details. Usually colonial and revival homes are defined by their symmetry which these homes are conspicuously lacking

And in this climate, even well recognized terminology is not even clear or without some ambiguity. I used to belong to a number of FB groups about design and architecture and it seemed like there were people who belonged to those groups for the sole purpose of identifying whatever someone posted as "Not Brutalist, Not Midcentury Modern, Not Ranch style", etc. ad nauseum.

Maybe it's useful for intelligent sounding fluff in marketing material but I've never heard people use overly specific stylistic terms in describing houses in my area. At most, just the basics - ranch, colonial, modern, traditional (whatever that means), or sometimes even "odd". Here's one, very visible from a nearby freeway

Flintstone house

Our interior designer calls those houses ”Builders’ Delight.” They have a smattering of features from many different styles and are meant to be easy to build and appeal to the widest swath of the market. Admittedly he is a design snob, but an honest one with a clever turn of phrase; builders’ delight is to architecture what ”portmanteau“ is to language. Most new homes fall into this category. He worked for us on three of our homes and the biggest and nicest of them (and his favorite) was an unapologetic BD.

There were no rules for the wildly popular eclectic Colonial Revival style of the late 19th and early 20th centuries brought on by a resurgance of interest in things characteristic of early America including post medieval and early American buildings, all borrowed of course from England.

The easiest way to determine if a house emulates the early or the revival colonial styles is the presence of paired window, classical columns, front porches and bay/bow windows in the latter and the rigid symmetry and simplicity of the former. Of course, some houses emulate both with post medieval English steep roofs added for a rare bit of drama. I suppose you could call them super-eclectic or neo-neo-colonial.