Surprise Ending

So a lot has happened since my last angry post. As I mentioned before we live out of state so without a place to live in Md  my husband could not start his new job that started in December.  This info was communicated to my new SR who said Ryan could put us up in an apartment in Md during the delay for FREE since the inconvenience was due to their construction delays. Although not desirable, it was a workable solution so we agreed.   However in November when it came time to make moving plans, Ryan could no longer do it for free. They could only do one month free and our house  wasn't going to be done for another 4 months if weather was good thru the winter.  We would have to pay for all other months we had to stay. This didn't work for us since our rent for a townhouse in AL was half of the rent the apartment we would be and we would have to also pay for a storage bin.  Not to mention the fact that we are a 4 person family and they were trying to put us in a 2 bedroom apartment.    Obviously we were upset at this last minute change and so we were offered a different option....

To purchase a spec home ready for immediate delivery in a different community in southern md.  We were in AL so we had no way of physically seeing the house but we sent some family over to check it out. It was a bigger home with significantly more space. More like a sf attached unit and the price was only $5k higher. We were told we had to act quickly so we sent a note saying we wanted to purchase right away.  We were told paperwork was being overnighted and house was ours.  Then that same night I recieve an email saying the original owner of the house all of a sudden got an approval and so we could no longer purchase the house. So Ryan sold us a house that wasn't for sale.....

The good news is this story still has a happy ending.  When the first spec house fell thru our SR told us about another spec house that was actually a true sf on a corner lot in our original neighborhood.  Because of a special loan program NVR was doing for specs our monthly payments would be about equal to what they would have been for our th despite the $25k jump in sales price and our closing costs would be covered.  We closed on this house last Thursday and we love it!!!!!

So I guess it was all woth it. Pictures of the new home to come soon.  Its a Florence but right now its just a mess so I will upload some pics once we've gotten things put away.

Happy holidays everyone and good luck with your builds!!!!

Long Time No Blog ....So Disappointed

So its been a while since I've updated this blog but I am so disappointed I have to warn others.
When my husband and I signed our purchase agreement we had an estimated start date of mid August and completion mid November.   So far theres been extremely little communication from our SR. No timeline. No indication of when important documents are needed.  Then randomly we get an email that says were starting Sept 23 but since we didn't know the timeline we haven't yet procured our UW approval. SR tells us if we don't get it asap we are out of our house and in the next group scheduled to deliver in Feb.  I kill myself (and my LO) to get her the commitment letter. No response. My husband and I call her cell and leave voicemails. No response. We live 12 hours away so my husband sent his mother (who lives 10 min away) for a face to face. Apparently our SR quit. We have a new SR but he's been too busy to contact us. Oh and our house.....waaaaay behind. The city won't allow the start of any new houses until Ryan creates a new entance to the development. Also contrary to what our old SR told us, we still need two houses to sell in our row. Our revised date for completion is beginning of Marchish.

When was anyone going to tell us any of this??????

I would caution any first time home buyer looking to do new construction.  I was optimistic that things would happen  according to the schedule we were provided and we would recieve adequate service.  Not the case and no matter the difficulty or inconvenience Ryan's mistakes cause, you are on the hook to purchase a house from them or forfeit all ure deposit money. 

Pictures: our STILL naked lot and looks like a pond (maybe?) across the street.

Countdown to Settlement

ONLINE COUNTDOWN

Quick Update & A Few Pictures

When I went to see to the community back in the begining of June our street looked like this

So my assumption was that when I came back in mid July there would be a road there!

...Not the case.  In fact the street still looks exactly like this. Apparently, it's been raining like everyday so they haven't been able to pave the road which is putting us slightly behind schedule.  Initially we were told construction would start mid to late August.  Now its the begining of September. Hope the ran stops so we can start making some progress.

Other news...I found a picture of our actual kitchen cabinets on another blog.  Ryan just started offering these cabinets and I hadn't seen a picture of them in an actual Ryan home until now. The same blog also had a picture of the exact combination we chose for out bathroom.  I feel much better having seen them now. I like them a lot!

Houzz.Com

Bored...thought I'd write another post.  Another new obsession: http://www.houzz.com/.  I think I have read every Ryan blog known to man and stalked every possible picture of my kitchen cabinets soooo now it's time to stalk furniture and decorations!!!!!!!!!!! Love houzz. Not sure how I didn't know this existed prior. If anyone has not been on this website..you can pretty much search any design idea and it will bring up thousands of pictures to look at and get ideas from.  Perfect way to waste hours of your life.

But since this is a Ryan Homes blog it always comes back to Ryan.  I haven't heard much from my SR.  I've sent her a few emails but she says she doesn't get them.  I believe we are supposed to start building next month so I hope she will be more responsive once things get started. So far she has not impressed me....and also she calls me "hun" and I believe we are pretty close in age. Can't stand that...

Obsessed w/ Ryan Home Blog Spots

When I was pregnant I watched every single baby show known to man and now that we are building a house I'm obsessed with Ryan Home blogs. Seriously getting out of hand.  I'm getting my MBA online and I also do most of my work for my job on a computer....but lately whenever I even touch a computer before I know it I'm on a Ryan Home blog spot.  I actually hide my screen from my husband because I'm tired of his judging eyes. He thinks I have a problem.  He's probably right.

The bad thing (besides not getting any work done for school or my job) is everytime I see someone elses house/kitchen/etc I'm look ooo that looks nice. Why didnt I do that??? ...Maybe I should submit a change request. And I have yet to see a kitchen like mine that I have really loved. It's driving me crazy. Like most first time home owners I just want everything to be perfect. 

That said, this is our starter house and we are purchasing it primarily as an investment.  5 years from now we plan to move into our forever home. My husband picked out a lot of things in the home we have being built (kitchen cabinets, bathroom cabinets, and a lot of upgrades).  The next house is all mine <evil laugh>

Our Design Choices

We chose the Lausanne Square Maple Espresso Timberlake Cabinets for the Kitchen and the bathrooms, the Luna Pearl granite and the Rural Living Deep Java 5" throughout the main floor.  We told the sales rep at purchase we wanted engineered hardwoods on the main floor. She put them in as laminate and assured us that was the same thing in their system.  BUT when we got to the design center they told us that was incorrect and so we had to pay an additonal $1600 to upgrade to the hardwoods we thought we already had.

 

Bathrooms - Square Maple Espresso, Upgraded laminate flooring and santa cecilia granite.  This granite was just a substitute.  CTI didnt have the actual santa cecilia which is less grey and more marble looking.

 

Our carpet choices for the basement (left) and the 3rd floor (right). Main floor hardwoods in the middle.   We went with the highest upgrade berber  in Frosty Taupe for the basement because we figured we will be spending a lot of time down there.  3rd floor carpet was D level (Favorite Choice Gallery). I really wanted it to be stain resistant or else we could have gone down a level. 

 

Laminate for entrance next to downstairs berber.  Laminate is called Station Square.

 

We are very excited to see how this all comes together. Our Pre-contruction meeting is in August so we still have another month or so before anything happens really but they are starting on our actual street now so soon we will be able to see our lot.  In the meantime I guess we can just wait and pray the interest rates don't keep going up...

Model Home

Here's some pictures of the Model.  Our house will be set up just like this one with a Bay Window on the side of the living room.

Catch Up - Loan Pre Approval

So when we were signing the purchase agreement the sales rep told us that by putting a minimum of  5% down we could avoid mortgage insurance with a conventional 30 year loan. This was a big deal to us because the MI was like $350 a month.    However, a few days later a NVR loan officer contacted me and let me know that if the MI was waived the interest rate would go up from like 3.75% to 4 something.  I was more than a little annoyed by this.  I don't want to assume we were purposely mislead but I did have an uneasy feeling about it.  From that point forward I've had a bad feeling about NVR.  And then when I went online I saw so many bad reviews for NVR, it just confirmed my feelings.  NVR was offering $10K towards closing  but my husband and I decided to go with our bank because we just feel more comfortable working with them. Hopefully it works out for us : )

Catch Up - Purchase Agreeement

I'm a little behind in starting this process.  So far we have signed our purchase agreement, secured our pre-approval and made design decisions.  Our house is scheduled for completion in November.

Little background...my husband and I have been married for a little over 2 years and we have 2 wonderful little children, a boy and a girl.  He is a 2nd lieutenant in the United States Army and I work in contracts.  We currently live in AL but our house is being built in Maryland where we will be moving once he gets out the Army in the fall.

So far the process has been very stressful.  Our sales rep has not been the best.  We felt very rushed through the purchase process. She didnt go over the available options with us and at one point told us she didnt want to waste her time if we weren't going to go through with it (even though we had given her no reason to think we wouldn't). Despite what's been disappointing customer service, my husband and I are moving forward because we believe this will be a good investment for our family.

Some interesting misshaps thus far:  
*My husband and I live in AL. The house will be in MD.  We came up for a 4 day weekend just to purchase this house.  No one was available to sell us the house until the 3rd day.
*Sales Rep got 3/4 of the way through the 100 page purchase agreement before realizing she was selling us the wrong house. There is a larger version of the Mozart with a morning room etc.  She assumed this was the house we wanted, never asked and the paperwork didnt specify until the end when she started showing us specs and they werent right.  When I pointed out that it was the wrong house she got an attitiude with me like it was my fault.