First time home buyer- Battling buyers remorse

Yesterday I had some fun playing around on the Sherwin-Williams website trying to visualize what our house will look like. Buying a house for the first time is such an emotional decision and not being able to see this house and walk through it has made my buyers remorse go through the roof. Luckily, I have my husband and ladies at work talking me back off the ledge lol. Once they break ground I am hoping my second thoughts will dissipate.

My husband and I drove around our new neighborhood yesterday evening before dinner and its looking good. The house right beside us is almost done and a few lots behind us have been sold so its all very promising! No word yet on when we will be breaking ground or when our meeting with our project manager will be but hopefully soon!

Thanks for reading!

Flooring Appointment with Costen Flooring

Woo Hoo! The meeting I was most looking forward to was finally here! Call me crazy... but I really love flooring. Don't ask... I just do :-) So, I really didn't realize how many choices we would be making at this meeting. Our RH Sales Rep budgeted in our selection sheet $10,000 in flooring. Since the flooring was really important to both my husband and myself we took a good look at our budget and knew prior to the meeting that we could go up an additional $5,000 if we needed to. We weren't really sure how far the initial $10,000 would get us but from the blogs I read it would be spent pretty fast. I am glad they budgeted it in for us from the beginning though because without that, this meeting would have been a major sticker shock!

We didn't share our budget right away, but one thing I loved was that our flooring sales rep already had the lowest priced flooring out so that we didn't feel pressured into buying anything we couldn't afford. Our choices for the cabinets and granite were out including the options we chose for each bathroom. From the 14 day meeting we selected the Hazelnut glaze cabinets and St. Cecilia granite for the kitchen.

First, we began with main flooring through the first level of the house. This would include the foyer, dining room, hallways, powder room, living room, kitchen & eat in kitchen area. We had a little trouble deciding between a hand scraped dark wood (listed in the 1st picture below) or a more glossy dark wood. I really wanted a walnut finish flooring but RH didn't offer something like that. In the end the we chose the glossy finish. It is called Dundee Plank solid oak- mocha color.

Here are a couple of the options we were looking at. The first one is the hand scraped which we both liked but it was just missing something for me.

 So we added a more glossy look and that is how we chose the one you see if the middle. As soon as she set it down I knew it was the one :) The lighter color on the left was another option, but we really wanted something darker.

Next we selected the upstairs and master bedroom carpets. We chose a more neutral color for upstairs since the carpet will be visible down to the main floor. We upgraded the padding one level and the carpet one level. There was an option to upgrade the padding to a stain resistant padding for more money but we decided not to add that. I originally wanted something really nice in the master but my husband didn't really care for any of the choices so we stuck with the upgrade one level up and chose a darker tan color (the one closest to the bottom of the picture). In this picture is also including the master bathroom choices as well. We selected the dark brown cabinets from our 14 day meeting so she had that out and waiting for us.  We selected a white shower surround in the stand up shower and grey tile. I love this little mosaic tile that goes in the shower too, it has really unique pieces inside that add some character!

Below is the tile that we chose the mud room. Believe it or not this choice took forever and we were soooooo tired by the time we got to this choice. I wanted something really clean and neutral and the hubby wanted something different since we had all neutrals throughout the house. He originally selected a green... i was ok with that at first but after looking at it 20 more times throughout our appointment I just couldn't do it. So we agreed on a grayish blue color. Believe it or not we even had to pick all of the grout colors we wanted! She had a swatch of 50+ grout colors.... talk about choices, choices! Also, I want to mention that originally we didn't think we would be putting tile in the mudroom or in the upstairs bathroom but the cost was only like an extra $500- $600 and for that you may as well. 

Below is the upstairs bathroom choice. We went with the standard cabinets in there because we plan on changing the entire vanity out and putting in something nicer later on down the road. We did tile a white on the floors and white tile in the shower. 

On the far right in the picture below is the basement carpet we selected. This was the standard carpet in the house. As you can see it is SUPER thin, so seriously plan on upgrading the carpet at the very least. We selected this carpet for the basement because we plan on doing a lot of renovating down there. The basement will only be partially finished when we move in so we don't want to mess up any nice upgraded carpet with our renovations. 

The picture below is the banister color we selected and a better picture of our flooring is below that one. I just LOVE, LOVE our hardwoods so I took lots of pictures!! 

That is all for our flooring meeting. All in all it was about 2 hours and we loved every minute of it! It really helped us visualize our new home coming together and I really cannot wait to see the finished product! So, what is up next? Nothing but waiting! We are supposed to break ground in early September with a finish date of 1/15/16. Our next meeting is with our project manager to look at the blue prints and pay our remaining $2,000 to start building. I am so excited for them to break ground and see our dream house starting to come up. The lot next to us has been sold and we are just waiting on one more. Crossing our fingers it will be BEFORE we move in or only a couple of months after. We are in the only culdesac in the neighborhood so were thinking this last lot will go fast. There will be some houses built behind us but they will be pretty far back there.

Thanks for reading and I can't wait to post pics of when they break ground! 

NVR Mortgage Meeting

As I said in my first post, we had sort of already been through the home buying process, so at this meeting we knew what to expect. My husband and I were both very appreciative that the meeting took place in the model home in our new community instead of us having to drive 30+ minutes out of the way to NVR's office. They ask that you print out your bank statements, pay stubs etc. I emailed all of them over to our NVR rep prior to our meeting. I already think they use toooooo much paper for everything. I really prefer everything done electronically, personally because I can save it all to my drop box or zip drive. They will email all of your signed documents over to you if you request them to.

First off, be prepared to sign a TON of documents at this meeting and allow for about one and a half hours. Even though you haven't even selected them to be your lender they require  a lot of documents signed to start the process. With that being said I will admit this meeting was actually pretty great compared to our first experience working with a mortgage lender. We decided to look into NVR because RH was offering a $5,000 closing cost incentive if we select NVR. I don't know about you, but that is a lot of dough for me so we gave them a chance. The NVR rep sat down and went over our credit report page by page telling us what was helping us and what was hurting us and how to fix it. We had been working on fixing both of our credit report's for about a year now so there really wasn't anything else we needed to do except pay our credit card balances down to almost 2%. Apparently, that would bring our scores up another 10 points or so.

One thing I really liked about this meeting was that our mortgage rep explained different loan options to us, instead of just putting us in the FHA category right off the bat. We originally planned to go the FHA route but with Premium Mortgage Insurance being on the loan for the LIFE of the loan wasn't exactly appealing to us. In order for us to qualify for a convention loan (which the premium mortgage insurance stays on for only 11 years) we needed to raise our score's about 15 points. So, in the end we are a little nervous because now we need to wait to see in about a month or two when our credit scores are pulled again if we can qualify for a convention loan. Keep your fingers crossed for us!!

Also, we just found out a few days ago the initial underwriting was approved. I honestly wasn't too worried about that but it is nice to know we are good to go! Below is a list of documents you need to start getting your hands on prior to your meeting. Most of these items you will have on hand but if you are like me, I had to go digging for them, If you are buying this home with someone you will need to provide documents for both you and your co-borrower.

• Last 3 paycheck stubs
• Last two years filed tax returned
• Last two years W-2
• Copy of your drivers license
• Last 3 months bank statements. 
• Proof of income (documentation from your current job)

One thing I would like to note is that NVR did charge more for closing costs than our first lender but of course with the $5,000 credit it offsets it by about $3,000. So in my experience they charge about $2,000 more in closing costs. They do say in the meeting that they know they are not cheapest lol but they pride themselves on customer service and our rep mentioned many times he is rated on a survey we complete at end. We will likely go with NVR considering we have had such a good experience thus far and of course the extra $3,000 that we do not have to spent at closing doesn't hurt either :) Also, they will allow you to finance the closing costs as well if you want to.

Thanks for reading!

Next Up: Flooring Meeting (my favorite meeting so far!)

Master Selection Sheet

"This is the FUN part" my Sales Rep kept saying, but this was the part I think I was most anxious about. Mainly because I know there are so many options and we want our house to look as nice as possible but stay within a decent budget. Seems possible, right? Well yes and no. You have to compromise... and BTW you can't make ANY changes after this meeting unless you want to pay a $350 fee (eek!)

I read blog after blog to prepare myself for this meeting. Listing out the items we cannot change, the items we can change later on, what are our must haves in the house etc. I think the toughest part for me was having no clue at all what our flooring might cost which would impact our overall budget. Our SR put in an estimate based on our conversation but that was just hardwoods, not including upgraded carpets and tile. I think this is a major enhancement that RH should offer. The flooring, cabinets, counter-top selections should be done all at once. I know it will likely make the already long meeting longer but at least it would cut down on my having to leave work early twice in two weeks (because all of these meetings have time constraints on how quickly you must complete them) and this would help us work our budget better and choose a color combination that works the best for the overall house. Good news for new RH home buyers out there though- our flooring rep (more on that meeting soon) told us that RH is doing a pilot on having the flooring meeting combined with the granite and cabinet meeting. They are testing this out in Northern VA. Pretty cool! Now I digress... :-)

Onto selections, selections, selections! At this meeting we confirmed items from our original contract meeting and chose the basics: We opted not to have the study and have a formal dining room instead (no charge). We are not huge fans of a formal dining but this is something we liked in the model home, it made the foyer/ entry way seem so open and large.

We decided to have just have the main basement area finished (this was a free incentive thanks to our SR), we added a finished bathroom in the basement because we did not want to do this later but we left two of the rooms in the basement unfinished. It was very costly to have those two rooms finished. We also did not add the option wet bar, we are going to finish that later as well.

We selected Elevation K with grey siding (the name was twilight shadow), with almond shake siding, and a metal accent roof over the porch. The exterior was very hard because it can be tough to see the big picture. I wish they had a computer application that allowed you to see the colors on the elevation you choose. I originally went in knowing I wanted a dark blue house with tan shake siding and a red door. The blue choice was a really light blue which wasn't what I wanted so we decided to go with the dark grey and the door is a raisin color but we can paint that ourselves later.

We selected a frame-less shower in the master bedroom, and upgraded the cabinets in the master but kept the standard counter tops. In the upstairs bathroom we went with standard cabinets and counter tops. In regards to outlet, we added two HDMI cables; one in the basement and one in the main living room. We kept with the standard 3 cable hook ups and added one phone line just in case we might want one in the future. Something that our SR said no one has ever added was an outlet in the master bathroom little toilet room :) Why not have an option to have a TV in there!

They give you 4 free ceiling fan rough-ins, which quite honestly I thought they should give us 4 free ceiling fans but that was an extra $200 per fan. We added one additional ceiling fan rough in. We added the garage service entry door and extra outlets in there. We also added flood lights facing the backyard. I will tell ya, these little things add up so fast! It did help that we eliminated some things from our original meeting and in the end we only ended up slightly higher than when we started and still under our overall budget, so we were happy with all of our choices.

Next up our meeting with NVR mortgage.

Thanks for reading!

Selecting our lot and signing our contract

Selecting our lot was actually pretty easy. We knew we wanted a lot that backed up to the woods. We do not mind having our neighbors close by but we wanted to minimize the amount of neighbors behind us if possible. So, we looked at the sheet and selected our lot. It was one of two lots left on the only cul-de-sac in the neighborhood. It was perfect! We put $500 down to reserve the lot and next up was signing our contract!

After, we put our $500 down (which RH does not cash, ever) we came back a week later to review and sign our contract. We did not need our realtor present because this was the 2nd time we had signed a contract to buy a home and everything was pretty much the same. Once we signed the contract we just had to put $1500 down and BAM! done :-) Please plan on spending a good hour and a half at this meeting. We signed everything by hand. That may seem sorta standard but on the 1st house we put an offer in it was all signed online which was very nice, we just clicked, clicked and clicked some more and it was done! When we asked why this couldn't be done on an iPad or something like that like our SR said it was to personalize the experience...

Anyway.... :)

Our Sales Rep took us out to our lot, and we placed our big SOLD sign on the lot. So exciting!!

The overwhelming part was yet to come. Over the next two weeks we have to meet back with our Sales Rep to choose our colors (cabinets, granite and exterior) and then with the flooring rep to pick all of the flooring options.

Next up- Master Selection Sheet!! So, so, so many choices!! 

Thanks for reading!

Ashley

Selecting a Floor Plan/ Model

I never realized selecting the floor plan would be such a difficult choice. Our Sales Rep said it's one of those things that when you see it, you just know. Well, for us that was not the case. We knew we wanted a ranch style home or the house must have a first floor master. Our first house we rented when our son was born was a two story and carrying laundry, toys, a baby and especially ourselves up and down stairs was not ideal. Not to mention, we do plan on growing old in this home :-) and when our kids are grown and out of the house we do not want to have to climb stairs.

So, at last we were between two floor plans. The first is the Brentwood, which is actually the model in the neighborhood we are building in. It has a great open floor plan, cathedral ceilings which let in a lot of light, and of course as a model- it was decked out and looked amazing! We fell instantly in love. The only drawback... no option for a walkout basement which we have always wanted. The reason for no basement was the size of the home, being a ranch style footprint would make the basement much larger than a two story house and we were told they could not do a basement that large on the lot we selected.

The other house (of course) is the Genoa. We loved this house because it has the first floor master and a loft for our son (and future children) to play in PLUS we had the option to add a basement. The major draw back for this house was the pictures we saw online believe it or not. They made the living room seem kind of dark and closed in. What we didn't realize at the time is that it looked dark in comparison because the ceilings could not be cathedral ceilings because it was a two story home. Seems simple I know, but we just had to see it for ourselves! Needless to say we drove an hour to Chesterfield, VA and looked at the model there and LOVED it.

A decision was born! A Genoa floor-plan with a walk-out basement!

Next up- Signing our contract!

Thanks for reading,

Ashley

House Hunting- Why we chose to build a Ryan Home

I am writing this blog mainly because everyone else's blogs helped me so much throughout this process of building our Ryan Home. From our understanding we are one of the first Genoa homes, at least the first in our community and the first one our flooring rep had ever done so I wanted to write a blog for any Genoa Model lovers out there :-).

My name is Ashley and I am married with one son. My husband and I began our home search about three months ago (honestly we have been window shopping for over a year), we currently rent and it has been our dream for some time now to own our own home. We selected a realtor and searched house after house, month after month. Finally! We found our dream home! It was a beautiful contemporary home on a pond near both of our families. We LOVED this house and put in and offer. A few back and forth's later and our offer was accepted. That was the easy part... Afterwards came the shock of a life time; the inspection. This 25 year old masterpiece needed $20,000 in repairs! Not to anyone's surprise the seller did not want to repair the items and we did not want to get into a project that would require so much time and energy. With a 3 year old and wanting more little ones someday it just couldn't work for us. Sooooo... Back to square one.

We looked at 7 or 8 more houses before we decided to take a look at Ryan Homes. It was actually the community that really drew us in. It is a beautiful community with ponds and a pool and several parks for our son to play. I never thought I would ever like houses that are right up next to each other but this community would be a wonderful place for our son to grow up. There are a lot of young families and lots of outdoor activities for him to enjoy. Not to mention the prospect of picking and choosing everything we wanted in our future home was pretty great, especially after looking at home after home that seemed to be missing something or another.

So, therefore we came to conclusion that Ryan Homes was the way the to go!!

Thanks for reading!

Ashley