wires and floors

Since my last post we have had our meetings with Guardian and Rite Rug.  Guardian does all of our low voltage wiring, and Rite Rug as you can imagine provides us with our flooring options.

Guardian, in my opinion was overpriced. Especially for their audio/video wiring.  For a basic alarm system with cellular monitoring, and mobile access it cost $250.00 to install and $45.00 a month for monitoring for 3 years minimum.  But we felt like if we didn’t do it now, we would keep putting it off and both of us think it is important to have a security system in our home.  I did opt for a speaker pre wire on the back deck and to have the wiring ran for the T.V. in the family room.  This cost a total of $1130.00.  Ryan Homes give you 2 phone connections and 2 cable connections for free.  I was able to convert one of my phone connections to a data connection in the Study, and then added cable to the Master Bedroom and the family room.  Guardian charges $125.00 for each cable outlet, whereas Time Warner Cable only charges $80.00 so we should be able to save a little this way.  If you decide to have your wiring put in for a Television don’t forget to have Ryan add the electrical outlet as well (additional $125.00). 

At Rite Rug we were able to see each flooring type in different types of light and decide.  We decided to go with laminate in the foyer because I expect that after our carpet is wore out or ruined I will be replacing it with hardwood throughout the first floor.  It saved us a couple hundred dollars to do this and we liked the look of the laminate options better anyway.  We upgraded the carpet throughout the house and upgraded the pad downstairs to level 3 and upstairs to level 2.  Our dogs spend most of their time downstairs and figured the waterproof barrier and anti-microbial pad downstairs would help reduce their impact on our new home.

We upgraded the linoleum flooring in the Kitchen, but stuck with the basic stuff in the second bath room and laundry room.  In the bathroom we went with the tile option on the floors and shower walls.  We also changed our granite option for the master bathroom, because our original choice of sandstone varied too much.  The lady explained that sandstone tile can come in several shades that depending on the other choices made for the room, may not compliment the room.  She recommended the new option below and we agreed it would be a better choice.   

We were also able to see all of our options together so it was nice to see how they complement each other. 

I will be speaking with our PM at our meeting in a couple weeks about the stair rail.  They said that the stair rail will be stained to match the flooring in the foyer, but as I stated before, that flooring will be replaced relatively quickly, so I’m going to see if he can match the hand rail to our kitchen and bathroom cabinets instead.  (fingers crossed)

 Also, since I didn't get any pictures the first time we picked our counter tops, here is a picture of our laminate counter top choice for the kitchen.  It came down to choosing a fireplace or granite counter tops for about the same price.  figured it would be cheaper to add a different counter top later than it would be to add a fireplace.  Besides my wife didn't really care for any of the granite options and wants to look at recycled glass or concrete instead. 

Options and Signing

We signed our Purchase Agreement about 5 weeks ago now and we should be breaking ground in the next 2-3 weeks.  We were very excited about the purchase agreement because it was the first real step in this process.  It took about 2 1/2 hours to choose our home plan discuss the structural options and choose the exterior colors of the home. 

We chose the Milan plan.  We also considered the Venice and the Rome, but for the money the Milan seemed to fit our needs the best. But this was the easy part.  I'll list below the structural options we chose we a brief description.

Elevation E - Approx $3,500 - This is approximated because of the credits that are included due to neighborhood standards.  This is apparently a rare elevation as I cannot find a single one on the internet.  It is a full siding elevation with a full 6 foot front porch.  It is the only elevation for the Milan that includes a porch.  (Siding in our neighborhood is Hardie Plank, there is no vinyl option)
Study - $995.00 - this replaces the living room by closing it off and adding double French doors. 
Fireplace - $3,100.00 - you can place this on either exterior wall of the family room and upgrade to granite or natural stone, but we didn't find that necessary.
4th Bedroom - $995.00 - Replaces the loft with a bedroom.
Double Vanities - $995.00 X2 - We did this in both bathrooms upstairs.
Tile Surround - $995.00 - Puts ceramic tile in the bathroom on the floors and the wall of the shower.
Attic Storage - $1495.00 - I hardly think this should be an upgrade, but if you want you be able to use your attic at all its a must have.
We also added a third parking pad to our driveway for about $1K, extended the Deck to a 14X16 for $1.2K and
Upgraded our carpet pad downstairs to the 3rd level and upstairs to the 2nd level.
Added several electrical outlets throughout the house, and did ceiling fan prewires in all the bedrooms.
I have also requested to be able to place a Pipe in the driveway for future upgrades such as landscape lighting or a pet fence. and have asked to have additional brackets placed in the floor of the laundry room to help reduce vibrations during the spin cycle.  (These are both tips I got from other blogs about the building process with Ryan).
42 inch cabinets are included in our neighborhood as is the hardwood foyer and several other options such as garage door openers and faucet upgrades.

At this meeting we also chose our siding color, brick color, and cabinet color.  I did not realize that we were going to be choosing these items so I did not have a camera to take pictures, sorry, I'll try to get some asap and have them posted soon. 

Mortgage Whoas!

O.K. so initially we decided that we were going to go with NVR Mortgage.  NVR is the parent company for Ryan Homes and Ryan is currently offering $3K towards closing if you use NVR.  Considering that NVR is not a bank, but simply a broker, we decided that there was no harm is giving them a shot.

We started the process with NVR and it was going really smooth.  We had been through this process twice before, so we knew what documents would be required i.e., pay stubs, bank statements, tax records and so on, and we already had them in electronic format so they could be sent quickly.  We filled out the paperwork for the loan and then waited.  In about 3 days we had all of our loan paperwork in the mail.  My wife and I sat down to sign the documents, and that's where things started to seem funny. 

We were about half way through the paperwork, when we got to the good faith estimate (GFE).  As we looked it over we noticed that nothing seemed to add up.  The numbers from one page didn't seem to carry over to the next page and the numbers from our initial purchase agreement didn't seem to line up with the paperwork from NVR.  I have a co-worker and good friend of mine who does mortgages on the side with Horizon of NC INC.  I highly recommend this company as I have used them twice now, to any of you that are purchasing homes in NC, especially in the Charlotte and Greensboro areas should consider them.  Anyhow, I sent the GFE to my friend and asked him to look over it for me.  I just wanted to make sure that an experienced eye had looked at it and agreed with what we were getting ready to sign. 

My friend called me back within about 20 minutes of receiving the GFE and told me that he agreed with my initial concerns, nothing added up and it was not made very clear and easy to understand.  essentially his concern was that NVR was not being very honest about our numbers.  They had not given us any of the lender credit and they had underestimated most (if not all) of our charges and fees.  This meant that we were going to have to bring between $3K-$6K to closing even with the $3K that Ryan was offering us towards the closing costs. 

My friend then took a few minutes to explain to me that with his company, he could get me as much as $800 back at closing, and that was without the $3K that Ryan was offering.  I've been ripped off enough to know, that sometimes it better to go with someone you trust and know what your getting into, than it is to go with what sounds like the best deal.  So, we decided to Kick NVR to the curb.  If you are considering a Ryan Home please get GFE's from other lenders/Brokers.  If you would like, you can take the GFE from the other lenders back to NVR and they will likely match the others and you can still get your incentive money from Ryan to boot.  For us however, I felt it was more important to deal with a honest and reliable company in the first place.