The beginning stages to building a florence

Today, I decided to start a blog...for the first time ever!
I recently read a blog that was tremendously helpful when thinking about and deciding on what features to focus on for the home my family is building. I thought I would create one as well to help other people out there also considering building a home. Lets start at the beginning.....

Twelve years ago, when I was 21 and single, I bought a ranch style home. 1111 square feet, and it was perfect for my dog and I. Moving from an apartment, this house seemed perfect and just the right size.
 
Fast forward twelve years to 2014: I am married, have a fifteen year old step-son, have a five year old son, and still have my dog and a cat.  A 3 bedroom ranch without any type of dining area just is not cutting it. My five year old actually eats his dinner at a coffee table as we have no dining area, and our kitchen is super small. It does not fit anything, especially not a table.

On December 28, 2013 my husband and I took the plunge and visited Ryan Homes. This is after two or three years of browsing builder's models but never feeling it was the right time to invest. On top of this we never found the right builder.

We visited the Auburn Meadows community in Farmington, NY where we met Danielle Smith. Danielle is a very friendly sales rep with Ryan Homes. Ok, well, Danielle wasn't the official sales rep, she was covering for Nadia who was on vacation for the Holidays. Danielle had yet to pass her certifications. At our second or third meeting, Danielle had passed her exams!!

So we met with Danielle, explained our situation, and knew from visiting some websites that the Florence model seemed the perfect size for our family.

***Also before get too far into it, I wanted to mention, we absolutely love working with both Danielle and Nadia. They have been so great to work with. We cannot say enough how lucky we are to end up with such fabulous sales reps****

The Florence home is 1952 square feet standard (no additional options) has three bedrooms, a loft area upstairs that can be upgraded to a 4th bedroom. It also has a family room, formal living/dining area on the first floor, kitchen, mud room, and optional morning room. Of course this is placed on a full basement. Yay!


This sounded perfect to my family. 
 
We were not prepared to discuss actually buying a home that day. We have a house to sell, we hadn't even visited the community we were interested in building. Danielle wanted to run some preliminary numbers and we had the time so we stayed at the model home.

We actually decided on the above elevation. It will look exactly like this, but without the brick. Instead we will have siding. My husband was very adamant that we should spend money upgrading the inside of the house versus the outside.

Here are some pictures of the Florence model that convinced us this is the home for us:


 Family room. We will have the fireplace which is a $3,995 value, but was an incentive for signing in January so we will get this at no charge.




A view from the family room looking at the kitchen. And the kitchen below:





And the formal dining/living room

Master bathroom. My husband and I have upgraded to the options in this pic


Master bedroom


And the floor plan            

We signed on January 26th after getting the incentives we were asking. If I had to give advice to anyone considering building, here are the tips:

• Ask you realtor to go with you. Everything is negotiable and is much easier when you have a professional on your side. We did not know we had an option to take a realtor with us. However, after speaking to a few people we knew what we could negotiate.

• You need at least 5% down payment at bare minimum with 10% being ideal.  This does not include about $10K in closing costs here in New York.

• Don't take no for an answer.  We asked to have a free morning room or some other equal value item such as a new driveway as our driveway paved was not part of the package or landscaping credit. I remember I kept saying to Danielle, I  know there has to be some sort of incentive, just taking the house at face value is not realistic, there has to be some sort of "deal".  Danielle said we would get the free fireplace if we used NVR mortgage, but there were absolutely no other incentives. We left. I said we already had a house and felt no need to sign. I asked Danielle to follow up with me if and when there were any incentives. Nadia was helping Danielle that day and also stated incentives were a thing of the past. Three days later, Danielle called me. She had spoken to her manager and there were some vendor sales in January. They were offering my husband and I a free morning room and fireplace. Of course we said we would be in to sign soon!

• If you sign contingent if you have a home to sell, you lose your incentives. After meeting with several realtors, we felt comfortable enough to sign non-contingent.  If you sign contingent, you have seven days to list your house after signing....so be prepared! Although it takes five to six months to build your new home, you have to have yours listed within the week.

• Read the literature given to you before signing and at signing. If you are particular like myself sign your signature with the clause, "Upon attorney approval", then really have your lawyer look over your contract and let you know if there are any areas to be concerned about.

• Visit a model of the home you are looking to build when it is furnished. We visited a house that another couple just built, and they were closing in three days. The house looked sooooo tiny! I started having second thoughts about moving forward.  It is odd that rooms look smaller unfurnished. Maybe my head just can't contemplate how everything is going to fit. Seeing a room with furniture eased my mind. The Florence is still perfect! Yay!

• Research the community in which you are purchasing.  Due to fair lending laws, the builder is unable to tell you what the community make-up includes. I get it. A concern for us is that my step son is not around all of the time, he will after all, be 16 in April. Teenagers! Kidding! My five year old is pretty much siblingless.....I know it sounds harsh, but remember when you were 16, were you interested in playing with 5 year olds? I understand my step-son's lack of interest in playing with his brother.  So, we wanted to know if the community had any families like us. Would both our sons have other kids their age to hang out with/play with, and get to know.They were unable to answer that question. They were unable to answer that question due to fair lending laws, and there is no model in the community we are building so the sales reps said they hadn't even visited that area.  For all we knew, we were building in an area that wanted peaceful, quiet neighbors and no rambunctious 5 year old running around.

That's it for today. More to come. We have chosen our land plot for our home, did our electric appointment, and chosen our flooring.