Starting to See Some Progress

We drove by the house this weekend to see the progress.  We have foundation walls now and underground plumbing is supposed to go in this week.  It's exciting to start seeing some progress on our house and the community around it.  

We had our puppy with us so we didn't stop in the model, but it looks like they are still trying to sell one of the townhomes in our block of six.  They've sold three across the street from us in the next block of eight.  

We were the first to buy in our block of homes.  Now that the block is almost sold out and the next block has started selling, my husband and I can't help but wonder who our new neighbors are.  It would be really great if they are some other young professionals, but I'm sure whoever our neighbors are, our home will be a thousand times better than our current apartment.  We are so excited for our move in May!

Here are some pictures from our visit:

This interior unit is our elevation, but we don't know what color our shutters and door will be yet.

Our homesite with foundation walls

Back view of our homesite

Our block with the foundation walls poured

The March delivery homes have most of the exterior complete now

The entrance to our community

So much work has been done since we signed our purchase agreement in October!  It's amazing!

Our First Change Post Pre-Construction

Well, we already changed our mind on one of the things in our house after the pre-construction meeting, and our project manager accommodated our change with no problem.  I think he is going to be great to work with over the next few months.  

Our change: We are getting a light prewire put in our morning room area since we'll be using this as our dining room and want to add a chandelier.  Originally, we thought it would look good if it was centered between the two walls.  Then we saw the picture below and decided to change the location to centered between the end of the door and the wall.  I think this will look much better, and it won't block access to the deck.

Anyway, I am getting really excited to get our update from the PM tomorrow, and I can't wait to see what's been done on our homesite this weekend.

Pre-Construction Meeting Follow-up

Since I only did a relatively quick post after our pre-construction meeting, I want to go through some of the questions we asked our PM during the meeting along with his answers.

• What are the anticipated dates for the pre-drywall meeting and settlement?  There aren't any tentative dates yet, but it should be in 8-9 weeks and possibly longer depending on the weather.  We'll get an email from our PM 2 weeks before the pre-drywall to set up the meeting.  He anticipates that settlement will be about 6-7 weeks after the pre-drywall meeting.
• We want to bring our own home inspector to the pre-drywall meeting and the pre-settlement walk through.  How should we coordinate this?  Once we select a home inspector we should send their license and insurance information to our PM, so that the inspector can be approved by Ryan Homes to be allowed in the house while it is still under construction.  Our PM needs this information at least a week in advance.  He also said that he would schedule our pre-drywall in the morning and then our inspector could come through with us that afternoon.
• Can we visit the homesite whenever we want?  Yes, we just have to call in advance.  24 hours notice is best.  Our PM wants us to visit as often as we want, so that we really feel like we are part of the process.
• Will we get updates throughout the construction process?  Yes, our PM will either call or email us weekly with updates on what was completed during the past week and what is scheduled for the upcoming week.  
• How many steps will there be to our front door?  Our PM anticipates that there will be 1-2 steps, and if there are 2 steps they will be spaced out (one closer to the sidewalk and one closer to our door).  He does not want to have to put up a railing since it changes the look of the front of the house.
• Are there any exterior outlets and where are they located?  Yes.  There will be an outlet by the front door, an outlet on the deck, and an outlet out back by the AC.
• Are there any exterior lights? Yes, there will be a light on the deck and a light by the front door.
• Will there be drywall in the garage? Yes
• Will there be outlets in the garage?  Yes
• Can we put a deadbolt on the garage door? No, because that has the door is according to the plan and can't be changed. Our PM said he will give us contact information for a handyman that can install a deadbolt in our door after settlement.
• Can we move the recessed lights above the island so they are centered?  (We plan to replace the recessed lights with pendant lights after we move-in.)  No, because there is a joist that runs over where we want to move the lights.  Our PM said we can revisit this during pre-drywall in case there ends up being a way to make the lights more centered.
• Can we pick our own slab of granite?  No, but there shouldn't be too much variation in the slabs.
• Is there an outlet on the kitchen island?  Yes, there are two outlets on the island.  One will be on either end.
• Is it possible to move the attic access to the closet? No, because there isn't enough space in the closet.
• Can you change the wire shelving in the laundry room so that we can put in a stackable washer and dryer set?  Yes
• Where is the thermostat located? On the wall between the stairs on the main floor.

We also went over the placement of all of our prewires and all of our options.  During the meeting we went floor by floor.  Our PM gave us details on what would be on each floor and gave us a chance to ask questions.  

The only question we still have is what color the exterior siding and shutters will be.  Our sales rep has been calling the main office daily to try to get us this information, but the designer for the community still has not yet decided on the color scheme for our block.  We know it will be something neutral and it is our only minor issue so far, so it is not really bothering us.  Overall, we are really happy with our entire Ryan Homes experience so far.  We can't wait to stop by our homesite this weekend to check on the progress!  

Pre-Construction Meeting Complete

We had our pre-construction meeting today, and we found out that they broke ground already and put in the footers. We thought that construction would probably start before our meeting since we waited a couple weeks to schedule it until we had a day off.  It was so exciting to see that construction already started!  From here on, our project manager will be sending us weekly updates.

This was the first time we met our project manager and he was very helpful. He answered all of our questions and was willing to accommodate us with some special requests such as moving the shelving in the laundry room so that we can put in a stackable washer and dryer set. He was very open to us bringing our own inspector to the predrywall and presettlement meetings. He also said we can stop by the homesite whenever as long as we call in advance.

We were really happy to see all of the progress in the community while we were there. There was another set of Strauss homes finished and one almost done. The condo models were also opened and another condo building was going up. The playground was complete too. We can't wait to see how far along the community is when we move in May. 

Our homesite

The footers on our lot

The alley behind our homesite with other Strauss town homes 

Newly built Andrew Carnegie NVHomes 

More Andrew Carnegie NVHomes 

New building of condos

More views of the other Strauss town homes in the community

More views of the other Strauss town homes in the community

Construction to begin in the next two weeks

We just got an email from our sales rep that construction will begin on our house in the next two weeks!  We are working with our sales rep to set up our pre-construction meeting with the project manager.  We will likely be meeting with the project manager on the 19th since we are both off work that day.  So far everyone we have worked with through Ryans Homes, NVR, and their subcontractors have been so helpful, and we can't wait to finally meet our project manager.

30 Day Change Request

We met with our Ryan Homes sales rep and completed the 30 day change request for all of our options.  Our meeting only lasted about a half hour and we only had to sign one paper.

Our sales rep is the best!  I feel like we are always bombarding her with questions when we see her, but she's very patient and answers all of questions thoroughly or follows up with the project manager if necessary.

It's fun driving out to the community and seeing all the progress.  They are almost done with the first building of condos and finished another row of townhomes.  They have only sold one more house in our row, so that has slowed down.  However, they have sold a ton of condos in the community.

We're getting very excited to see to start seeing our house under construction in January or February!

Guardian Technologies Meeting

We met with Guardian Technologies to make our low voltage wiring selections.  Our Guardian Specialist was not pushy about adding all of the extras.  He did recommend the security system, but he didn't push it.  It was $250 to have the security system installed and $50 per month for a minimum of 3 years for the basic home monitoring package if you got the security system installed.  There were also options to add security cameras.  

After we went through security options, we discussed phone and cable outlets.  Our home came with 2 phone outlets and 2 cable outlets.  Since we don't plan to have a phone in our house we were able to switch one phone outlet for another cable outlet.  We put a cable outlet in the rec room, living room, and master bedroom.  We put the phone jack for our wi-fi in the living room since it's the most central location.  It was an additional $150 for each additional phone or cable outlet.  Since we don't plan to have TV in the two additional bedrooms and we only use wi-fi, we opted not to add any additional outlets.  

There were also options to pre-wire for a wall-mounted TV ($415 per TV), add an intercom ($2845), and add a surround sound system ($1185).  We didn't opt for any of these.

NVR Mortgage Meeting

Within a week of signing the purchase agreement, we had to meet with NVR Mortgage to get approved for our mortgage. You have to meet with them even if you are planning to get a mortgage somewhere else.  We were planning to use NVR anyway since we get $15,000 in closing costs covered if we go through them plus we bank with Ally, which doesn't offer mortgages. Our loan officer emailed us a list of all of the documents we needed to bring with us to the meeting within a day or so after signing the purchase agreement. The fee for the loan application was $550. We emailed all of our documents to the loan officer in advance, which made our meeting go quickly. Our loan officer was very friendly and easy to work with. When we showed up he had already filled out a lot of the paperwork and ran our credit report.  They use all three bureaus and pulled reports on both of us.  They use the middle score of person with the lowest scores for the application.  If you don't have the full down payment already in your account you will have to fill out a budget worksheet, so NVR can see that you have a plan to save for the down payment.  We filled out a lot of forms for NVR, state, and federal.  We got a copy of all the paperwork including our credit reports at the end of the meeting.  We also got an updated copy of our estimated closing costs based on today's mortgage rates, but this didn't really mean much since we hadn't made your tile and flooring selections.  We were approved within a week of our meeting. 

Homesite Reservation on our Second Visit to Greenbelt Station

About a month after our first visit, we went back to view the model home at Greenbelt Station again after viewing other houses in the area.  I had crunched the numbers and knew we could definitely afford a Strauss townhome while living comfortably and paying off student loans within the next couple years.  Still my husband was waiting on his bar exam results, so we were going to hold off on purchasing until November.  We showed up to the model and about 5 more homes had sold in the past month and the base price had increased $5,000.  We walked through the house with this information in mind.  Once again we loved everything we saw.  This house was perfect for us.  We knew we wanted to be in this house in this community.  The sales reps were now selling homes with delivery dates in May 2015, which lined up with our timeline to buy.  We didn't want to risk another price increase, so we put down a $1000 homesite reservation fee.  This gave us a few more days to think about it without risking the price increasing again.  

We went back on 10/23/14 with our realtor to sign our purchase agreement.  Signing the purchase agreement paperwork took about 3 hours.  We got our $1000 homesite reservation fee back and paid $5000 as an initial deposit.  We also got a list of companies that we would be working with to finalize all of our options.  We had to meet with the vendors within 30 days to make our selections even though our house wasn't going to be ready until May 2015.  In our area, Guardian handled security, phone, internet, and in-home sound systems, and TAC handled carpet, tile, and flooring selections.

We were so excited to be getting our first home!

The laundry room in the model.  It's located on the same floor as the bedrooms.

The kitchen at the model.  We ended up selecting these cabinets.

The main floor of the model

The master bedroom

Introduction and our first visit to Greenbelt Station

Since I couldn't find many blogs out there about building Ryan Homes's Strauss model when my husband and I were trying to make a decision on whether to buy, I wanted to start this blog to document my experience.  We are already in the process of building a Ryan Homes Strauss Townhome. Our home will be in the Greenbelt Station community in Maryland.

When we first discussed buying a home, we researched what was on the market in the greater DC area for about a year.  We knew we wanted to be close to metro if possible, since traffic in this area is terrible, and we only have one car.  We decided that we would aim to close on a house in May/June 2015, and thought we would end up with a fixer-upper not very close to metro.  Then one of our online searches showed Greenbelt Station, and we thought that it must be too good to be true.  We are familiar with the Greenbelt area since we both went to University of Maryland.  We knew the area wasn't perfect, but it has a lot of potential with talks of the new FBI headquarters being in the area and the new Hyattsville Arts District just down the road.  We decided to get a realtor and schedule a tour of the model home.  (With Ryan Homes you have to have your realtor with you on your first visit to the model home or Ryan Homes will not pay the realtor's commission.)

We made our first trip to the model on September 28, 2014.  At the time, the community had hardly any homes built.  The sales reps working in the model home were very friendly and not too high pressure.  My husband fell in love with the home immediately.  I really liked the home, but wanted more time to crunch the numbers and see what else was out there.  After we left the house, we set up more home tours with our realtor to see more new construction since we were now sold on the idea of a new construction townhome.  We saw homes by Lennar and Beazer as well as another Ryan Homes community.  Nothing else compared, so we set up our appointment to go back to Greenbelt Station.

Strauss Townhomes at Greenbelt Station on our first visit 9/28/2014