Advice

Here is my running list of the lessons learned either from others or first hand from this experience.  If you'd like to add to it or if you learned something from my blog I should add here, please contact me via my blog.

Selling your Home
1) Don't wait until you sign the construction agreement to start preparing your house for the market.
2) Invest a lot of time and energy to find a really good realtor.  This could help you keep from losing thousands and being in a tight spot like we were.
3) Don't trust a Realtor to price your house or websites like Zillow.  Spend the extra money and get an appraisal that will help you value your house.
4) Don't rely on your agent to review your home for repairs or staging.  Invest in a home inspection so you can fix or adjust the price for problem or un-repaired items.
5) Contrary to what Realtors say about open houses, do them and insist your agents firm does them for you.  Open houses generate a lot of buzz, extra advertisements, and a majority of our near misses came from open houses.
6) Watch what you email to your agent when negotiating someone's offer.  My agent was forwarding my emails to the buyers agent who got offended when I commented that the buyer is fighting over 34 dollars a month more which is equal to a dinner out.  My agent didn't reword it and just sent it as is which caused that deal to fall apart.
7) Disclosure everything because undisclosued items will cause you problems in the home inspection.  We disclosed everything we knew and a past termite issue from 3 years ago caused us to have to spend 500 for a spraying, but undisclosed would have been worse.
8) Put as much as you can in storage.  Empty your house.
9) Push your agent to get feedback from other agents.  We got a better list of things to fix from buyer agents than our own.
10) Sell you house "as-in" to address unrealistic demands at home inspection.  We lowered our price for "general condition" of the house and a buyer thought he could buy the house at a discount and still demand I replace all the items that lowered the price.  (Example-We lowered the price of the house because of a fuse box but the buyer still demanded it replaced)  Homes that are sold "as-is" tells the buyers that you wont be making tons of repairs after the inspection and the negotiated price is it.
11) Make sure your square footage of your home is current in your listings.  My agent was lazy and just used the county website assessment which was understated.  The square footage of a house should be the living space less the garage and unfinished basement.  The reason why this is SOOO IMPORTANT is that websites like Zillow use the square footage to calculate the average price per square foot and then compares it to the local average.  If your square footage is understated, your house will look over priced and result in a bunch of low ball offers.


Looking for a Lot
1) Ryan Homes usually try and sell all of their lots in a particular phase before opening a new phase.  Sometimes it's better to wait for the next phase to get a better lot.  There is a downfall to this and it is that they raise the price 3-5k per quarter so while you might get a nicer lot, your house might cost more.
2) Lot fees are very much negotiable.  Don't let the lot fee keep you from trying to build on that lot.  When you offer a price, take out the lot fee and see if they will accept.  We had offers from two different Ryan Homes communities and both removed the lot fee for us.  This seems liek something the sales person can easily remove.
3) Our lot has a large drain pipe easement in it so we had an extra 400 feet of lot.  While we can't build on that section, we do have more yard.



Negotiating Price
1) In a hot community it's very difficult to negotiate the price.  I found in South Carolina Ryan Homes was offering half off options, but in Pittsburgh they laughed at me.  Ryan Homes seems to always do a discount on the lot fee, half off morning room, and discount for using NVR.
2) Get all of your options in the agreed offer.  This includes extra outlets and switches.  Change orders cost more because they wont discount them.  I'd also expect to budget a few thousand for flooring and guardian as this will raise the price and the mortgage.
3) Consider everything that will effect the cost.  This is very much a repeat of options, but if you'd like a light switch to turn off the ceiling light next to your bed, budget for it.  What helped us was reading a ton of others blogs and what Ryan Homes buyers would have done differently.



Pre-Construction Meeting
1) Research and read all you can on other's meetings.  Many Ryan Home customers post their pre-con questions.  As things that are important to you or your don't understand.  In our meeting, we spent half an hour discussing the foundation of the garage and porch, why they backfill over covering the empty porch with steel and pouring a slab.  Our Pre-con agenda helped us alot when Ryan Homes switched PMs and I sent the new guy our questions and he cause a ton of stuff.
2) View our pre-construction checklist here

Construction
1) Don't be afraid to go check out your house while it's being built.
2) When they were framing our house, there were tons of gaps between the panels.  One spot was so bad that I could slip me fingers deeply into the gap.  Don't worry about those as the PM will send the framers back to fill in cracks and patch holes in the plywood.
3) I believe your most important bench mark is the pre-drywall meeting.  Here are my suggestions on it:
    a) Don't let them have your pre-drywall meeting unless everyone is done.  We had our early because the PM was going on vacation and the electrical/plumbers and insulators were all behind.  Because we had ours before everyone was done, some sloppy things happened.
    b) Take pictures of everything before insulation is installed.  This is really important to know where a pipe or wire might be some day.
    c) Insulate your garage as I have heard so many people don't and their pipes freeze and blow out.  It's not expensive or hard to do.  As soon as your pre-drywall inspection is over, install your insulation.  Its easier to do now than later.
    d) Don't be afraid to add things if you know how.  I added some extra outlets and a water line to the outside.  The outlets were never noticed and the pipe was just ignored.  Don't go overboard, but don't be afraid to add an outlet if you need it.  (I added one for the TV and an extra one for the garage)
   e) Double check your options here.  We had a sink in our garage and they put it in the wrong spot.  Since we already had our rep-drywall meeting, it was caught while putting up drywall.
4) Ryan Home's strategy is to get the house up and under roof ASAP.  Sometimes they wont fix something until the house is under roof.

Financing your new Home
1) While NVR gives you a 7k credit, it's basically the same as half of the transfer tax that a normal home seller would be paying.  While I think this is a questionable practice by Ryan Homes, it's how they do business.  It's really hard to overcome 7k upfront off of transfer taxes.
2) Don't take NVR's first loan offering.  They were lay and had me paying nearly 200 a month in mortgage insurance.  My credit score is really high and I qualify for other types of loans.  Have them do an analysis of all the options they can offer you.
3) Shop around for the best deal.  Sometimes a lower rate is better than the NVR discount.  Contact me here and I will send you an excel document to compare mortgages.
4) Don't trust NVR on giving you a firm closing date.  We are already being told it will be an additional 4 weeks to process the loan.  Our Ryan Home house is ready and waiting weeks for NVR to process the Loan.
5) Don't pay mortgage insurance.  Find a way to to an 80/15/5 to get out of it.  You can also get lender paid PMI which is better than paying it but not as good as an 80/15/5.
6) Make sure you have a good credit score.  You can quickly raise it by doing the following:
    a) open new credit card and only charge 100 on it each month and pay it off
    b) Pay more and pay often on outstanding balances
    c) I added my fiance to one of my paid off long history credit cards and it helped her score