Laying Some Pipe

Last night we arrived at the Landon to find the roofing guys were finishing up.  They were working on the morning room roof when I arrived.  Their automatic nail gun echo loudly through the house.

I received a call from the PM yesterday.  While I have been frustrated with NVR and our prior PM, this guy stepped up to the plate and is doing a good job.  He reached out to me to confirm our pre-drywall meeting and a question I had in the email.  I asked if the Laundry room pull down is in the wrong truss as if it is pulled down it will hit the laundry machines.  He said he already noted that and marked it for a fix.  He also asked me abut my electrical.  "Did you want your switch outlets removed to just be outlets?" he asked.  I confirmed, I asked over and over again and had in all of my electrical notes but Ryan Homes wont do it.  I also bought light rough ins because I hate switched outlets.  He said he would talk to the electrician and have it changed per my original request.  WAY TO GO RYAN HOMES!!  It gets better......I mentioned that I think the morning room door opens the wrong way and he confirmed it was.  He said when they moved the door they didn't change the part code.  He already ordered the new door.

Our PM must have spent time in our house inspecting the framing crew's work.  He had orange paint all over the place for things they missed.  Staples that missed the 2x4 in factory construction.  Holes in the exterior trusses where they wrapped chains around it to lift a truss with the skid loader.  He marked the frames that were not plum, arches not installed, and cracked boards that need additional support.  He also prepped the house for electrical.  He marked where all the special electrical additions are going.  The floor had orange paint for the lights.  I suspect electrical is happening today.

I haven't heard anything much from NVR.  I did reach out to some other banks and while I was reluctant to call PNC, they actually were VERY competitive.  They actually came in better than Dollar Banks current quote and said they'll beat anyone else as they want my business.  I am trying to find a way to post my Excel mortgage comp file on the blog for others to use.....it's super cool.

Our current house had an offer on it this week.  Sadly the seller needed all kinds of seller assist.  6% seller assist pulls over 10k off the price plus they asked for a reduction in price.  I prepared a a counter offer that many I consulted with said was really reasonable for a house in the township I am in.  I had my counter offer shared with all parties who issued an offer or came close to an offer.  I'd be shocked if someone doesn't take it because at that price its not the house but their inability to financially afford a house.

Last night's pictures

Laying pipe for the plumbing

The missed corner in the master bedroom

Not sure what these holes are for as I suspect all plumbing is in the floor.

Moving of the attic ladder

Kitchen Layout

Hang a Shingle

Last night I arrived at the Landon at 5:30 and the roofers were still working.  They had most of the front of the house covered in shingle.    They were working in the tricky spot of the valley between the garage roof and the house roof.  They did have tar paper down on the entire roof so the house is protected.  While they are behind in roofing, my PM didn't delay the HVAC subcontractor for fear of rain.  It looked like the HVAC guys installed the furnace and duct work yesterday.  I can see a few vents that still need covered, copper hoses ran for the AC, outside compressor, still need installed.  The framing crew looks like they have not been back and the big gap in the corner of the master bedroom has not been filled.  Still the house is moving forward and pre-drywall is set for Friday Nov 11th at noon.

There has been no change in the NVR saga.  My loan officer knows I am hacked off with them.  My sales manager told her and they are having a manager call me.  I have been shopping around and build an AWESOME spreadsheet to compare various lenders upfront costs and the lifetime cost of debt.  If I can find a way to post the form on my blog I will.......currently it is in Excel.

My home sale is still in negotiation.  I gave a really good counter offer giving some seller assist for letting me live in the house free for 2 months.  Everyone I talk to who works in real estate and construction agree it's a really good deal.  I had my agent share the offer with all parties, so three couples are considering purchase of my house.

Lastly, my fiance is in law school so three nights a week she isn't available to visit the Landon with me.  I am really excited for her to meet me there tonight and see the progress.  Hopefully electrical or plumbing is being installed today.

Now for pictures:

The Looking Glass

I didn't make it to the Landon on Monday as we are baby sitting a friend's dog and she's been very needy.  Plus, I waned to be home when the sales offer came on my house.  Here is an update on all things:

Our house has another offer for it but the buyer has no money for a down payment.  He is asking for 6% assist.  This basically is an additional discount off the asking price and I think is obnoxious.  It really seems like most young couples out there looking have no down payment and think they can haggle the price and then get me to pay all the closing costs which they should cover.  Without the 6% his bank wont lend him more until he sells his other house.  The deal almost ended but I'm pitching an offer where I can live in the house for free and the rent I would have paid is equal to the amount of house discount I am giving.  Seems like a win for everyone.

I have had more frustration with NVR for financing.  I asked my sales rep for help and she looked into it.  Her response was that the NVR loan officer was waiting for me to provide her a firm closing date.  I fired off a nasty email back to her claiming BULLSHIT.  When the rate was 3.875 I was trying to lock in my rate but NVR said they needed to confirm I was in the closing window.  I told her we were framing and should be closed in 60 days roughly.  I then emailed both sales reps, the PM, and the loan officer all in one email noting NVR needs a firm date to lock in my rate.  NO ONE RESPONDED to my email.  NVR changed the rates on the next day.  Now the rate is 4.125 which will be an extra 50 a month or an extra 18,000 for the life of the debt.  After I called BULLSHIT on the sales person saying it was my fault and delay, she responded that a NVR manager would call me over the incident.  Basically I got screwed out of a good rate because two NVR employees couldn't do their jobs.  Lastly on this topic......NVR rates change daily.  Dollar bank locally in Pittsburgh has so much better rates.  The better rate is stable and can save way more than the 7k credit NVR gives.  SHOP AROUND!!!

The Landon is still moving forward buy not getting done what the PM told me he had planed.  The roll roofing should have been installed Monday and they should have start the shingles Tuesday.  Neither were started but shingles were delivered.  Based on the discussion with my PM, they cant do anything internally until the roof is on to protect from rain.  He added he might risk installing the HVAC while there is no rook only if the weather stays dry.  Over the past few days they also delivered the HVAC items for installing today.  I suspect they will be installing HVAC while the roofers are doing their work......today's chance of rain is 30% in the afternoon.

The framing crew started their clean up work.  The made the closets in the master the same size and installed the attic drop down ladder in the laundry room.  They also started patching holes, filling cracks, and removing the 2x4s on the floor in doorways.  Most importantly......they installed the exterior doors and windows.  I am still finding a few items they need to fix, but it's looking better.

Here are the pictures:

Attic Drop Down moved from bedroom to laundry room....question, will it have enough space to pull down with a washer and dryer in the room???

Master Bath framed up

They missed this big gap

They patched this one

Still a big gap in the Ibeam Pocket

Basement framed for HVAC

HVAC Items

Kitchen Island

Replaced Joists and added 2x4s

Morning Room

Example of filling the cracks

Getting under roof

It was a very busy weekend for the two of us.  We have been devoting all of our attention to the house transition since May.  This weekend we had maintenance of items in our lives we have been neglecting……our cars.  Our cars needed tons of work.  The Jeep needed new tires and the Nissan needed new brakes, rotors, and calipers.  It made for a stressful weekend.

Most of our weekends are stressful because we are always working on things to help sell our house.  This weekend we had an open house.  I’d like to share the experience of the open house and what I have learned in the process of selling and moving to Ryan Homes.

1)      Agents in general don’t think open houses are worth it.  My agent refused to tell me why she won’t sit or organize an open house for my property.  She basically notes that an open house is for agents looking for buyers. 

2)      This is the 2^nd open house that we, the owners, actually put out the Coldwell Banker signs, put out cookies, and hosted buyers.

3)      I found open houses trigger extra advertising.  Coldwell banker would do an ad in the local paper, and all the major home sites such as Zillow and Realtor.com note it.  It’s really cool that Zillow sends an email to those who saved the house as a favorite about an open house.  Open houses seem like a good thing from the extra advertising.

4)      I also noticed that weeks where I have an open house, there is less traffic of special showings.  I think some buyers’ agents save time by sending their clients to open houses.

5)      I have spoken to a few friends/associates who have sold their houses via an open house.  This is contrary of what Realtors post online and my agent even told me.

6)      I noticed that if your schedule to show the house doesn’t work for a realtor and their client, they normally just write the house off.  I had roughly 4 people ask for showings at 10am which is impossible for us since we work and have dogs.  I offered lunch time showings, evenings, and weekends but never heard back from them.  I think an open house makes your house more available and worth the time.

7)      We seemed to average 8 groups per open house.

8)      The scorecard for our house is that 1 lowball offer came from a private showing, I was told last night that someone at my open house is working on an offer for today, and the last open house an agent stopped in and she brought her clients through twice and they are considering it also.  It looks like the open house strategy will pay off for us.

Enough of the home selling drama and now to the Landon.  We stopped up Saturday to find the remaining big framing items completed.  The trusses on the garage were finished, all the plywood was laid on the roof, and they installed the porch roof.  I didn’t notice any internal work or fixes.  I think their goal was to get the house under roof as fast as possible.

My PM called me Friday to respond to me emails.  He noted that the framer will go back and fix various damage items.  In many cases it’s installing a new board, butting another board up to add structural strength, or fill the gap with spray insulation.    Our call went really well.  The PM noted the roofers should be shingling today and if they can get the roof finished, the inside stuff can start.  He also set the pre-drywall meeting date for 2 weeks.  He said we might make a closing by the end of October but it depended on the weather.  Rain today or tomorrow will push back the rough in until next week and high humidity will push back drywall. 

While we lost nearly 2 weeks waiting for framers, everything seems to be coming together.  If the house sells this week, the final remaining hurdle will be nailed down. 

Here is the updated photos

View of our Landon from our Neighbors's Morning Room

We found a crack in our concrete

Gap in the top of the roof for the ridge cap vent

Truss wall that separates the attic space of the master bedroom and the rest of the house

The 2nd floor (Laundry Room)

Rasing the Roof

Last night we stopped and they made lots of headway on the roof.  All the house trusses were up and one side was covered in plywood. The garage roof was half way on.  We still do not have any windows, but I'm ok with that as the roof take precedent to keep our rain.  Today is another dry day so I expect the roof will be installed today.  I can't wait to see it tomorrow.

The rates has stabilized and back up.  I'm pretty frustrated that NVR delayed me in locking in a rate with them.  They quoted me a lower rate delayed my lock in because they didn't have a closing date on my house, by the time they got the closing date, the rate went back up.  I'm now bank to watching the rates with other banks and suspicious of NVR.

I emailed my PM Wednesday morning over all the gaps between panels used to build our Landon.  As of the time of this post, I still haven't heard back from them.  This sucks because I see other bloggers with PMs who seem to talk to them daily.  I was hoping the new PM was more responsive but this seems common between Ryan Homes and NVR.......lack of a timely response.

We showed the Landon to some family and their comment was "wow, it's so big"  We forgot how big the Landon is since they shut down the model in the area.  We already got volunteers to host thanksgiving this year.

No change in our house sale.  One couple seems on the fence with our house.  Their hangup in the basement bathroom because it's outdated in style, but still very functional.  They are looking at a smaller more updated house further away.  I pitched the idea if they buy it, I'd remodel the bathroom for them and include it in the asking price.  No word yet.

Now on to some pictures:

Found more damaged product

The Garage Attic is huge

I found one of our framing 2x4 cracked in half

Let's wrap it up

Last's night visit was pretty cool.  The 2nd floor walls were installed.  The external and internal walls all were installed and I was able to walk around.  It reminded me how big this house will be compared to our existing home.

When I arrived, the HVAC guy was there.  He noted he likes to walk through a house a week before his crew comes in.  He told me we were scheduled for HVAC on Wednesday.  He said our neighbor's house will be ready since they have their trusses up, and we might be close.  He said if the weather stays nice they should be able to have the roof on and he can install.  Considering they have 4 business days to put the trusses on and the decking......seems doable.

I noticed a few odd things last night.  1) Two installed joists were removed and a temporary 2x4 structure put into place.  It was odd because they cut them out and left the joist hangers on the beams.  The HVAC guy noted sometimes they do this to replace a bad joist damaged in production/shipping/installation.  2) We have some more serious gaps between the wall sections.  The corner in the master bedroom has a crack and it looks like their staples didn't even hit the 2x4 corner.  3) The walk in closets were requested to be made the same size in the pre-con meeting.  They are framed different sizes and will need changed.  4) There are big gaps where the morning room beam sits. 5) The put vapor barrier on the 2nd floor before the first.  I find this odd as the first floor vapor barrier should be under the 2nd floor so water cant get between the barrier and the plywood.

I have been shopping around financing.  NVR was actually looking pretty good when I compared the big picture.  they give you a credit to use them but their rate tends to be slightly higher.  Our NVR rep gave us a pretty decent rate and I emailed her to lock in the rate.  She replied that she isn't sure if we can lock in a rate yet and I assured her we could as we were on build day 45 and have 50to60 days left which is under the 90 day lock in.  NVR said they will confirm and get back to me the next day to lock in.  The next day came and I got an email from NVR letting me know I am clearing in my "lock-in" window, but the rate moved up.  The increase in the rate due to NVR inability to quickly figure out if I can lock will cost me 18,000 more in interest.  I'm not happy that our loan officer wont honor the rate I was trying to get and missed it because of their delay to find out if I can lock in.

Our house showings have really slowed down even with a reduction of the asking price by another 4k.  The couple who were considering it must have wanted more of a price reduction.  They are comparing my home to another and while it's newer and flatter, the other house is more expensive, further from stuff, smaller, doesn't have a 2nd bathroom, 2nd deck, hot tub or a finished basement.  I almost want to pitch an offer to them that if they buy at the current price and buy, I will stay after closing and remodel and update the basement bathroom which they feel needs updated to use.  (It's total bullshit as the all plumber works fine, it just looks like a 1960's tile bathroom)  We have an open house Sunday and if nothing comes from it, it looks like we will have to have another price reduction.

Some pictures to entertain you.....

Removed Joists

Missed framing the closets the same size

The corner with a huge gap in between the plywood and stud

Internal of the same corner

Weird open area over the morning room

Another gap in framing.

Piles of dirt ready to be put back