The Road Leading to Ryan

Our Rental: Ryan Home Halifax

 

So with a little fast-forward to late June.  Amy, the kids, and all of our stuff are now in Dayton and we are living in a Ryan Homes Halifax!   This is a 1700 sq ft house that really gives us a very comfortable place to live and seems just right.  Too bad that this house was a recovered forclosure and the landlords are a bunch of unresponsive a***s--else we'd think about staying here for awhile.  It's their loss not mine.  

Whereas the house was decent, we weren't too impressed by the no-fence community and the weirdness of the neighbor next door (on the left side of the pic).   On the flip side, I did like the Kettering area.  Nicely appointed but the schools did not rank high enough to be considered.   Also, the dreams of being by a super Wal-Mart quickly became all to real due to its location between beautiful Kettering and not-so-beautiful Moraine.

So, on our shopping list we were looking at Beavercreek, Centerville, and Springboro.   Oakwood was eliminated off our list due to the fact that our only choices for housing were overpriced and room was at a premium over there.   Though it had the area's best schools, it also had the highest property taxes.   I wasn't too keen on paying a premium for a house that would constantly need upkeep.

During my rental housing search this year, we came accross a township called Washington Township.  I regretted not renting there for I loved the sprawling houses with lots of land and the stately feel of the neighborhoods.  This was attached to the Centerville School District--one of the better schools in the area and best of all, no city taxes.  We will quickly find out that this omission catches up with us later in the form of other taxes!  These virtues led us to place it into consideration as the finalist of our ideal neighborhoods in the Dayton area.  

So here we are in the summer, with the family all in tow, we spent our weekends just looking around and talking to builders in Springboro, Beavercreek, and Washington Township.  We did do open houses for pre-existing homes as well.   Our plan was to acquaint ourselves with these neighborhoods and we would either contract to build in Nov/Dec for a new home or Feb/Mar for a pre-existing home.  Whatever it was, it would be better than our former living arrangement in Alexandria.

In late October, we had enlisted the help of a very knowledgeable real estate agent named Jodi of Real Living Realty.   I had met Jodi at an open house in Springboro last March and we had stayed in touch.   I thought that her demeanor and customer service outlook would prove to be a good match in finding our future home--turns out, I was right.  

We had spent a couple of weekends with Jodi, visiting builders and looking at their wares.   After some soul searching and really asking ourselves what we really want, we decided to go with Ryan because they offered the best house and the most amenities for the money.

I had seen some bad press of Ryan Homes and that led me hesitate approaching them.  What was more, the Ryan Homes Halifax that we were living in exhibited some bad fit and finish.   We had talked to several acquaintances including Jodi about their Ryan Homes experience and they were, for the most part positive.   Based on this, we concluded that Ryan is a good builder, and if we watch them closely, they are going to be a GREAT BUILDER to us.

Because we liked Washington Township, OH, we were considering both of the Ryan Homes subdivisions at Normandy Green and Washington Trace down the road.   We eliminated Normandy Green due to the fact that they were within earshot of I-675--a possible detriment should we find ourselves selling the home one day.  We ended our search at a beautiful master-planned community called Washington Trace--still a stone's throw from work. 

This is where, our Ryan Homes story begins!