Getting Close to Committing

11/8-11/12/2012 Round Two of Pricing Talks

By today, Kelly and I have exchanged a few emails about things that Amy and I wanted on the house to price in hopes that we have a very close estimate of what the overall house was going to cost.  We have accepted the fact that we cannot have everything, but we will price to the max for this meeting and look to cut and prioritize this list for the final meeting.  At this point, we do like the value that Ryan Homes provides, so now the order of business is how low we can get the price while hitting the ground running with the options we desire.

Like buckshot, Kelly got a ton of things from us to price, so I am sure she what quite busy.  She got back to me in very little time, a testament on how willing she was to help.  For the most part, most items wre reasonable, some were just way out in left field.   Luckily, a lot of the items we had priced for our townhouse in Alexandria , so there was a loose baseline using what we had been quoted out there.  These were some of the things we wanted:

- Granite surround, gas fireplace
- Ceiling Fan rough ins
- CATV outlets
- Pendant light rough ins
- GFI Outlets
- Attic Lights
- Wood, instead of carpeted stairwell.
- Optional window in laundry room
- Optional window in Owner's bathroom
- Service door in Garage
- Eyeball lights over FP
- Egress window in Basement
- Plumbing for gas at furnace and kitchens.
- Door bell
- Tankless water heater
- Laundry sink
- Water softener rough-in
- Dual AC units
- Upgrade to front door.
- Insulated Garage Walls
- Elevation D Upgrade with Coined Edges
- Elevation D Upgrade without Coined Edges
-14X16 deck
-10X12 dec
- French doors instead of sliding glass in morning room
- Stainless steel upgrade in kitchen
- Neutral paint package
- Darker bannister finish.
- Lighting on front port
- Exterior outlets on front and back of house.
- insulaiton upgrades
- Hose bibs on front and back of house.

We didn't end up with all of these, but at this stage of talks, if the items posed a long term addition to value to the house, we would include this in the final.

At the same time, Kelly had emailed an existing Yorkshire owner to see if they would be graceful enought to let us invade their home for a viewing so that we could have a better perspective of the physical dimensions of their Yorkshire.  She had called other communities in the Cincinnati area to see if they had one for us to see but was unsuccessful.   Being a popular floor plan, she was surprised on the timing on not being able to find one to view.  We will definitely go on with the pricing talks but hold off on the final signing until we see the physical spacing of the dimensions.

11/16/2012 Round 2 of Pricing

Kelly's request to the Yorkshire owner was politely declined but he knew of another Yorkshire owner in the neighborhood who may be willing to show us their house.  Sure enough, they were kind enough to let us in their home and we spent a good 20 minutes looking around.  This was good for us because this reinforced our commitment to this floor plan and proved somewhat that the Yorkshire and our family were a good fit.

Jody, Kelly, Amy, and I were excited that someone would be kind enough to let us tromp though their home.  We were expecting to see a Yorkshire with an elevation D--their most popular elevation and the one we were pricing at that time.   To our surprise, this one was an elevation B with front porch!  This was one of two in the neighborhood and we had no idea that it had the Yorkshire floor plan.

Well, the tour went well and it gave us a lot of new perspectives on how to piece together our future home.  We changed our elevation selection to elevation B with Porch.  Somehow, this seemed a better fit and the Neo Traditional look was in line with the smaller Neo Traditions we had seen while visiting Toll Brother's communities in Northern Virginia.

Ryan Homes Yorkshire B with front porch.

Ryan Homes Yorkshire D 

So, it was going to be a later night for us all.  We went back and priced the house with the new elevation selection with a front facing garage on the smaller lot.  After talking to our Yorkshire hosts, they had added an extra 2 feet of width to their Garage.   We put this on our options list as well.  We added the options that Kelly priced earlier this week and worked out a price that worked preliminary well for us.  Concluding the evening, I told Kelly that we needed to re-review the pricing list and that we would get back to her.  Kelly made a tentative appointment for Mondy, November 19th.

11/18/2012

Though we have been going through pricing meetings, we haven't really tried our hand at negotiating the final price.   You do it at the car lot, and when buying a used house, so why not here?  I know that the pricing has been keen when compared to other builders but we needed more of an incentive to buy.  With the 19th unofficially being our final pricing meeting, I pieced a three option offer to Kelly to pass to her managers in order for us to sign before Thanksgiving.  In sum, these were the three options.
- two car front facing Garage on smaller lot with certain options waived
- three car side facing Garage on larger lot with lot premium waived.
- two car front facing Garage on smaller lot with morning room or finished basement waived.

After bouncing this to Jodi, I emailed to Kelly.  This was to be our first pushback on this deal.

11/19/2012

Early this morning, I planned to send these over to Kelly in hopes that her Manager reviews them and either accepts or declines our offer.  This would determine if we had a meeting tonight.  It got busy at work so my offer spreadsheet wasn't send over as early as I expected.  After I sent it over, it to Kelly a bit to hear from her manager so, I went over after work to see what Kelly's manager had decided.  Jodi was on standby in case we needed her help.

When we arrived, Kelly was still waiting to hear from her Manager.  Within 20 minutes, Kelly got her answer and said that they would go for any of those options, it was up to us as to which one for they felt that all three were reasonable.  WOW.  They managed to get us to sign right before Thanksgiving.

We are Official!  Signing the docs.

After some hard deliberating, we decided to go with the three car side entry on the bigger lot, which was lot 11.  Lot 11, like lot 16 was feng shui identical and looked like it was on the better part of the street.  Now came the hard part.  Lucky for us, Kelly had the paperwork semi ready so we got through it quickly while she thoroughly explained to us the documents we were signing.

After a long evening going through paperwork, we were officially builidng with Ryan Homes and Kelly proudly handed us our SOLD sign to put on our lot!  It's a good but weird feeling to hold something like this for the first time.  I made several undetected pauses in an attempt to savor the moment.  This home was going to be a big part of our lives for a long time.   So different from buying my first house--this was all mine down to the trusses and down to the very soil we picked. 

This is the House We're Building

Yorkshire B with Porch

- Elevation B with full front porch
- 3 car side entry garage
- Full furnished basement with full bath
- Morning room
- French Door in morning room
- Expresso cabinets
- Gourmet kitchen
- 42" cabinet upgrade
- Built in cooktop upgrade
- Window in Laundry room
- Stone fireplace
- Window in Owner's bath
-  French Doors in Study
-  Double bowl vanity in owner's bath.
-  Expresso cabinets in both baths
-  9' ceilings first floor
- Upgraded bath in owner's suite.
-  Recessed lights in Basement, Kitchen, and over fireplace.
-  Water softner rough in
- 14X16 Deck
- 15 Lite door leading to basement

The Yorkshire Floorplan

 

For a detailed look at the Yorkshire Floorplan, click here.