Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Rails and Columns are here!

Happy Wednesday, everyone.   Work was uneventful, but just alot of follow up with Brandon and NVR mortgage.   This morning, I got some items to place on Brandon's radar as items we aren't too pleased with.  He said that he would investigate and get back to me.   For the past couple of days, I had been emailing documents back and forth with Pam of NVR mortgage. 

The powers to be there were threatening to pend my loan because I missed a blank page on one of the statements I had submitted.  Not impressed by idle threats, I let Pam know how I felt about the lack of customer service candor from the mortgage powers to be.  I guess it was received.  While in a rather irritated mood, I blasted an email to Pam about how I felt about a company that NVR loosely associates with called Westwood Insurance .  I will be writing about this soon, so watch for it in future posts.  These guys are charlatans.  

Late in the day, I received the appraisal for the house.  The appraisal did go our way so I guess we are good to go.   With that came more requests for W2s and pay stubs, so no problem there.


Larry's on the Roof.
I got out to the site after work and saw Larry, one of Brandon's assistants working on the house.  He was sweeping off the roof after cleaning the whole inside of the house.  Wow.  it did nook nice.  I can imagine how long it took to get it that way.  We took a stroll around the house in our socks and got to see a glimpse of the final product. 

The concrete sidewalks and the rest of the driveway were completed and looking really nice.  Looking forward to the grading of the yard, grass, and landscaping.  I am hoping that we get it all before the closing.  So, here's to hoping...

4/02/2013
Now this is more like it!
It's Tuesday and we are a week from the final walk through and a week from closing.  We figured that this is crunch time for Brandon and his team.  To their credit, they've done excellent in keeping this house to the proposed timelines but there is so much little things to do before they can call this finished.  We drove up today and saw that the columns and rails were finally installed.  Also, they started to lay the concrete for the driveway and it looks great so far. 


Our Beautiful driveway
Yay!  We couldn't be happier about how the house looks.  This definitely met our expectations that we wanted a very distinctive home that was just right in portraying "us".  

Since we did have a little time, Amy and I did have a bit of a preliminary walk through in order to get the big order discrepancies on Brandon's radar so he doesn't get blindsided on the walk through.  With so much to go over on the walk through, Amy and I doubted that we could give the house a proper lookover.   So we went room to room noting things that were not done right or sloppy.  Overall, it wasn't too bad but there were items that had to be noted.   For this price point, though we do not expect 100 percent perfect, we did expect near perfect.  I think that is reasonable.
The dink list became quite long but one of the glaring problems was how they stained the bannister.  When we picked the finish back in December at Rite Rug, it was a Dark finish and the one we had looked almost gray.  Knowing a little bit about finishing, it looked like this stain guy was in a hurry and did not wait to put on more coats of stain to darken the finish.  Instead of an near expresso finish, we got a lighter grey.  Definitely unsat. Sometimes I wonder what these tradesmen are thinking...guess what fella, if I get my way, you're coming back to redo this and do it right.

It's a real drain when you find dink after dink.   We walk away tired anticipating the fight we are going to have to wage to get this corrected.  *sigh*  We'll be back tomorrow for more.

3 comments:

  1. We are also going VA and I was wondering how far out before closing did they order the appraisal?

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    1. Hi Susan, sri for the delay in reply. Happy to answer your query though. The VA appraisal was done at our place about 90 days out. Not sure of the date but it was right before drywall. They sent the report out 30 days before closing for me to review. Remember to review your appraisal report and check it for discrepancies. Ours was not accurate and it made a difference in the valuation of the property. My hope is that yours is accurate. Best of luck and keep those questions coming!

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    2. Thanks for your input. We went with USAA and they don't order it until the house is 95% complete. I'm praying for a quick and accurate appraisal. It was ordered this past week.

      We had the same issues with NVR. Enough to make us want to poke our eyes out. Thanks for keeping the blog. I've learned a lot.

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