timothygrae
New member
Hey all,
So I am building a house for the first time and I thought others might be interested in my experiences so so much of house purchasing has to do finance.
How we got here: I bought my first house when I got a decent paying job and honestly couldn't afford it. I made all my payments on time, but holy crap there were definitely periods where I had unexpected expenses like a utility catch up (where they had estimated my usage for like 6 months straight then hit me with a real bill) and I was left on a ramen diet for two weeks. I was 23 and it was a small house that was basically a bachelor pad.
I got married, we had a kid and my "bachelor pad" became too small. We looked around a bunch back in 2016 and considered really heavily moving but never did.
Earlier this year we re-assessed and decided to move ahead with a new house. We had saved a decent amount and our house and appreciated in value to the point where we could buy what we wanted. We started searching but the market is stupid around me right now. So what we ended up doing was finding our realtor and we'd have to meet her at a house basically at the drop of a hat in order to see it the day it came on market.
What got crazy about it was we'd be competing with literally dozens of other couples to just get a slot. We'd see a house that hit the market at 9 am at the top of our range, have to call my realtor, she'd call us back and say "I can get you in but not until 7:15, all the other slots are filled." We'd arrive to find someone else touring the house, leave with someone waiting to get in behind us, and discover an absolute deal breaker of an issue.
I mean seriously these were not cheap houses and we'd get there to find that the backyard pictures were taken in a way to leave out the massive hill that drains water into the house (and into the basement!). Or we discovered with a couple of houses that they used wide angled lenses on pictures of many of the rooms to make small rooms normal size and normal size rooms look huge. I walked into one room and realized it was half the size the pictures made it out to be and went back and looked again and realized the tv was stretched out to insane proportions.
So after literally weeks of doing this we started looking at building. We narrowed on on two builders who were in one particular subdivision and then narrowed it down to one. We went and sat down with builder a and told her "We'd like to get a good idea of what EVERYTHING will cost, do an estimate with us okay?" She said she would and sat down and explained how everything worked. Upgrades, options, etc were all in "Packages" and we'd receive a discount off whatever we did up to half up to $x dollars.
We were stoked, they had a floor plan we thought was perfect, the sales woman told my wife she'd "Throw in" finishing the basement. Aside from that we could Upgrade to the highest level for what seemed like a reasonable amount and we were told was how the model home was specced. She printed off a pricing sheet and I went about making sure our preapproval would cover it. It worked out and we were going to come in around $10k under our preapproval, which seemed like a good idea. We had asked about changing one thing that she had to get with the builder with to see if it was possible (We wanted a nice tub in the master bath).
We went back in to see her again to go over our options and to give her our check for the initial deposit. This is when stuff got screwy.
She sat down and basically demanded we give her the check first to "Hold our lot". We did, because I mean why not? We're dealing with someone who is working with us on our house! So she pulled out our file and a sheet of paper and asked about what type of upgrades we wanted and we were like "Oh you see you already went over this with us, we chose this package." she basically looked at us like we bumped our head. As it turned out the options we had chose were not all the options, and estimate she had given us was not the full price...... nor was it close.
She started on "extras" that included the can lights that were all over the model home, about a solid 12 windows, a garage door opener, and seriously like everything that made this livable. We were made some tough decisions, and I was really unhappy because I felt misled. The only option we took was can lights in two places. We sat back down and asked about the one thing we had thought was going to be extra which was our options on the tub. We had outlined 3 ways we'd be okay with and she presented us with the laziest option. at a price that was somewhat ridiculous. It was going to cost us like $3500 for them to shoe horn it into an area that should be part of our walk in closet. At this point we were starting to approach our top end price and I wasn't thrilled.
At this point she asked about finishing our basement. To which I replied with "Oh yes, you told (Wifes name) it would be included". This salesperson whom I had now met with 3 times, with my wife, whom I had handed a check she promised not to deposit until paperwork was signed, who had us on a sign in sheet AND had a folder with our names on it says "Who's (wifes name) ?"
If that wasn't the final straw what came next was. She explained that she could do the basement for free, but she'd have to take away our other offers jacking up our price. My wife and I had gone in there ready to sign, and instead we walked. I wasn't 100% sure where my wife was because I couldn't tell if she was as upset as I was or not. So I was sitting there texting her to get her feeling and she wasn't checking her phone. When the sales woman asked us to sign I said I wasn't comfortable signing and we needed to think about it and she agreed.
We left and went back to builder B. I told him the same thing, lets go over all our options and come up with a real estimate and we'll go from there. The crazy thing was, thats what he actually did. He sat down with us went over all the options and details and we came up with a real estimate of cost. We took it home and thought it over for a couple of days and went back and got our check back from builder A.
Where we are now: That was in September. We signed our paperwork in early September and made all of our finish choices in November. They broke ground last week and as of right now I am the proud owner of a hole in the ground with some concrete footers in it.
Progress will probably be slow for the foreseeable future. We had a cold snap that started yesterday thats going to prevent the further pouring of the foundation. We do however have a meeting with our site foreman on wednesday afternoon that I'm pretty stoked about. This is going to be our first contact with the main point of contact for our home building and when the ball really gets rolling. Depending on weather and covid related delays were looking at 4-6 months before we go are finished.
Meanwhile, we're prepping our house for market, and will hopefully have it ready and on market in right under 2 weeks. Its been a long and arduous process, but its reaching its end.
So I am building a house for the first time and I thought others might be interested in my experiences so so much of house purchasing has to do finance.
How we got here: I bought my first house when I got a decent paying job and honestly couldn't afford it. I made all my payments on time, but holy crap there were definitely periods where I had unexpected expenses like a utility catch up (where they had estimated my usage for like 6 months straight then hit me with a real bill) and I was left on a ramen diet for two weeks. I was 23 and it was a small house that was basically a bachelor pad.
I got married, we had a kid and my "bachelor pad" became too small. We looked around a bunch back in 2016 and considered really heavily moving but never did.
Earlier this year we re-assessed and decided to move ahead with a new house. We had saved a decent amount and our house and appreciated in value to the point where we could buy what we wanted. We started searching but the market is stupid around me right now. So what we ended up doing was finding our realtor and we'd have to meet her at a house basically at the drop of a hat in order to see it the day it came on market.
What got crazy about it was we'd be competing with literally dozens of other couples to just get a slot. We'd see a house that hit the market at 9 am at the top of our range, have to call my realtor, she'd call us back and say "I can get you in but not until 7:15, all the other slots are filled." We'd arrive to find someone else touring the house, leave with someone waiting to get in behind us, and discover an absolute deal breaker of an issue.
I mean seriously these were not cheap houses and we'd get there to find that the backyard pictures were taken in a way to leave out the massive hill that drains water into the house (and into the basement!). Or we discovered with a couple of houses that they used wide angled lenses on pictures of many of the rooms to make small rooms normal size and normal size rooms look huge. I walked into one room and realized it was half the size the pictures made it out to be and went back and looked again and realized the tv was stretched out to insane proportions.
So after literally weeks of doing this we started looking at building. We narrowed on on two builders who were in one particular subdivision and then narrowed it down to one. We went and sat down with builder a and told her "We'd like to get a good idea of what EVERYTHING will cost, do an estimate with us okay?" She said she would and sat down and explained how everything worked. Upgrades, options, etc were all in "Packages" and we'd receive a discount off whatever we did up to half up to $x dollars.
We were stoked, they had a floor plan we thought was perfect, the sales woman told my wife she'd "Throw in" finishing the basement. Aside from that we could Upgrade to the highest level for what seemed like a reasonable amount and we were told was how the model home was specced. She printed off a pricing sheet and I went about making sure our preapproval would cover it. It worked out and we were going to come in around $10k under our preapproval, which seemed like a good idea. We had asked about changing one thing that she had to get with the builder with to see if it was possible (We wanted a nice tub in the master bath).
We went back in to see her again to go over our options and to give her our check for the initial deposit. This is when stuff got screwy.
She sat down and basically demanded we give her the check first to "Hold our lot". We did, because I mean why not? We're dealing with someone who is working with us on our house! So she pulled out our file and a sheet of paper and asked about what type of upgrades we wanted and we were like "Oh you see you already went over this with us, we chose this package." she basically looked at us like we bumped our head. As it turned out the options we had chose were not all the options, and estimate she had given us was not the full price...... nor was it close.
She started on "extras" that included the can lights that were all over the model home, about a solid 12 windows, a garage door opener, and seriously like everything that made this livable. We were made some tough decisions, and I was really unhappy because I felt misled. The only option we took was can lights in two places. We sat back down and asked about the one thing we had thought was going to be extra which was our options on the tub. We had outlined 3 ways we'd be okay with and she presented us with the laziest option. at a price that was somewhat ridiculous. It was going to cost us like $3500 for them to shoe horn it into an area that should be part of our walk in closet. At this point we were starting to approach our top end price and I wasn't thrilled.
At this point she asked about finishing our basement. To which I replied with "Oh yes, you told (Wifes name) it would be included". This salesperson whom I had now met with 3 times, with my wife, whom I had handed a check she promised not to deposit until paperwork was signed, who had us on a sign in sheet AND had a folder with our names on it says "Who's (wifes name) ?"
If that wasn't the final straw what came next was. She explained that she could do the basement for free, but she'd have to take away our other offers jacking up our price. My wife and I had gone in there ready to sign, and instead we walked. I wasn't 100% sure where my wife was because I couldn't tell if she was as upset as I was or not. So I was sitting there texting her to get her feeling and she wasn't checking her phone. When the sales woman asked us to sign I said I wasn't comfortable signing and we needed to think about it and she agreed.
We left and went back to builder B. I told him the same thing, lets go over all our options and come up with a real estimate and we'll go from there. The crazy thing was, thats what he actually did. He sat down with us went over all the options and details and we came up with a real estimate of cost. We took it home and thought it over for a couple of days and went back and got our check back from builder A.
Where we are now: That was in September. We signed our paperwork in early September and made all of our finish choices in November. They broke ground last week and as of right now I am the proud owner of a hole in the ground with some concrete footers in it.
Progress will probably be slow for the foreseeable future. We had a cold snap that started yesterday thats going to prevent the further pouring of the foundation. We do however have a meeting with our site foreman on wednesday afternoon that I'm pretty stoked about. This is going to be our first contact with the main point of contact for our home building and when the ball really gets rolling. Depending on weather and covid related delays were looking at 4-6 months before we go are finished.
Meanwhile, we're prepping our house for market, and will hopefully have it ready and on market in right under 2 weeks. Its been a long and arduous process, but its reaching its end.