6/26/15 - PROGRESS!!!

After my last blog post, I had resigned myself to trying to be patient and not go crazy as the days passed and nothing was getting done.  So after a bit of waiting, I'm happy to say that there has been a whole lot of progress!!!

First things first, the siding was all put up and completed.

Once that was done and the county signed off on whatever it is that they need to sign off on, they were able to start the insulation in preparation for the drywall.  It was pretty cool to see, as it started to close off some of the space inside and give it some definition.

They also came out and did the stone work on the front of the house and the front steps.

Something to note is that the stone layout on our is slightly different from the "standard" layout.  The original plans called for there to be a stone water line on the front of the garage, but when the crew did the siding on the house, instead of stopping it high up to leave room for the water line, they had just run it all the way to the bottom.  After giving it a little thought, we decided that we liked it better this way.  It gives the house a little differentiation from the other house across the street that is very similar to ours and makes it a little unique if only in a small way.  So after a little emailing back and forth we were able to leave it like this which makes us quite happy.

Once the stone was done, they drywall people came out and got all the drywall up inside.

WOW!  What a difference that makes.  It has gone from being an awkward construction site to a house in the matter of two days.  It amazes me how different it was to walk into that place compared to every other time we've been there.  It really is starting to feel like we might actually live there soon!

Some other good news that we received today is that they agreed to move our closing date to July 31st instead of the Aug 3rd date we were given in our letter.  this will let us move straight from our temporary apartment to the house without a two day gap that we were facing.  We also got our weekly update from our PM Mark letting us know that the driveway and sidewalks will be going in next week and the finishing work is coming as well.  We can't wait to see it all come together, after the appraisal thing we were having a really hard time getting excited again, but now its all starting to come back!!

Stay tuned for more!

6/19/15 - We Closed on Our Old House!

Today is a bit of a  sad day.  We closed on the sale of our old house in Chesapeake, and are feeling a little homesick and a little homeless right now.  Hopefully the new owner loves that house as much as we did!

6/10/15 - A Fond Farewell

Eleven years ago my wife and I set out on a journey to find a home for us. Our search led us to what would soon become our home here on Cricket Hollow Ln. We fell in love with it the moment that we walked through the door and knew that it would be the perfect place for us. The next eleven years would bring us many challenges and many wonderful moments, all rooted in these walls. From our engagement and wedding, the birth of our son, to birthdays and holidays with friends and family, and all the struggles that two young people go through as they grow into adults and begin a family of their own.  

Throughout all of that, one thing always stayed the same. This was always home.  

Tomorrow, that all changes. This is the last night that we will spend here in this house. I don't think the reality of that has truly sunk in yet, but truthfully, I can't even write this without tears in my eyes. it will be strange not coming home to this house anymore. As excited as we are about our new home, it's bittersweet knowing that we are leaving this place behind. This house has served us well, and it has grown up with us as much as we have grown up with it. I hope that the new owners will love it as much as we have. 

Our new house is beautiful, it's everything that we've wanted and more, but this little townhouse will always be home. 

6/9/15 - Appraisal Update and Some Good News From Ryan Homes

Today were were contacted by Josh at Ryan Homes to discuss our appraisal situation that I had written about previously.  I had exchanged a few emails with our SR and had expressed how unhappy we were with what had happened and what had been offered to resolve it.  For my wife and I, it was a deal breaker, and to be completely honest, we had already begun looking at new houses in preparation for having to walk away from this one.

I am pleased to say however that we were able to bring about a mutual compromise and resolve this in a way that my wife and I are happy with.   We agreed to come out of pocket some,  they agreed to come down on the price some, and in the end we get the house that we wanted, the way that we picked it out, and we don't have to start all over again. 

I may or may not write a longer post outlining the whole thing in more detail, but for now I wanted to let those of you following this know, that my wife and I feel like Ryan Homes did right by us.  They compromised in a way that we feel is fair and they were gracious and apologetic for the issue even occurring in the first place.

Hopefully it's all smooth sailing from here!

6/8/15 - From Townhouse to Nightmare?

I have refrained from posting anything on here for the last few days in an attempt to give the situation a little time to settle down and see what comes of it, but so far that hasn't accomplished anything, so in my quest to be completely truthful about this experience it's time to let everyone know where we stand today.

We had our pre-drywall meeting Friday the 5th.  When I showed up to meet Ryan and our new PM Mark, I'm greeted with being asked if I'd heard about our appraisal.  Pretty ominous words right?  Now to give you a little backstory, I learned very early on that the appraisal on the house beside ours came back low and have constantly asked if this was something that we should be concerned about.  Every time I've been told no. Apparently I was correct in my fears.

I immediately fired off emails to everyone that we'd dealt with throughout building this house trying to get some information about what was going on.  It would be well into the next day before I would be gifted with a reply.   We're finally told that the appraisal was over $20,000 low.

$20,000!!!!

So I ask what that means to us at this point.  Now keep in mind that our house is supposed to be finished in 50ish days.  We've already paid all our money.  We've already sold our current house.  We've already been through all of the mortgage approval steps,  and we are as of Thursday living in a borrowed apartment until our new house is supposedly going to be done.

We're told we can either come out of pocket $20,000 on top of all the money we've already paid for our down payment,  or we can strip the house of all the options that we selected to put into it.

Their justification is that the house would've met the appraisal if we hadn't added anything to it.  Can you tell me how ridiculous that is.  Never mind the fact that the entire new home buying process consisted of multiple meetings to pick out all our choices, apparently none of them are actually able to be done without coming out of pocket for all of it.

My advice to all of you is to be very carful when dealing with Ryan Homes.  I'd read all the bad reviews and such about dealing with them, but gave everyone the benefit of the doubt.  My wife and I were extremely upfront with everyone that we've dealt with through the entire process and now not only do we no longer have our old home of 11 years,  but we get to tell our friends, family and our 7 year old son that he no longer gets the new house that's he's been looking forward to for the last 4 months.  

I wish I'd never set foot in this house.