Signing Day

It felt like it was never going to happen. We are still not officially approved for our mortgage, but we were able to make our final selections, today. From the beginning, we have had the mindset that we would invest in structural upgrades, rather than cosmetic ones, and we stuck with that plan.
When we started down the road of building our home, we quickly realized that we would not be able to afford everything that we wanted. This was difficult to accept as we increased our maximum budget by twenty, and then forty percent. We are planning for the long-term, however.

This strategy has been validated by some of the blogs and anecdotes that we have heard from friends. Someone we know did the exact opposite as us. She spent extra money on all of the cosmetic updates, to make the house look great inside and out, but made the sacrifices on the structural side. No morning room, no four-foot extension, etc. A couple of years later, when they began pricing out the cost of building an addition onto their home, they really regretted their decision. Although the home is very nice-looking, it does not meet their needs the way that they thought that it would, and the cost of expanding is exorbitant.

The cost for adding cosmetic updates is much more palatable than the high cost of structural changes, and there are fewer complications. With that said, plain Jane siding is not going to win our new home any awards, and we are likely never going to reside it with brick or stone. Inside, however, we can paint, carpet, refloor, etc. to our heart's content, much more reasonably. One of our first priorities is finishing the basement space. While we pricing out different options in the initial stages of our experience, I noticed that the taxes went way up on one; it was the square footage of the finished space in the basement. So, we figured that we could buy our home with an unfinished basement and save on taxes while we finish it, one room at a time.

Options:

• Morning room
• 4' extension on family room
• Side fireplace
• Attached garage
• Alternate master suite
• Kitchen counter peninsula
• Tray ceiling in the dining room (our only purely aesthetic option) - my wife wanted one nice thing
• Maple spice cabinets
• Kitchen recessed lighting
• Family room recessed lighting and ceiling fan
• Ceiling fan prewires in all bedrooms (Ryan Homes does not include overhead lighting. This is one completely ridiculous thing. The ceiling fan options are so-so quality and overpriced, so we just had them wired and will buy and install, ourselves.)

The Wiring Meeting

We met with Jeff, the rep for Guardian Home Technologies, the low-voltage wiring service provider for Ryan Homes in the greater Pittsburgh region. When I made the appointment, I explained that while I undertsood the value of their services, I helped start a home automation company (albeit a long time ago), so I would listen to what they had to offer, but would not be very likely to add anything more than the base services.

In the Cobblestone plan, the standard wiring options are 2 Cat 5e runs (phone or network) and 2 coaxial cable runs (television). This is very basic. We only wanted television runs to the master and the family room, but Jeff convinced us that the study would be good, too. He also convinced me that they way that Ryan builds homes with their super energy-efficiency, they seal all of the walls and the ceiling in the basement, making it much more difficult to wiring after the fact. I don't know if it's true, but for a reasonable $95/run, we ended up also adding two more network connections, as well. The one thing that is genuinely top-notch (at least from what I could tell from the pictures) is the cabinet. When it comes to structured wiring, the cabinet is the heart of your home system and having a good one with plenty of room to work and the ability to easily add and remove modules to keep the system organized is critical. The Guardian base cabinet seems to meet these needs very nicely. It is also a nice-looking unit, which my wife was particularly happy about. It appeared to have a white enamel coating on the steel frame.

The one thing that my wife was genuinely interested in was a security system. These systems can be purchased from independent providers very affordably, but when it comes to the monitoring, they may leave a lot to be desired. Jeff was quick to steer us towards a special that they had, which saved us a great deal on the upfront costs. The monitoring is a little more than I would like, but in line with going rates for such services. For security reasons, I am not going to get into what, exactly, we chose. Needless to say, Gaurdian has a lot of options with motion detectors, keypads, door chimes, window and door opening detectors, mobile phone backups, a mobile app, etc. The mobile app is a double-edged sword, because you will be in serious trouble if that ever gets hacked, but the convenience is a really nice option to have.

Overall, again, it was a very pleasant experience. Jeff's job is to sell things and he is good at his job, but he was not pushy and accepted "no" as an answer. He was very reasonable and helped us to make what I feel are educated decisions. At the end of the day, we only added a few hundred dollars to our mortgage, but did add a monthly service fee with a five-year agreement (one thing that I was definitely not thrilled with).

Again, we met in the morning room of the model home, and that stupid chair leg is still loose, but I couldn't help looking around and thinking of how nice it will be to have a room like that in our house...

The Initial NVR Mortgage Application Meeting

We met with our mortgage specialist, tonight. Kendall has been truly great this far. I was as little worried because we heard from the flooring and wiring folks at Rite Rug and Guardian Home Technologies on Monday, but not from NVR Mortgage. We have 30 days to settle the former, but only seven days to take care of the latter. Kendall called me on Tuesday, however, and was able to work around my work schedule to make an appointment for tonight.

We met at the Cobblestone model home, and completed the application in the morning room. You've got to hand it to the Ryan Homes folks; they know what they are doing. Except for my chair having a loose leg, everything was warm and inviting, and I could completely envision myself having Christmas dinner, doing homework with my children, or having a glass of wine with my wife in the morning room in our new home.

As for the actual application, other than being long, it was surprisingly painless. Kendall explained everything to us and was incredibly patient with all of our questions and my need to at least skim the documents before signing them. She had everything prepared, including having the documents in a sensible order and highlighting where the needed to be signed. I could tell that she'd done it, before. She assured us throughout the process that our credit score allowed us for the best rate (although it was not quite as high as I would have expected or wanted). She gave us excellent advice on what to do and what not to do, to keep our score and mortgage-worthiness high. The most surprising thing was that they had a problem with our bank account transactions.

Last year, we took a Dave Ramsey class called Financial Peace University. We loved it and learned a number of things, including that we were already doing many things the Dave Ramsey way. Just to be clear, I think that Dave Ramsey would call us insane for buying this home. Regardless, the basis of the program is to pay for as much as possible with cash, and to save up for expenses (predictable and unpredictable). The problem with that is that we withdraw and deposit cash from the bank on a regular basis. The banks apparently consider these "large" cash transactions a red flag. And by "large," I mean hundreds, not thousands of dollars. This came as a complete shock to us. We had never imagined it, but these cash transactions can be considered evidence of illegal off-the-books business. When you think of it that it way, it kind of makes sense, but it still seems crazy to me... being penalized for using cash...