Construction started

7/2/2012
Meeting with PM went well. Although I was really disappointed to know that there will be manhole right in the middle of my driveway. No one told me about that before when we chose the lot. PM said that they cannot do anything now.

PM also described that over the range exhaust is internal only. I assumed that this exhaust is always external and not even touch my mind when we selected the options. During the meeting with PM our sales lady told me that I didn't selected that option & then realised that it wasn't even in the options list. Anyways we wanted to have this so they finally agreed to add that option with extra $600+$250 change order fee!!!

It was also a surprise that they will not grade till my backyard property line as it was shown to me when we selected the lot and signed the purchase agreement. Ryan Homes!! Also, even though everything was done, they said that they will start digging after 2 weeks. I am concerned about the September 17th completion date.

7/31/2012
So finally construction started. In past week they have done digging, footings were done. I noticed lots of cracks on the footings.

Is this a concern? I would appreciate any comments on this from experts out there...

I called the PM & left vm but he never returned the call. Very next day they poured the concrete for the basement walls. That was fast. I like that.

Here are some pics...

Hi all,
We decided to blog about the building process of our new home we are building with Ryan Homes. We thought that this would be helpful for others who may be starting the same process with Ryan homes or any other builder in this area.


We are young family of 4. Me, wife, 6yr old girl & 2yr old boy. We moved to Cleveland, OH area for a new job from Texas in September 2011. We are living in an apartment since then (didn't even think about looking for new house until we sold our home in Texas in March2012). So, obviously we began our search in late April. After talking to several new friends and colleagues at work we decided to live in Twinsburg/Reminderville area mainly for good schools and reasonable home prices. Our search began with obviously existing inventory of homes but didn't wanted to compromise on things we wanted which you can only get by building the new house. Thus, we picked crosswind court community in Reminderville OH.


Crosswind court is relatively smaller Ryan homes community with only ~24 homesites. Very quite place with the homesite we chose has walkout basement and nature preserve starting our backyard (no one can build behind us)


We signed our purchase agreement on May17th for building Florence floor plan which we loved. Within 7 days we had to meet with NVR loan officer to get the loan approved. We met him right on 7th day (because his schedule was tight). Ryan homes make you use their NVR mortgage (they give you an option, but then take out all the discounts they gave you under NVR- which is substantial amount priced in). Obviously our loan got approved (we have the best credit) but with not such good rate as i would find outside.


Within 14 days (of purchase agreement) you have to make all the other choices/changes in the home. Tiffany (our sales rep) was very good help in this process. Within 30 days (of purchase agreement) you have to make flooring/wiring/security selections. You have to do all this with Ryan home's selected vendors. From Guardian, We end-up not getting security system, but chose gigabit data port with CAT-6 Ethernet all over in the house. This costs $650 but well worth it. The sales rep from Guardian was very nice guy and help us understand everything. The flooring company (Rite-Rug) was a big disappointment. First, it was way to difficult to get an appointment in their showroom. They have limited selections which is way too expensive than what you would find outside. The laminate flooring we were looking for would cost less than half outside including installation even if you go to Lowe's or Home Depot and considerably cheaper if you go to Lumber Liquidators. On top of that, the first sales person we met there, Jessica acted like "just pick something and leave me alone". During the whole time we were there, she not even got off her seat!! We visited them again and the next sales person, Rachel was very helpful. We end up choosing the basic as it comes with the house, but she help us made good selections for carpet.


Anyways a lot of writing for today...within next couple days, I'll update about our first meeting with Project manager (Roadmap meeting) just happened last week. I'll also post some pictures of the homesite.