Good News, Bad News...

Hey!


So, today we had our pre-construction meeting!!! The permit still hasn't been approved (bad news) BUT they started excavating our lot (good news)! Read about our pre-construction meeting here. We are really excited the process is finally starting after the longgggggggg seven month wait.


More bad news... the closing date for our townhouse has been pushed back to December 30th. This is a total bummer because we were planning to spend the holidays in South Carolina with my husband's family. Apparently, my husband can sign the settlement papers and turn over the keys to our realtor before we leave. The settlement will still happen on the 30th even though we will not be there. I'll keep you posted on the outcome.


TTYL!

P.M.P – Packing, Moving & Pre-Construction

December has been hectic. We are packing to move and we are completing last minute inspection fixes for closing. On December 6^th Toll Brothers contacted us. The sales rep said that they are ready to schedule our Pre-Construction Meeting. YAY! Finally... after seven months of waiting and weekly drives pass the dirt filled lot. I was excited, overjoyed! The pre-construction meeting is scheduled for December 14^th at 9am.


I'll blog about the Pre-Construction meeting later this week.

Sold…not Sold… Sold!!!

Our house was listed September 16^th. So exciting!! Ten days later we received a full offer. That was fast… Long story short after the inspection the lady did not want to move forward. Its ok, she just wasn’t the right buyer for us. The house was relisted on October 5^th. We received the second offer a few days later and the house was Pending (Contingent) on Oct 17^th. The buyer used a Maryland state first time home buyers program to receive closing cost assistance. The process is beneficial to the buyer but a headache for the selling. We had two inspections and then a re-inspection a week before closing to make sure everything was complete. Not to mention from start to finish the process is an elongated 60 days! Good thing we weren’t pressed to sale fast. However, we didn’t really mind the wait in the end. It allowed us more time to stay in “our own space” before moving in with the parents.  We are set to close December 16^th. Fingers crossed.

On November 28^th we were contacted by the structure and wiring company Audio Buys, to make our electrical and multimedia selections. He sent over a few documents with pricings for the options but I admit it went way over my head. I told my husband to take a look at them. We scheduled a meeting to finalize our multimedia selections in mid- January.

Prepping to Sale

We contacted our realtor to set up a walkthrough of our property. He sold the house to my husband five years ago and is a family friend.  He noted some updates and changes we needed to make to get top dollar. We immediately contacted our contractor to get started on the work. The townhouse was built in the 90s. It had laminate counters and white appliances. The cabinets are in pretty good shape. We didn’t plan on doing a full kitchen remodel so we purchased simple granite counters and stainless steel appliances. We had to be comparable to newer townhomes on the market that have granite and stainless steel.  Ceramic tiles were added to the kitchen and bathroom floors before my husband moved. That saved us a ton. The house was in pretty good shape so we didn’t have to invest a lot of money, just a bunch of small things.

Townhouse Kitchen Before:

Townhouse Kitchen After:

 

Here is a list of things we updated before putting the house on the market:

• Added granite counters and stainless steel appliances to the kitchen
• Pressure washed, restrained and repainted the deck.  (The previous owners painted the deck which was a headache. The paint was badly chipped.)
• Replaced wood under window frames (The wood frame under the windows on the back of the house was rooting.)
• Repainted the basement
• Wiped down all the walls
• Major house cleaning
• Hired Stanley Steamer to clean the carpets. (we tried to cut costs by not replacing the carpets)
• Washed light fixtures that were dusty.
• Fixed a broken bathroom fan
• Repainted the front door frame and trim
• Repainted the garage door frame and trim
• Cleaned up the yard. (I attempted to plant flowers… Total fail! I purchased flower pots instead)
• Uncluttered the house. (Purchased a storage unit)
• Replaced broken toilet
• Fixed drywall from a busted pipe that we fixed years ago

Major Key: Having our realtor walk through the property before we put it on the market was a big help. We fixed a bunch of small things that the home inspectors would’ve noticed.  We ended up saving time and money. When the home is under contract the state (MD) requires licensed contractors to complete any improvements. This is fine for some but for small things like we had non-licensed is just as good.

Back and Forth and Back Again

After dragging my husband to just about every model home in the county, we finally decided to build our beautiful home at a master planned community called Marlboro Ridge. This is a fantastic community with wonderful amenities, beautiful homes and an equestrian center. We wanted to purchase a home in a community where we can raise kids and ultimately spend the rest of our lives. I love that this community has community events for both kids and adults throughout the year. The community events are a very exciting feature that we were happy to hear about.

Major Key: Talk to people who live in the community. I found a few coworkers who lived in the community and talked to them about the home’s structural integrity, the construction/building process and other general questions. Most importantly I asked if they liked the house and if were they satisfied with the results.

My husband and I made an appointment in mid-April with the representative to pick our lot, put down a deposit and pick the elevation that we wanted.  Before we sat down we walked through the house and had the sales representative point out everything that came standard and what was an upgrade. I did this a few months ago but I wanted to know if they added new options to the standard list. I also wanted my husband to hear everything before we signed.

Major Key: Make sure you know what is standard and what an upgrade is. This will either save you or cost you more money in options at the design center. One of the most confusing things in buying new construction is looking at the model home and knowing what an add-on is and what is not. The agreement of sale will list out all of the standard options as $0 line items but it’s good to know them before that point. Also ask about incentives. Some builders offer monthly incentives. These often include structural options such as bump outs and finished recreation rooms or the upgrading of cabinetry, flooring or granite. The incentives and closing help sold me!

Surprise!! Honey I found a house...

On a typical Saturday visiting model homes with my best friend we stopped by the Marlboro Ridge Toll Brothers community.  We visited this community a few years back, way before the Woodstock model was introduced. The alluring estate homes started at $900k and over 6000k square feet. We imagined ourselves having huge gatherings while enjoying the bowling alley in the large basement (yes, they have a bowling alley in the basement of the model!!!). Anyway, we were dreaming to say the least.


As we drove into the community we saw signs for the new Woodstock model starting under our proposed budget…our antennas were on high alert.  As we drove up to the model the house seemed to be the perfect size, not too big, not too small and priced well below our budget. When we walked in we were greeted my sales agent. She asked the typical questions, “what brings you in”, “what are you looking for”, and “what’s your timeline”. We briefly answered “we are just looking”, as we have in all the other models homes we frequented.  I stated that I just got my husband on board with looking for homes but he said maybe this time next year. She said “oh, well we are at least a year out”.  SAY IT AINT SO!? A year out… that’s PERFECT. We proceeded to walk through the house. We were of course amazed by the interior design and home layout. I love how the stairs are positioned in the middle of the house off to the side (I have a pet peeve about steps meeting you at the front entry door "shrugs"). After we toured the house the sales agent pointed out everything that came standard with the house. I was shocked!!! Many of the homes we visited in the past did not come standard with half the things that were offered in the Woodstock.  I told her thanks and that I would have to talk to my husband. She replied “ok, talk to your husband and maybe you can come back to look at the numbers, and here are some brochures to show him”. I kind of brushed her off and said “ok!”… Not really thinking too much into it. Besides, we were just having fun riding around looking at models. We sure have not thoroughly discussed actually moving.

On the drive home so many thoughts were running through my head, “this may be a good idea…I mean he did say next year… And it is under budget…” When I got home of course I was excited, I ran upstairs and said “Honey, I found a house!”… I swiftly showed him the brochures and told him that they are a year out. He said “ok, cool” then turned back to the TV to watch the game. I continued to talk (to myself, lol). My husband is a numbers guy so he started asking questions that honestly I didn’t think to ask. You know women we get so excited and forget to ask the important stuff, besides we aren't really serious, right? I replied, “I don’t know”. He said “before you present something to me, you should at least know the basics”… ummm ok, you are right (eye roll, lol). A few days later I called the sales representative to schedule an appointment to work out the numbers so I could present my  “case”. My best friend accompanied me to the meeting because my husband insisted that he doesn’t need to go because he isn’t sure he’s ready to move yet. Ok, whatever (eye roll, again). The sales agent broke down the numbers and holy cow!!  Nearly $20k over budget… oh nooooo! My excitement again dwindled. I returned home, the  walk up the stairs was very sluggish... in slow motion. I said well it’s a little over budget.  He stopped in his tracks and said NOPE! It’s over budget… even a dollar over is over (haha, ok! I get it).

The Background

A few months ago my husband and I were talking about potentially moving from the townhome that he owns to a single family home.  At this point we had been married for two years and own two properties. I have a condo that is currently being leased. We have also been talking about starting a family. The townhouse seems like it was getting smaller by the day so we knew with a child we would need more space.  After months of asking when are we going to move he mumbled under his breath “maybe next year”?  I assume he just said that to stop the constant questioning, but for me that was approval to start my home search J.  Since he finally gave me a definitive answer I did lay off a bit. During my free time I would search the web looking at new communities and resale homes.  The differences in new construction versus resale homes were pretty clear.  Knowing that we were more than a year out from moving I knew the resale homes that I saw for sale today would not be there a year from now.  Here is what I found:

Newer homes were priced slightly higher but some included more square footage and open floor plans.

Resale homes lots were a lot bigger and the homes were further apart compared to new construction. But this also depends on the neighborhood of the new construction. Also with new construction you have to consider the lot premiums; the bigger the lot the more expensive the lot premium. With resale you don’t have to worry about lot premiums.

New construction homes often are in new communities and neighbors are younger with similar goals (starting/raising families).

New community developments were further out often off two lane country roads (in the part of the county where we were looking).

Introduction

We currently reside in central Prince Georges County Maryland. Before I started the home search I scouted all of the new construction models in my preferred location. My best friend and I love to drive around looking at model homes and “dream” as we would explain it. Most of the homes are way above our price range but I guess we get a thrill imagining our families in 6000+ square foot mini-mansions minutes away from the nation’s capital. Of the many great builders in my county my heart fell in love with the resort style equestrian community in the heart of Upper Marlboro named Marlboro Ridge.  What ultimately moved us to put a contract on this beautiful home was the strong since of community, incentives and standard options that I hadn’t seen offered in any other community in my price range. My husband is very strict about budget and if you know anything about the DC Metro area is that home prices are extremely high. I think we did pretty well. Yes, we couldn’t get everything that we (I) wanted but we agreed that some things can wait until after closing.

So now here we are, two millennials getting ready to build our dream home. I found a lot of  blogs for building Ryan homes that were really helpful. There were only a handful of bloggers documenting the Toll Brothers process so I've decided to share my journey. I look forward to sharing my ups and downs during this process. I hope that our experiences will help the next person in their home buying and construction journey.