Happy New Year!

This is my first post for 2017!!!! This will be a very exciting year for us. We closed chapter 2016 on a very positive note. We closed on the town house on December 30!!!! My husband was able to sign some of the closing documents before we left for South Carolina. The day of closing the settlement company simply faxed over three additional documents for us to sign and send back.  Since the house is now sold that is one less thing we have to worry about (because this is one of the loan contingencies). I can focus my attention on the fun stuff!!! I drove pass the lot when we returned from vacation. I didn’t expect much to be done during the holidays but it did look like the excavation is complete. Our second Weekly Construction Meeting was today. Check out the construction updates here.

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).

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.