Pre-Construction Meeting and New Construction Start Date

So we had our pre-construction meeting on Thursday May 26 with our sales representative and our construction manager.  After so much time the meeting was both a pleasant relief and somewhat awkward, with our sale representative and construction manager clearly feeling a little anxious about the long delays and wanting to make sure we understood everything and were ready to get started.


And I'll be honest, a lot has changed in a year.  The delays and limbo have taken a toll on my family.  We have all been crammed into a 2 bedroom apartment for 11 months that we were only planning to stay in for 3 months.  My sons did not want to change schools, but were excited about finally each having his own room.  Eleven months later and they are still sharing a room.  We have all questioned whether this was a good idea or something we rushed into without doing enough research on Ryan Homes.

But here we are.  Going through the selections again I was struck by what a large beautiful home we picked out and I can see why last May we signed a contract to have that dream become reality.  We signed up to finally have a big, beautiful adult home - we thought we were "adulting" like crazy.  Lol
But as is often the case things did not turn out as planned.  But I am hopeful that once construction starts and we get to have the fun experience of watching our dream home get built that this long delay will start to become a distant memory.  But so far, not so much.

In terms of the meeting itself, we learned that the start date for our house has been moved up from June 13 to June 8.  Our construction manager will be starting a new house in our phase each week through early July.  I know Ryan Homes is anxious to complete this development that has cost them much more money than they anticipated.  I hope the accelerated schedule does not mean they will cut corners, but I take heart with the fact that I know Howard County is very strict and will closely monitor what is being done.  We also learned that instead of a bioretention pond for stormwater management we will have a buried dry well.  I looked up these systems on Howard County's Department of Public Works website.  On the one hand I thought the bioretention pond took up a good part of the front lawn of the house, so I'm happy not to have it, but the buried dry well seems like it may be more work to maintain and could cause more problems over the long haul if it gets backed up.  I will be asking more questions about this system.   That's it for now, I will update again with pictures once construction starts.


 

We Just Scheduled a Pre-Construction Meeting!

Hello!  I'm back!  Well it is almost a year to the day that my husband and I first signed a contract with Ryan Homes to purchase a new home in a small development called Montgomery Crossing.  If you have followed this blog, and I know there are one or two of you exactly that have, you know that our house was originally slated to be finished in October 2015.  But it turned out that despite what Ryan Homes initially told us (and what they say they understood) the developer did not have permit approval to build the road and infrastructure to be able to build homes on the land.  So our house was not started last year.  In fact it took the developer eight months to get such approval.  But after that very long wait, which included angry phone calls, and additional funds towards closing, we are finally getting started.

Hooray!  We are going to our pre-construction meeting this month and our house is scheduled to begin construction in mid-June.  We are beyond thrilled.  But until I see a big hole in the ground, I'm not celebrating quite yet, but this is definitely progress.

It's 2016 and We're Still Waiting . . .

So back in September I wrote that I was not going to update this blog again until my house started, well it is March 15, 2016 and my house has still not started.  We are beyond frustrated at this point, and it seems we are not alone.  In fact none of the houses in our "second phase" has started because no plumbing or sewer or road has been installed.  There has pretty much been no activity at our development since Ryan Homes hastily sold all of the lots during the middle of last year.

During this process the most annoying aspect has been the lack of information and communication from Ryan Homes.  Our sales representative called us once a month from September through November with cryptic updates, and she never had any specific information about the delays or the house start.  It was really astounding.

So I must say I was surprised when at the end of February we got some encouraging news from our sales representative.  It seems that the developer that Ryan Homes has been working with has finally received final sign offs from the county on the water and sewer plans for the development and can now start on the infrastructure and site development.  And what's more - in recognition of all of the delays Ryan Homes is offering us an additional $5,000 towards closing costs - if we use NVR Mortgage of course.  We met with our sales representative in early March and went back through our choices - it has been so long that it was nice to go through everything again.  If all goes well, and at this point I will assume nothing, our house should start in June or July.  So essentially our house will be ready one year after we thought it would be ready.

That being said until they break ground we will continue to feel like we are in a holding pattern and were duped by a home seller more focused on tying up our deposit than making sure they deliver our house in a timely manner.

"It's Not Us, it's the Developer!"

So no our house has not broken ground yet, and no we do not have a new start date.  So we are still in a frustrating holding pattern with Ryan Homes.

We have been waiting for our house to start since July 2015.  It has been a frustrating situation as everytime we are given a likely start date it changes.  And I have learned something during this process that I think all people considering a build with Ryan Homes should know.  While under your purchase and sale agreement you are buying a lot and a house from Ryan Homes, according to my sale representative Ryan Homes is only responsible for the home part.  Yeah - doesn't make a lot of sense.

But according to my sales representative Ryan Homes works with a local developer who is responsible for assembling the property and preparing the lots for the build.  Once the developer has done that, Ryan Homes buys lots as needed to build its homes.  But Ryan Homes apparently has little control over how quickly the local developer can assemble lots, get site improvement permits or complete the site work.  And that has been the delay for our development.  The local developer does not have site approvals and so our lots are not ready and so we wait.  How long - who knows, because the answer from Ryan Homes is always "it's not us, it's the developer".

Delays, Delays, Delays

I definitely did not start this blog with the purpose of becoming yet another dissatisfied Ryan Home buyer with a tale of woe on the internet, but I'm afraid that's how this might end up.

So my husband and I drove by the new home site - just to torture ourselves these days and we saw no signs of building of any kind.  There are 5 homes completed on the site and three of those homes were completed more than a year ago.  All of the lots have sold signs, but there is no construction equipment on the site and the road leading to our lot has not been cleared or paved and of course we are now heading into fall and cold weather.

My husband and I called our SR to find out if we were still on pace to have our house started at the end of September or early October although we already knew the answer.  But it was still deeply depressing to hear that there is no clear start date for our house now because the developer in charge of site acquisition and preparing the foundations has been delayed in obtaining permits and approvals to install gas and water lines and finish the road.  So now our start date has been pushed to at least November and probably even later in the year.

I just feel like we were basically lied to when we signed the contract.  Because while it's true we were told that the contract gave Ryan two years to build the house, we were also told that the provision was intended for condominium projects where a whole building needed to be pre-sold before construction can start and not single family homes.  And we were told our house would start in July.  And if we had been told the truth we would not have bought at this location because not getting to move in until Spring 2016 (a real possibility at this point) was outside of our timeframe.  So for now this will be my last update on this blog unless and until we have a start date.

Updates and An Approval

We sold our house this week and have now moved into an apartment not far from where our new house will be built one day.  Lol!

So after being alarmed at not hearing from NVR Mortgage for weeks and weeks and then getting a strange message from our new Loan Processor, I did contact my Sales Representative and she got to work.  And this week we got our approval from NVR Mortgage.  Yeah!  But I also learned that our house will not break ground until the end of September or early October and we will close in December or early January.  So we will be moving again in 6 months, but this time in the dead of winter.  That was not so great news.

But this was a big week for us.  We are back in the burbs and one step closer to getting our new house.  

No Home, No Loan But Selling My House Next Week

Well I have not written a post in awhile because my build seems to be more or less on hold.  My house sells next week and after that we will be in a two bedroom apartment near where our new house is supposed to be built.

But we have not gotten any word on our loan approval and no word on when construction for our house will start.  Back in May when we purchased the house we were told it would start in July so I rushed to put our house on the market so we would be ready.  But now that seems premature.

I have decided to wait until I have officially sold my house before I start having a real fit with NVR mortgage and our Sales Rep - but the time is near.  It just seems ridiculous for the price we are paying to have so little communication or regard for the upheaval of having to put the kids in new schools without knowing for sure that you are even going to be able to build the house you want - or that it will be ready sometime this year.  It seems I should have paid more attention to the endless criticisms of NVR mortgage and Ryan Homes on the internet.