Sunday, July 29, 2012

Another disappointing visit

We have not been to the house in a week.  We decided to not go nearly as frequently, to avoid seeing no progress.  Our PM sent me an email wednesday saying that the steel was on site and framing would start on Thursday.  Thursday afternoon he emailed me and said the framers got held up at another site and would not be out until Friday, but they would work Saturday to catch up.  So imagine our surprise when we made the 1 hour drive there this morning to see our home looking exactly the same as it did last week.  Well... surprised is not exactly the correct word for how we felt, but my Grandma reads this blog so I will refrain from using the words to describe exactly how I felt.  We called our SR because she works on the weekends, and she has agreed to help us out by looking at our home on her way in on  the weekends and letting us know if it is worth a trip.  At this point we are getting anxious on whether or not we will close on October 1st.  As you all probably know, the interest rates are crazy low, and I want to lock in, but I can't until we are 60 days from closing.  T's car lease is also up on August 15th, so we were hoping to lock in before we had to apply for another lease which will be another hard credit inquiry to worry about.

A couple of posts ago, I talked about how I was unhappy with the size of the garage.  In the previous post T discussed that she was upset about the crack in the basement.  I now have another area of disappointment to share.  The concrete guys applied a sealer to the garage floor.  Although I appreciate the effort, it completely ruins my plans for finishing the garage.  I had already picked out the epoxy I was planning to use.  You cannot apply an epoxy over sealer or it will not adhere.  I shared my plans for the garage floor with the PM at our pre construction meeting, but I did not specifically say "dont apply sealer to the floor".  You may have read before that there are 2 things I wanted on this house, a 3 car garage and and full basement.  Well... I got both, but between the giant crack in the basement and the sealer on the garage floor, I am completely unhappy with both.  I just hope the rest of the home is perfect so that T will enjoy it.

There is not doubt that this house will be much better than our apartment, but when we decided to build I as hoping for something to last us 10 years.  Now I am thinking we will live there only until the housing market will allow us to get most of our money back in resale.  Who knows though, maybe Ryan will completely blow me away with the rest of the home and win me over.  I sure hope they do.

5 comments:

  1. Our framing took forever too. Most blogger's houses are framed in a few short days. My PM said due to the size and complexity of the model we chose, it would take about 7-10 days. Well it took 16. Doesn't sound like a lot now but it felt like an eternity when we kept making the one hour round-trip drive out there EVERY SINGLE DAY! Once they are done framing, the time will fly by!

    I'm surprised that you are so unhappy about a crack in the basement and a patch job in the garage. What about the rest of the house?!? Aren't you excited for that? Will the crack be covered up in the finished part of your basement or did you not finish it? If these things bother you so much, have you considered walking away all together?

    Also, NVR does not run your credit when you lock-in your interest rate. They run it just before you close on the house.

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  2. Thanks for the comment. That is good to know about NVR. I was under the impression that they did the last check at time of rate lock in. We will just go ahead and take care of T's car now and get it over with.

    It would not really bother me if the framing took longer than expected. It has more to do with the fact that no one is working on it, and I keep being told they are supposed to be. Our SR is fantastic and she has agreed to help us out.

    I planned to finish the basement myself. I had a very specific acid staining technique I was going to use on the floors. You cannot fill the crack before applying the stain. So the crack will just have to be there and show forever. I can get over it. Concrete cracks, or at least most of it does. As for the garage they coated it with a sealer which means I can't apply my epoxy. There are no cracks in the garage. I had my colors all picked out for the garage. A dark grey epoxy with black and white flakes. I also planned to add a non skid clear coat over the top. I just had this idea in my head what my first garage was going to look like in my first house. It can never look that way now. It will look OK, no doubt about that. We aren't ready to walk away. T is fine with everything so far. She could care less about the garage. As of right now Ryan and I are still on decent terms. However, I would caution any man that is a ridiculous control freak, and has never built a home before, to prepare themselves for 90 days of ups and downs. Building is something T really wanted, but I would have been happy buying.

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    1. You should talk to your mortgage rep before you do anything with the car. Ours told us not to make ang big purchases or to sign for any new loans. It changes your debt-to-income ratio and may affect your final loan approval. I would be upset about the garage too. I also want to put epoxy on mine. Is there nothing you can do to treat it befor the epoxy? Is it a large area they patched? Maybe you can apply a thin layer of concrete over it?

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    2. Absolutely avoid any new debt actions, it will definitely make them re-assess your paperwork. They run your credit right before closing and a new car is a biggie.

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    3. Unfortunately we don't have a choice. We either have to give her car back to VW and get a new one or buy the one she is driving by August 15th. Either scenario will cause credit inquiry. I just hope we still stay above the magic 760 line to get the best rates with NVR.

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