Photos of our layout

Hi everyone!  Now that we are all settled and have a ground breaking date, I wanted to show all of your what our house will be like!  We love the idea of a townhouse because it offers us 2,100 square feet, everything is brand new, and the choices were all made by yours truly! :)  And, it's just the two of us right now.  Don't get me wrong, we are definitely having children one day, but we are both in our early 20's and we would like some time together before we start trying.  However, the great thing about the townhouse is, we have room for having at least two children there!!!  We're both so excited, and I'm even more excited to share all of the photos with you!  First, I want to tell you what we did with our choices, and upgrades:

 

End Unit

All Townhouses come with 10 x 12 deck in the back & 6' Privacy Fences

All lawns are equipped with sprinklers & the water bill goes to the HOA

2 Car Garage w/ Door Opener & 2 Remotes

Kitchen has the Cherry Bordeaux cabinets w/ Cown Molding

Recessed lighting package in the Kitchen

Garbage Disposal in Kitchen

Upgraded Kitchen Faucet (Not sure what was so special about it, but it cost us $75 instead of $475 since we got the kitchen upgrade incentive)

Gas Range in Kitchen w/ Microwave in Other Location (Due to code it cannot be above the range anymore)

Tan Brown Granite Countertops

Stainless Steel Appliances

Hardwood in the Foyer, Powder Room, Kitchen & Dining Room

Corner fireplace w/slate and heatilator/2 remotes

Two Eyeball recessed lights over the fireplace

Ceiling fan rough-in Living Room & Owners Suite

All hardware is Bushed Nickel

Partially finished basement (About 2/3rds - we left 1/3rd for storage)

Recessed lighting package in basement

Owners Sute has 2 walk in closets

Ceiling fan rough-in Owners Suite

Standard tub/shower combo in Owners Suite (My parents have the jet tub and they've never used it & it's a pain to clean)

Cherry Bordeaux for the Owners Suite Double Vanity/Double Sink

Cherry Bordeaux Guest Bath

Gas dryer hook-up

**I don't remember the name of the flooring we chose, but we do have vinyl in the owners bath, guest bath, laundry room & carpet throughout.

 

Now for the pictures - keep in mind that our house is per plan, and the model is opposite of the plan.  Our kitchen will be on the right when you walk in. 

 

This is what the set up will be, but we will have stone on our houses, and the siding will be tan, with white trim and colonial red door & shutters.  Our house will be the one all the way to the right which I am super excited about because our porch doesn't connect to another house, and our garage is on the far right which is great because my FH works nights sometimes and I was afraid he'd have to park in the driveway in order to not make much noise for the neighbors.  Now we know he can park in the garage :)

 

Ugh, the colors of the photos clearly got messed up when I saved the files from the internet.  It'll be best if you just go to the site below, click on the Rosecliff model on the right side of the screen, then click Tour above the photo.  It's a virtual tour and there is a photo gallery you can click on below that, too.  We did not do the Tray Ceiling in the Owners Suite, and our fireplace is in the corner, not on the wall like the tour shows.  Also, we left one wall in the dining area without windows so we could put a hutch there.  Sorry for the inconvenience!  Like I said, the model at our development should be complete this weekend, so maybe I can get some photos of that for you soon!  Let me know what you guys think!

 

http://www.motion-vr.net/ryan/ryan_tours.aspx?tn=869&sid=New Jersey&cid=Washington Square&mid=Rosecliff

Pre-Construction Meeting & Happy Easter! :)

 We had our pre-construction meeting yesterday and I think it went really well.  We went over everything that we chose to put in the house along with the warranty information and location of outlets, hoses, and some other questions we had.  Construction should begin on 5/7.  The house should be complete in July, but we won't be moving in until Sept. 30th, and the Rep confirmed that this is okay.  The model home is complete now, but it's not furnished yet, so I didn't take too many pictures.  The furniture comes this week so maybe next week we will stop by sometime.  I saw that some of you chose the gas range and were told the microwave had to be in a different spot due to code...so I posted a picture of the model homes kitchen with the new location for the microwave.  Our kitchen won't look exactly like this because of different colors and stainless steel, but the layout is the same.  The sales rep didn't have anymore sold stickers to put on our sign, he's picking up more this week, but we took a picture anyway.  :)

Woo hooo!!!!!

We have our pre-construction meeting today at 4PM and we are so excited!!  Keeping our fingers crossed that the model is complete and furnished for photos and ideas, and that we have a chance to take a pic of our plot with the sold sign!!! :)  Oh yeah, and my office is closing early for the holiday!  Should be a good day!!  Happy Easter everyone - enjoy your time with family!

Hmm...closing dates..

Hi everyone! Hope your weeks are going well so far...it's dreary here which doesn't help getting through the work day. :(

 

Anyway, since we are having our preconstruction meeting this Friday, I am a little nervous about something.  Like I said in my first post, we told the sales rep that we needed to close in September - and that would make or break the deal, and he made closing Sept. 30th on the contract for us.  However, since they are starting construction some time next week, what if they finish the house sooner?  Do they MAKE you move in ahead of time?  Even if it's in my contract?  Any insight would be very helpful to ease my mind!!!

Finding the Perfect Nest

Hi everyone!  I am going to apologize in advance for the long post.  I have been lucky enough to find several Ryan Homes bloggers on here that have really been helpful, that I figured I would also like to blog to help others as well.  Our journey started about a year ago.  My fiancée John proposed on March 12th, 2010 and shortly afterwards, we decided to start looking for a home.  We wanted to buy rather than rent, but like most other people, we had a budget.  Neither of us had owned a home in the past, so while we don't know much about flipping houses, we were willing to look into it.  After we had seen almost 40 homes throughout the past year, we decided to take a break.  It was so tiresome trying to find something in our budget that had lots of potential, but wouldn't cost us tons of money out of our pocket at once.  We were officially exhausted in the house department.

 

In the beginning of last month (March) I was surfing around on a local realtors website.  I came across new construction Ryan Homes townhouses in the area where we needed to be.  Funny thing, the pricing was where we needed to be as well.  I couldn't believe it.  I started to do some research between the Ryan Homes website and the realtors website and came up with photos of our potential new house.  On March 20th, we decided to go visit the model home.  When we arrived, we saw that the model wasn't even completed yet.  There was a Ryan Homes trailer in the community so we went inside and met with Josh, our Sales Rep.  He was great from the start, very personable, approachable and reasonable with our inquiring minds. 

 

After speaking with Josh for about 20 minutes in the trailer, we head on over to the model home that is structurally completed, but things like the kitchen cabinets, countertops, flooring, etc. are not yet installed.  However, we could get a really good feel as to what this home would feel and look like when it was complete.  The name of the model is the Rosecliff, as I said in the past, it is a townhouse.  We leave the model and speak to Josh a little more in the trailer.  We learn that there are incentives to buy in March and by this time there are only about 10 days left of March, but the incentives were pretty awesome.  Partially finished basement included, and they would upgrade the kitchen to a luxury kitchen including Cherry Cabinets, Granite Countertops and Stainless Steel appliances.  The cost of the upgrades if we paid for them was not a small amount, it sounded really worth it in our minds.

 

We start talking about available lots.  They had already sold one unit (3 homes) and two homes from the second unit.  We were interested in an end unit the most, as we didn't really want shared walls on both sides, and we know the resale value is much better for an end unit townhouse.  Since the second unit that they have sold 2 of the 3 houses on has an end unit available, we talk more with Josh and become more and more interested.  He tells us about the HOA fees which were very reasonable, he tells us what would be considered "ours" as far as property goes, and he tells us the surcharge for an end unit.  At the end of our meeting with Josh he gave us a cost estimator including some upgrades, and we were happy with the number provided.  We leave his office with all of the information that he gave us and go home and talk about it.

 

We slept on it for a week.  We knew what we wanted to do, and that was to put an offer on the end home of the second unit.  We go back on the 26th, and we tour the model again.  We sit down and start talking about what we would want in the house as far as upgrades go and he puts all of the information into the system.  Finally we get to the grand total, and after some negotiating we get to the number that we wanted to see.  I couldn't believe it, only because all of the houses we saw almost a year ago up until now have not even come close in comparison to this house.  Everything is brand new, we don't have to mow our lawn, we don't have to shovel our sidewalk, the HOA will make sure everyone's landscaping is tidy, and the house is fabulous.  One thing that we told the rep which would make or break the deal, is that we need to close in September.  Our wedding is in November, and we wanted to push the closing off until about a month before our wedding.  They agreed to this and it is stated in the contract, so it was a done deal.  We gave Ryan Homes our official down payment on the house on that date.  Now, all we needed to do was get approved by NVR Mortgage. 

 

We met with NVR on March 30th and we filled out all of the applications, signed our names a billion times and gave all of the documents necessary to underwrite our file.  The rep told us we shouldn't have a problem.  We also picked out all of our colors as far as cabinets, hardwood and carpeting goes for our house while we were there. 

 

On April 4th we received the title information in the mail, and we sent it to our attorney who was working on the attorney review. 

 

John met with Guardian as I couldn't leave the office to meet with them on April 6th.  They spoke about what they could offer as far as speakers, cable outlets, internet outlets, and the security system.  We opted for two extra cable oulets, the security system which we negotiated 3 months free (I saw on someone's blog they got 6 months free, but the rep wouldn't go for it), and an extra keypad for the master bedroom.  John says the meeting was very long but it was mostly the rep trying to talk him into things like the Central Vac.  Guardian rolled everything into our mortgage. 

 

We didn't hear from anyone about the house, the mortgage or any other aspects of the house since the 6th.  I was worried about the mortgage even though we didn't have much to worry about, but it seemed like it was taking forever.  I look back now and realize it was not a long time at all!  But, I have John call the rep from NVR and ask about the status and he reassures us that we will be getting the mortgage, and not to worry about it.

 

Sure enough, we got the call yesterday, we were congratulated on getting approved for our mortgage!  I feel so relieved, we can start telling people now!  I think I wanted to tell some of my close friends/family so badly, but I didn't want to until I knew it was for sure.  Now, it is!! :) :)  We are so excited to have this opportunity and we can't wait to share the experience with everybody on here as well!

 

We meet with the Project Manager next Friday, the 22nd at 4PM for the Pre-Construction meeting.  What does this entail?  Does anybody have any tips on what to ask, or information to get at this meeting?  I look forward to connecting with several Ryan Homes bloggers on here! :) Congratulations to all of you!!!