Renegotiating your mortgage rate lock...

This blog could also have easily been titled "Always, always ask, even if you think its the most ridiculous question in the world."

We locked our interest rate a couple weeks ago, right when it looked like Congress might not get their act together and pass the increase in the debt ceiling.  Rates were starting to rise a little bit, and we just didn't want the uncertainty, so we locked at 4.75, with 0.05 discount point.

And don't you just know it, rates went down right after that.  Like, down to 4.25, which some of you lucky bloggers managed to snag!  While we are still happy with 4.75, we were a little sick that we had guessed so wrong.  4.5% would be $50 less per month, and save $10,000 over the life of the loan.  4.25% would save even more - I don't even want to do that calculation.

So, BF asked me if I thought we could change our rate.  "No."  I said.  "Its called a lock for a reason.  We've locked it.  We are screwed."  But, I agreed that it couldn't hurt to ask.  And so the next day, BF called our mortgage guy and renegotiated our rate.

Did you hear that internet?!  It IS possible to change your rate lock!

I don't know exactly what BF did or said, but mortgage guy agreed almost immediately to lower it to 4.5%, with the same discount rate.  The going rate that day was less than 4.5, but I don't think it had crept down to 4.25 yet.

I was totally blown away.  I would have never bothered to even call and ask such a silly question.  And now we are saving $50 a month!

I thought he might not come through with the paperwork, but he did, and today we mailed back the rate lock paperwork with the new rate.  Absolutely amazing.

So if you are out there, watching rates plummet and kicking yourself in the ass for locking too soon, it doesn't hurt to call and ask!

Closing Date!

I was going to post some more pictures, but forget that.  We have a targeted closing date, and its WAY SOON!!!

PM wants to meet on August 30 or 31 for final walkthru and is going to try to schedule the closing on September 1!  Just in time for my friends to get their asses over to my house(s) to do some labor day labor!

There is now a cage match between Excitement and Anxiety going on in my intestines.  Which one will win out?

Bathtub Problem, Fix & Another Fix

So much has been happening at the house, and in the neighborhood, I can hardly keep up.  Our neighborhood has only 14 available lots.  The first one is totally done, with landscaping and a mailbox and everything.  They must be settling this week.  Ours is supposed to be the next one finished, but two others are up, with tyvek and roofing.  I'm getting a bit jealous because I feel like they are catching up with us!  Its amazing how the small field is changing.  I hope we like the end result.  :)

A while back, we found that the garden tub has some chips in it.  One on the back, and one on each of the front sides.  Our PM was quite pissed when I pointed it out on our pre-drywall walk through.  He assured me that it would be taken care of, which I had assumed meant that they would order a new tub.

This weekend, the house was wide open (not really happy about that) so we went in and did a comprehensive look at the drywall that had been installed. I was dismayed when I saw this:

See that rounded bit of the tub - its been repaired with some
kind of compound/spackle

Same deal on the OTHER side of the tub

I mean, listen, you and I know that I'm going to screw that tub up almost immediately upon moving in.  I'll drop something on it, scratch it, bust it, spill wine in it, but _I_ want to be the one to do it, not the tradesmen.  There was another repaired spot on the back, but I didn't take a picture.

Long story short, I was miffed by this pretty crappy repair.  I sent a nice, but firm, email to my PM pointing it out.  On Sunday at 10:30pm, he responded.  10:30pm!  But it wasn't the answer I wanted.  he explained that the fiberglass guy had been out, and that it had been repaired, no structural issues, yadda yadda.  I wasn't too happy, but bided my time until I could respond more firmly that I wanted a new tub.  End of story.

Luckily, I didn't have to.  I rec'd an email very early this morning from PM saying that the tub would be replaced.  He must have seen the same hack job I did.  So, no fight, struggle.  It just got taken care of.

Obviously there are going to be things that go wrong, but they are all getting taken care of almost immediately.  Our PM has said several times that he is building our house as if he was building it for himself, and I honestly believe him.  

Lots of drywall pictures to come.  I'm sure you can't wait!!

New Bloggers?

If you are a new Ryan Homes blogger and I don't have your blog listed on my blog list, let me know that you are out there!  All the people whose blogs I started reading when we started this journey are all settled happily in their new homes and not posting anymore (ahem! pictures please people!).

Congratulations, you are getting concrete!

I'm blogging to you from my back deck (a deck I will miss very much when we move) - its the first time in weeks that it has been cool enough to sit here and I am really enjoying it.  And hoping that my new back yard will make me forget about this tiny little yard and deck!

I had a bunch of updates to share with you this weekend, but now I've forgotten most of what I wanted to tell you!  While I think about it, here is a picture of House from this weekend:

Concrete porch poured, but otherwise doesn't look
much different from the outside

Back of house.  I was surprised at how little roof area there
is in the back.  I eventually may put up solar panels, so more
roof is better.  I guess its the garage that makes it look small

Things are progressing nicely.  This weekend we spotted some minor holes in the caulking/spray foam jobs and notified our PM.  He was on it immediately.  BF actually stopped by the house mid-afternoon and caught him there, so they were both able to walk through the house together (again) pointing out things that needed to be, or were going to be fixed.  I'm kinda jealous.  House is not anywhere near my daily commute, but BF drives by it 2x everyday.  Everything we have asked for, had concerns with or had questions about was immediately addressed by our PM.  He still continues to impress me and if he can keep this up, he is definitely getting all 10s.  Maybe 11s.

We had a surprise that makes me really, really, really happy.  We are getting a concrete driveway!!  YAY.  I despise asphalt for a bunch of reasons, but mostly because it just doesn't look as nice as concrete.  We were originally told that we would have a concrete sidewalk (good) and concrete "apron" (good) but that the remainder of the driveway would be asphalt (boo!) unless we upgraded (double boo!).  But we were keeping expenses down and BF liked asphalt better (something about melting snow and less shoveling).  Well, we found out this weekend that Ryan is going to be giving everyone a complete concrete driveway now.  YAY!  The story went something like this: "record plan yadda yadda, covenants, yada yada, confusion with the county, yadda yadda, free concrete!"  Sounds like Ryan did some cost calculations and figured that the extra cost of giving everyone concrete far outweighed the hassle of trying to figure out where the confusion was on the driveways with the county.  Good move Ryan.  I am with you 110%.  They poured the driveway on the first house to be completed last week and it looks really nice.  I think its really going to make the neighborhood look super spiffy.

We've heard that there is some maintenance on concrete.  PM told us that they would seal it prior to closing, but that we shouldn't put salt down to melt snow and that it should be sealed every once in a while.  Anyone have any info on this?  I did some googling but couldn't seem to find a really good resource on how to care for your brand new concrete driveway.

I hope we find out when they will pour it.  I really want to write our initials in it!  :)

Locked In @ 4.75%

We locked our rate today at 4.75%, with 1% origination fee and .05% discount.  Don't ask me what it all means, but basically, the "origination fee" is their mortgage brokerage fee, with fancy terminology.  For our mortgage, it will cost several thousand dollars.  We could have bought a lower rate (4.65) and paid some points, but calculating it over the long run, I'd rather have the cash in hand now so we can get some furniture, or a deck, or a garage door opener.

We are a little close for locking in, but with the debt ceiling debate/hostage situation in DC we were really anxious about what rates might do under the various scenarios that could happen: no debt ceiling increase (super bad for rates); short term extension in debt ceiling (uncertain markets make bad rates); or an actual, honest to god agreement (which will probably happen now, and rates will plummet back down to 4.25 or 2.5). 

I'm happy with 4.75 but we are still taking a chance.  60 days from now is Sept 23.  BF talked to both our sales rep and PM today about it.  Our originally scheduled completion date was August 30, but PM changed it to Sept 15.  He is still telling us that it will be the first or second week of September.  But, if there are any major delays, we could run out of time on our 60 day lock.  So, its a little anxiety inducing.  However, I think we will have a little more control over the house and our PM than we do of Congress.  Maybe a lot, come to think about it...

So, cross your fingers for me that all goes smoothly over the next 60 days, and that I don't want to cry when rates actually end up dropping in two weeks!

Inspections Hootinany

Hello bloggers!   I'm back from my work trip and seemed to have brought the stifling temperatures with me.  You are welcome!

Things progressed a lot while I was away, and we had our pre-drywall meeting and our independent inspection yesterday.  On the hottest day of the year.  We sure know how to pick em.

Our pre-drywall inspection took almost two hours, I think we were just moving pretty slowly because of the heat.  Even though it was only 8am, it was already in the high 80's with 120% humidity.  And we were walking around in a house that had been closed up all night, with no AC or electricity.  Fun times.

The house looked great.  Totally solid.  No weird bowed wood, no giant knots in any support beams, no big gaps, no slanty walls.  Our PM was great, I really like him.  We walked all through the house and talked a little about how it operates, and how air flows.  We asked a lot of questions, and got all of them answered.  Not sure I remember the answers though...

As for mistakes, we found only 2.  They hadn't installed the microwave socket in the correct place.  We are getting a gas stove, and code requires the microwave to not be above it (something about giant balls of flame), so its being moved to a spot right next to the fridge.  Our PM hadn't noticed that, so I was quite proud for figuring it out.  Also, the soaking tub was badly chipped in 3 places.  PM was not happy about that, but said it would be taken care of.

Also, the PM was not happy about this:

We actually found it in the basement, tucked into a pouch that was holding HVAC paperwork.  Hey man, its been hot - who wouldn't sneak into the basement for a cold one?  Even if it was a cold Bud (ick!).  Other than that, and a cigarette butt in the basement, the house was totally clean.  I'm sure they made sure it was cleaned out for our scheduled visit, but its really been mostly clean on our unscheduled visits too.  Way less trash laying around the construction site than at my actual house.  :)

This is where my cabinets will go!

Where the fridge and microwave will go

Tradesman hard at work in 100 degree heat
filling holes with pink goo

giant hvac

This is the little nook in the living room.  I was thinking about adding some bookshelves.
Need to be very careful not to drill into the water lines....

Its like there is a giant octopus living in our ceiling

Or one of those air puffed wiggly arm person displays at the car dealership

Chipped bathtub.  :(

So, at 4pm (and 125 degree heat index) we met our independent inspector, who had already been there for a bit wandering around the exterior.  We walked the house with him for another half hour or so.  You know what he found?  One metal plate that was missing from the half wall in the kitchen.  That was it.  In the whole house.  If he hadn't been so impressed and complimentary of the PM and the job he was doing, I would think he was just not paying attention.  But he kept saying "he  (PM) beat me to it."  All the things he normally finds on houses, he wasn't finding.  No holes, not bowed wood, not gaps, no code violations.  Nada, nothing.  I'm having mixed feelings as to whether we got our money's worth!  But for a couple hundred dollars, having a professional verify our gut feelings about the house was worth it.

We are really glad we went with Ryan and are feeling very confident about the outcome.  While I was shuffling through some old paperwork, I found some letters that I had written to the developer/builder of my current house 10 years ago (which was also new.  boy am I spoiled).  I had totally blocked all of those problems out!  It was bad - very bad.  I won't go into it, but this experience with Ryan is so much better than my last experience with a local (synonymous with corrupt) builder.

Lots of other news but this post is already WAAAAY too long, so more later!