Heading Towards The Home Stretch!

It's been a few weeks since my last post, but today we can happily say that we are nearing the completion of our new home!  Lots of things have been done since my last post, which was the pre-drywall meeting:

 - Insulation and drywall has been completely installed and walls/ceilings have been painted.
 - Kitchen cabinets have been installed, however the countertops have not been installed yet as they noticed some issues with what was delivered so they ordered a new one.
 - Bathroom cabinets installed
 - Vinyl flooring on the first floor installed

I'm actually pretty surprised that they re-ordered the countertop.  We settled on getting only Formica instead of granite, so either the defect was too big to not notice or the installer just didn't think it was good enough.  Either way, I'm glad it is being done right.

We did have a couple small issues that were rectified by our PM.  First, we noticed that they put drywall up on the lower stairs where our banisters were supposed to be.  We noticed this just before our PM was set to go on a short vacation, and even though I didn't expect a response he did text me while he was away to tell me they'd fix it! We also just noticed a puncture in the sheathing on the outside of the house.  I'm not sure how that happened but I'm guessing it was from the tractor they were using to do grading.  Our PM said they'd take care of before they put the siding up.

Next week should be even busier as we are scheduled to have the tile (bathrooms), carpeting, plumbing, siding, light fixtures and our driveway (asphalt) completed or at least in process.  This is all great news as our expected closing is around the first week of September (2-4) but it may be possible that we can close earlier.

As for working with NVR to get our mortgage, that's a whole other story.  I really don't want to get into it, but I will just say that I wasn't happy with their lack of communication.  But I'm glad that we've finally locked in our rate and (hopefully) we should be all set for that at closing.  For future prospective Ryan home buyers, I would highly recommend shopping around for a mortgage.  While I found that most mortgage companies have about the same closing costs, NVR seemed to be between 1/8th to 1/4th of a percent higher interest rates.  If it wasn't for the closing costs incentive that we received (almost $5,000) I probably would've gone somewhere else.  If you do decide to go with NVR, I would also recommend that you wait until you're in the 30 day window to lock in your rate, as their standard lock period is only that much time and they want a lot of money to lock in your rate longer.  Pretty much all of the other companies have a 60 day lock period.

I think I have some pictures of the drywall and most of the kitchen cabinets that were installed, if I have a few minutes free I'll post them up!