PM-less

I just got a call from our PM to inform me that he is leaving the company and his last day is tomorrow.  He couldn't/wouldn't give me any information on our new PM so basically we are two weeks from settlement with no contact at Ryan Homes if we have questions or issues about our house.  It's nice that he gives us the heads up the day before he is leaving. 

 

I asked him about the settlement date mix-up and his response was "So-and-so at Ryan is responsible for coordinating that."  Ok.... well clearly she did not coordinate, so perhaps you could make a call to straighten things out.  It's kind of important that the mortgage company is in the loop on our settlement information don't you think?

 

Things are going downhill fast!

On a happier note, apparently our landscaping was done today.  Pictures to come.

Venting

As I posted before we were all cleared to close... and then needed to send a few more documents, which we did.  Then yesterday I find out that NVR and Ryan Homes have two different settlement dates listed for us.  We received the official letter from Ryan Homes last week saying that our settlement is scheduled for September 21st and this is a "firm date".  Our loan processor previously told us they would need to check our credit again right before closing, and yesterday I asked her exactly when that would happen.  She responded that she already did it on Tuesday since that is 10 days before our settlement date, and as long as our settlement doesn't get pushed back from the 14th, she won't need to check it again.

 

Excuse me?

 

Me: Our settlement date is the 21st, not the 14th.

L.P.:  What? When did your settlement date change?

Me: We never heard anything about it being the 14th, so I don't think it did change.  Our official letter from Ryan stated it was the 21st and our PM confirmed this as well.

L.P.: It's on our schedule as the 14th and no one from Ryan ever informed us of that change.  This means I will have to pull you credit again 10 days before the 21st.

Me: Won't all of these credit checks negatively affect our credit score?

L.P.: Since it's the same company doing all of the checks, it should not drastically affect your score.  Don't worry, this is not your fault.

Me (in my head..I was much calmer with my actual response): I know it's not our fault {obviously!!!}, yet we (and our credit scores) are going to suffer because Ryan Homes and NVR don't know how to communicate despite the fact that they are the SAME COMPANY!  I don't care if it's not "drastic"; it's their mistake that will negatively affect us and they could care less.  Not even so much as an apology.

 

I emailed our SR and copied our loan processor yesterday morning asking them to please straighten out amongst themselves when our actual settlement is.... no response.  Sweet.  It's not like people have to plan ahead for a big move.  Not to mention the fact that now we're probably going to have MORE paperwork to do with NVR.

 

Perhaps it's because I try so hard at my own job that I have such little patience for people who don't do theirs. 

 

(I'm really not as angry as this email seems.  It is just frustrating, and this is my media for venting... takes some of the pressure off of Greg :)).

Not so Fast!!

I posted last week that our loan processor told us we were cleared to close.... then yesterday I got an email from her saying there are 3 more things she needs from us.  I'm not that upset about it because it's minor stuff, but I just thought I'd share.  While everyone at NVR has been very nice so far, it doesn't seem like they are the most efficient when it comes to processing.  Oh, well... we will give them what they want and hope for the best.  I just hope we don't have any hiccups like this on closing day that would affect settlement.

 

The final grading has been completed on our lot!  (Thanks to my new neighbor for sending me a picture!!).

 

 

We also had our meeting with our propane provider (we have propane heat instead of natural gas).  I set up this meeting with the guy last week on the way home after a brutal day at work and didn't write it in my planner, and so I forgot all about it.  I got a call from him while I was grocery shopping last night wondering where I was.  I felt so bad, but he said he would wait so I quickly checked out and raced over there.  I was only 50 minutes late :).  He was super-nice though and didn't seem too upset about it.  The meeting was basically to tell us how propane works, show us where all of the shut off valves are and inform us that it will cost us about 50% more than natural gas.   Bummer, but we didn't really have a choice.  Greg and I will be sporting some heavy coats in our house in the winter to save on heat!  We will have another walk through with a technician after we settle.

 

Our foyer chandelier has also been installed (pictures to come)!  I think all that is left is the shower repair and installation of our stove (it's there, just not installed yet) and A LOT of cleanup work.  Oh, and another tiny to add to our punch list... one of our bedrooms has zero vents.  I can't believe our PM has not noticed and/or rectified this yet.  The air conditioning has been running so I guess the air from that line just runs into the drywall in the ceiling since it has no place to escape.  I can't imagine that is a good thing.  I wonder how they will find the spot to cut out for the vent.  I'm sure it will involve a lot of patching after the fact.  How does that happen and go for a month without being caught?

Cleared to Close

We just got an email from our NVR loan officer:

"Your file just came out of underwriting and you are officially clear to close!  Congratulations no additional conditions have been added."

She said they will do one last check ten days prior to closing, but it sounds like we are in good shape.

We have a meeting with our propane guy tonight to explain how everything works so I'll have an update on that later.

Appraisal

We received our appraisal this week and I'm very pleased with it.  I was a bit concerned because it seems like some people have had issues, but we were very light on upgrades so I figured we should be ok.  The value came in higher than our purchase price, which is the main positive thing.  They compared us to four other houses in the area, three of which were new construction.  They start off with square footage and lot size to get a base price, then they adjust based on upgrades, condition/age of the house and things like that.  Taking into consideration all of those things, our house was the best value compared with the four others listed on our appraisal.  I feel good that all of my "negotiating" with our SR actually did pay off.  Although I would have liked to have paid less (wouldn't we all?), I do think we got a good price, especially since this house met most of our major qualifications of what we wanted in a house. 

 

The other happy surprise from our appraisal was that our house is 3,544 square feet.  For some reason I thought it was only going to be about 3,000.  The square footage is based on all living space above grade (I imagine if you had a finished basement, they would include that too).  Here's the breakdown for our house:

He actually gave us an extra 10 sf because the two-story foyer area should have only been counted once.

We have submitted all of our updated information to NVR and our loan processor is supposed to be sending everything to underwriting today.  Hopefully there are no surprises.  I have to say that so far I have been very pleased with our service from NVR.  Of course, the whole mortgage application process is very tedious, but that's going to happen with any company since the mortgage crisis a few years ago.  I do wish they gave us more upfront information (i.e.  warned us that we'd have to provide documentation for any deposit over $1,000), but both our LO and our LP were always very responsive, polite and patient with my inquisitive nature.  I probably shouldn't jump the gun since we're not in the clear just yet, but I like to give credit when someone does their job well... I certainly do enough complaining when they don't! :)

Lighting and Kitchen Floors

Most of our lights have been installed.  All of the recessed lights, closet lights, bathroom light fixtures and outdoor carriage lights are in.  I really like the outside lights next to our front door and garage.  The one by the back morning room door is not in yet.  I'm anxious to see if that one will be a "head-hitting-hazard" because the wire is right next to the opening side of the slider about 5 feet up.  I also can't wait to see our foyer and dining room chandeliers.

Recessed lights in kitchen.

Light fixture in upstairs hall bath.

Ugly light in my walk-in closet.

Master bath light fixtures.

Another shot of the mater bathroom.

Garage carriage lights.

Front door carriage lights.

Closeup of the light.

 

Our kitchen floors have also been laid.  I think they look good with our cabinets and hopefully our tan-brown granite will match everything as well.  Our hardwood floors in the foyer are supposed to be going in today. 

 

Vinyl floor next to cabinets.

Closeup (with flash)

Closeup (without flash).
Look how different the color looks with and without the flash.  I can't decide which one is more accurate.

We are not scheduled to close until mid-September (week of 9/17), but it doesn't seem like they have much left to do.  I wonder if we will get pushed up at all.  Right now we are in the process of sending all of our final documentation to NVR for our mortgage re-approval.  We just received our appraisal too, which I'm very happy with (more to come on that later).

NVR Rate Lock-in Options

It seems like NVR has not been clear with some people on their options for locking in their rate.  I'm not surprised, because they didn't tell us about it until we pushed them for an option to lock in early if we wanted (and even then they "strongly suggested" that we wait until a month before our settlement date to lock in... but I like to make my own decisions, so I didn't listen to them :)).  Even after they explained the process for locking in early, I was still confused.  It wasn't until I actually started asking our Loan Officer for rates that I understood how it works, so I figured I'd write a post to try to clear things up for those of you who haven't locked yet.

 

You can lock as much as 150 days out, there's just a difference in the rates and/or points you have to pay to get those rates, but they give you options.  When asking for your rates, just ask your loan officer for 60 and 90 day lock rates to see the difference.  I emailed my Loan Officer once every few weeks to get rate quotes in the beginning.  Then when rates really started to drop, I emailed her every day.  We decided early on that if we could get 3.75% for no points, we would lock.  (I'm the kind of person that needs to make a plan and stick to it, or I drive myself crazy trying to make a decision). 

 

Here's an example of what the difference was for us between a 90-day lock and a 60-day lock on the day we locked in.   By the way this is exactly what my LO would send me when I emailed her for the rates.  Luckily my LO was awesome and always got back to us within a few hours.

 

90 day (expires 10/24)

3.25% - 1.25% discount pts

3.375% - .375 disc pt

3.5% - lender credit of .5%

3.625% - lender credit of 1.125%

3.75% - lender credit of 1.5%

3.875% - lender credit of 2%

60 day (expires 9/24)

3.25% - .875 discount pt

3.375% - 0 disc pts and no credit

3.5% - lender credit of .875%

3.625% - lender credit of 1.5%

3.75% - lender credit of 1.875%

3.875% - lender credit of 2.375%

 

For example, if your loan amount (house price minus down-payment) was $100,000 and you chose the 3.375% 90-day lock, you would have to pay $375 (0.375 pts) at closing to receive this rate.  If you did the 3.375% 60-day lock, you would get that rate at no cost.  The lender credit just means they give you that money at closing. 

 

We would up doing the 3.625% 90-day lock so we will be getting about $3,000 credit at closing.  We chose that so we would have some extra cash available after closing.  We were between 3.625% and 3.5%, and even though we are less than 60 days from our estimated closing date, we chose to do the 90-day lock to be safe just in case something happened that pushed back our settlement date (there's my worrying coming into play again).  The difference between those two rates over the life of our loan was about $7,500 (difference of $20 in our monthly payment).  So basically we are "financing" that $4,500 ($7,500-$3,000=$4,500) in order to have that $3,000 lender credit right now.  Our thinking is that we need the money more now that we will in 7 years, which is the break even point between those two rate options.  Normally I am against unnecessary financing of any kind, but this just seemed to make sense for us.  (Hopefully this post is making sense too... the more I write the more confusing it sounds!).  

Keep in mind that if you don't go to settlement before your lock expiration date, you automatically get the higher of either the rate on the day of your settlement or the rate at which you originally locked.

 

I hope this helped some of you who are still in the early stages!  Happy rate-watching!

Locked and Loaded.

Ok, maybe not so much "loaded", but more loaded than we were before we locked.  We got 3.625% with 1.125% lender credit at closing (about $3,300).  Sweeeet!

I have to admit, I wanted to lock about a month ago when rates dropped to 3.75% (with no lender assistance), but Greg convinced me to wait it out.  I was a little a lot nervous because rates temporarily went up shortly after that, but I'm glad I trusted my husband and we wound up with an even better rate and some extra cash at closing.

Reason #432 why I love him: "Good at money stuff."

This process is going so quickly!  Almost time to break out the bubbly!!!

To Lock, or Not to Lock?

Has anyone locked their interest rate with NVR before the 60 day pre-settlement period?  We are considering it.  Actually, I wanted to lock today but my husband talked me out of it... something about the government doing or announcing something on Thursday that could cause rates to drop even more... I hope he's right :/.  Mortgage rates are currently the lowest they have EVER been and we could have locked in today at 3.75% at no cost or paid 1.125 points to lock in at 3.5%!!  Is it just me, or is that really low?!?! 

 

We are supposed to settle in September.  Our pre-construction meeting is next week and construction is supposed to start the week of the 18th.  If we locked now at those rates, it would take us to the end of October so we'd have at least a month of flex in case things get delayed.  Our NVR rep is trying to talk us out of locking so far ahead, but my feeling is that no matter how long we wait there's a very slim chance of rates going lower than they are now, and given my tendency for stress and anxiety it would likely save me a lot of sleepless nights this summer if we just locked and got it over with.  Our original estimate was quoted at 3.875% and for all of my personal budget calculations I have been using 4.0%, so we're improving either way.  And what if we waited and wound up with something significantly higher? 

 

Ahhh... there's so many decisions involved with building a house!

 

What do you think... would you lock or wait?