I've had this blog in suspended animation for a few months, because we have been in California while working through negotiations, and I didn't want to advertise about buying this home if the deal fell through for any reason. It seemed like a daunting and near impossible task to purchase a new construction home while living on the opposite side of the country, but to their credit, NVH sales team is awesome, professional, and seems to have some knowledge on how to do this seamlessly, without causing stress to their buyers.
Here's a quick breakdown of how it went.
Step 1: We scheduled a house hunting trip in March. The family came (myself, my husband and our son. Our daughter is a freshman in college and no longer lives at home) because we wanted to make sure everyone had some input in what they wanted in a new home. We stayed a week and spent every day trekking from model home to model home, open house to open house, before we finally narrowed down five home communities. Once we got back to California, we submitted our offers (basically, things we wanted included in the sale, etc) and worked out a contract with NVHomes in the Villages of Urbana. We didn't use a real estate agent because honestly, we were looking everywhere from Frederick to Northern Virginia, and also DC, and we just didn't want someone gearing us to a certain neighborhood or state. We didn't use an agent when we purchased our first house and we feel like we came out fine, but I would definitely suggest getting a real estate lawyer to look over your purchase contract if you feel like you aren't really grasping what you are about to sign. We also have to find our own inspector, which is a bit of a pain--a real estate agent would come with recommendations like that.
Step 2: Once the offer was submitted/accepted, NVH expressed mailed every single document we needed to fill out, and also paid for express overnight shipping. Documents that could just be emailed and signed, they sent those too. Honestly, I liked this route better than going into the office every single time something needed to be signed. We were able to read over the documents at our own leisure, and call or email them anytime we came across a page or charge that we didn't understand. But for the most part, these are standard home buying contracts, and there shouldn't be many--if any--surprises there. Housing deposit is also paid at this time.
Step 3: Our credit is pretty good and we are second time homebuyers, so NVH offered us an extremely competitive rate, one that our bank (USAA) wasn't able to match. We also had a couple of loaning programs to choose from, including using my husband's VA Loan, and since my husband is a doctor, the Physician's Loan. Both are zero down programs. The VA Loan has a funding fee, but lower overall interest rates, while the Physician's Loan has no funding fee, but higher interest rates. We do plan to use a downpayment, so we will decide which program we want to go with when we're closer to locking in a rate permanently.
Step 4: Most appointments can be done over the phone. Trinity Wiring contacted us and sent us a bunch of paperwork of our floorplan, pricing information, and a date for a phone appointment for picking out our options. We did have to watch YouTube videos and scour pictures of the model home to make sure we had the location of the wiring correct, but it was no big deal.
Step 4: Cabinetry and countertops needed to be chosen before the foundation was poured, but flooring and other options can wait until later. Luckily for me, I'd already known exactly what kind of cabinets and countertops we wanted in the home, so that was easy enough to set up through the design center, through email. They were very helpful, they sent us pics and brochures of the cabinets, and also gave us enough information that we could go and look at some of our options in local design centers and warehouses.
Step 5: We were contacted by our mortgage processor (different than our loan officer. I actually haven't figured out the difference in the two positions, but I suppose it doesn't really matter) who requested some additional documents. (For example, we have our college aged daughter listed on one of our checking accounts, and she needed to sign off that we are allowed to make transactions on that account. Silly because that is our account that we set up for her, but every box must be marked, every dollar accounted for.)
Step 6: We were emailed a loan approval letter. Yay!
Step 7: Foundation poured, plumbing is installed, and we're now getting weekly updates, along with pictures from our sales rep.
Step 8: We've been in MD for almost two weeks, and we've already had our meeting with our sales rep, making last minute changes pre-drywall, and also had our meeting with the design center (more on that in the next post.)
So far, our experience has been easy and as long as you know what you want in a house and aren't dead set on documenting or watching every step of the experience, it is very much possible to purchase a house long distance.
Tuesday, June 30, 2015
Why we chose NVHomes ...
It was a bit scary for us to go with a new construction home again, and even though our last home turned out to be a good choice, we really weren't looking to repeat the experience. When we found out we would be moving to the DC metro area, we had our sights set on finding an older home in an established area with good schools, low crime, and centrally located to shopping, theaters, and restaurants.
We aren't millionaires, so our hopes were quickly dashed.
We found a few older homes that we liked, but in our price range, they required some major work, and I just didn't find any neighborhoods that I loved and would be willing to be part of for the next seven years. Or maybe even longer.
When we lived in the area before, while my husband was in med school, we lived in a sleepy little town called Damascus MD. We rented a new construction townhouse, and it was a very happy and content 4 years for us. The townhouse was ... crap. Sorry, but it was. Just flimsy, poorly constructed, poorly designed, and way overpriced. Remember, we moved into this house in 2004, smack dab in the middle of the housing boom, when builders couldn't throw the houses together fast enough for an insane profit. I'm glad that we were only renters and not homebuyers because between the shoddy construction and the housing crash ... well, we would have been screwed.
While Damascus was a great area for that stage of our life, the slowness, the lack of ... well anything, and having to drive everywhere anytime I wanted something, was not what I wanted in a community at this point. Great for young families, but not so much for a late 30s couple with one college aged kid who lives at home less than part time, and a teenage boy. So we checked out other locations.
NVHomes has a heavy presence in most new home communities, and we looked everywhere from Frederick to Gaithersburg, from Maple Lawn (Fulton) to Prince George's County. There was just something about the NVHomes townhouses that spoke to us, and we found ourselves comparing every single house we looked at to the NVHomes models. We ultimately decided on the Frederick/Urbana area because the neighborhood met most of our criteria:
1. Good schools--we have an autistic kid, there was no negotiating on this. Frederick has excellent schools.
2. Close to restaurants, shopping, theaters, parks, and honestly, I saw the Urbana library and my mind was already made up, case closed. BEAUTIFUL library.
3. Price. Depending on the locations, the same NVHomes could vary upwards of $100k. Of course, the more desirable the area, the more expensive the home will be. We decided that living 15 minutes closer to my husband's job was not worth a $100k premium,
It's not all that close to DC (about 40 miles) and there's no metro station for around 20 miles (MARC station is within walking distance though), so that was the one thing we compromised on. Luckily, my husband works some pretty unconventional hours, so most of the time, his commute will be no more than 30-35 minutes. 45 minutes on a bad day. We are Californians, so we are not at all allergic to half hour commutes.
I like Frederick because it is a charming and thriving town, completely independent of DC, with its own vibe, culture, and identity. We would have loved to live in the booming downtown area of Frederick, but that's when the commute would have started to get uncomfortable for us, so we focused on the Urbana area, which is close to both Frederick proper AND Montgomery County. Urbana is newer, younger, and a bit more diverse than other parts of Frederick, and the home values seem to hold steady, so this was a nice compromise for us.
So why did we choose NVHomes? Having visited dozens and dozens of model homes across the DC Metro area, we just found NVH to have a premium and high end quality that we found lacking in other homes. The John Jacob Astor (the model we chose), the Andrew Carnegie, and the Vanderbilt, seemed thoughtfully designed, like they really took note of what buyers are looking for and applied it when designing the home. The massive islands that span the length of the kitchen, no choppy, awkwardly placed rooms, main level powder rooms concealed from the kitchen and eating area (it is shocking how many powder rooms are placed literally--LITERALLY--right in the middle of the kitchen. Like ... seriously?)
Just clean lines, well placed rooms, a large, spacious master suite, etc. Also, while there are always room for upgrades (and they totally count on that), I feel like for the most part, you could buy the house stock with all builder grade options, and still come out with a pretty decent home.
We aren't millionaires, so our hopes were quickly dashed.
We found a few older homes that we liked, but in our price range, they required some major work, and I just didn't find any neighborhoods that I loved and would be willing to be part of for the next seven years. Or maybe even longer.
When we lived in the area before, while my husband was in med school, we lived in a sleepy little town called Damascus MD. We rented a new construction townhouse, and it was a very happy and content 4 years for us. The townhouse was ... crap. Sorry, but it was. Just flimsy, poorly constructed, poorly designed, and way overpriced. Remember, we moved into this house in 2004, smack dab in the middle of the housing boom, when builders couldn't throw the houses together fast enough for an insane profit. I'm glad that we were only renters and not homebuyers because between the shoddy construction and the housing crash ... well, we would have been screwed.
While Damascus was a great area for that stage of our life, the slowness, the lack of ... well anything, and having to drive everywhere anytime I wanted something, was not what I wanted in a community at this point. Great for young families, but not so much for a late 30s couple with one college aged kid who lives at home less than part time, and a teenage boy. So we checked out other locations.
NVHomes has a heavy presence in most new home communities, and we looked everywhere from Frederick to Gaithersburg, from Maple Lawn (Fulton) to Prince George's County. There was just something about the NVHomes townhouses that spoke to us, and we found ourselves comparing every single house we looked at to the NVHomes models. We ultimately decided on the Frederick/Urbana area because the neighborhood met most of our criteria:
1. Good schools--we have an autistic kid, there was no negotiating on this. Frederick has excellent schools.
2. Close to restaurants, shopping, theaters, parks, and honestly, I saw the Urbana library and my mind was already made up, case closed. BEAUTIFUL library.
3. Price. Depending on the locations, the same NVHomes could vary upwards of $100k. Of course, the more desirable the area, the more expensive the home will be. We decided that living 15 minutes closer to my husband's job was not worth a $100k premium,
It's not all that close to DC (about 40 miles) and there's no metro station for around 20 miles (MARC station is within walking distance though), so that was the one thing we compromised on. Luckily, my husband works some pretty unconventional hours, so most of the time, his commute will be no more than 30-35 minutes. 45 minutes on a bad day. We are Californians, so we are not at all allergic to half hour commutes.
I like Frederick because it is a charming and thriving town, completely independent of DC, with its own vibe, culture, and identity. We would have loved to live in the booming downtown area of Frederick, but that's when the commute would have started to get uncomfortable for us, so we focused on the Urbana area, which is close to both Frederick proper AND Montgomery County. Urbana is newer, younger, and a bit more diverse than other parts of Frederick, and the home values seem to hold steady, so this was a nice compromise for us.
So why did we choose NVHomes? Having visited dozens and dozens of model homes across the DC Metro area, we just found NVH to have a premium and high end quality that we found lacking in other homes. The John Jacob Astor (the model we chose), the Andrew Carnegie, and the Vanderbilt, seemed thoughtfully designed, like they really took note of what buyers are looking for and applied it when designing the home. The massive islands that span the length of the kitchen, no choppy, awkwardly placed rooms, main level powder rooms concealed from the kitchen and eating area (it is shocking how many powder rooms are placed literally--LITERALLY--right in the middle of the kitchen. Like ... seriously?)
Just clean lines, well placed rooms, a large, spacious master suite, etc. Also, while there are always room for upgrades (and they totally count on that), I feel like for the most part, you could buy the house stock with all builder grade options, and still come out with a pretty decent home.
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