Ryan Homes, can you hear me?

So I need to vent. I officially HATE our SR. I'm currently trying to find the VP's phone number, or anyone else who will listen to us. Let's start from the beginning, shall we?

1. She has pressured us from the beginning. I'm talking hard-line used car salesman tactics. Telling us the deal was good "today only" and we would be silly to pass it up. That's annoying. Then when we told her we needed to think about things she basically wrote us off. Never a return call, text, email, or smoke signal. 

2. I've asked her for the past MONTH to change our address. Do you think she has? Nope. Still getting 2-3 week late forwarded mail because she can't take the two minutes out of her busy day to change the address.

3. Had to go back to the office 3 times for a change order that she never did! Then she went on vacation (for the third time in three months) and didn't leave the damn order when she left. Problem with this is she told us she would!!! Oh please SR, forget the order three times because it's so pleasant for me to pack up my 19 month old and bring her to the model! I'm happy to report that the change order finally got signed... THEN SENT TO OUR OLD ADDRESS WHEN WE HAVE BEEN MOVED OUT FOR 2 WEEKS! 

4. Now this one is the icing on a shit donut, friends! She schedules a pre construction meeting with us for Monday. She tells us they are available for these meetings from "10am-3pm". Ok, we will take 1:30. That's great! We were just going to bring our daughter and tag team her. Well, a friend offered to babysit so of course I jumped on that. She has to be to work by 2 though. I think this shouldn't be a problem so I email her back and ask her to switch the time. 

 

Her response,

"Oh no, I can't do that. We never do then that early on Monday, because that's my sales meeting time. So no we have to leave it where it's at." 

Friends, I almost lost it. I attached her original email where she wrote 10-3 and fired back a nasty response about how she told us 10-3. 

She wrote back, "oops, I shouldn't have said that." 

No, you shouldn't have. I am now on twitter, Facebook, google, and all of the interwebz to find a phone number to complain about this broad. I am too done with her incompetence when we are making a huge purchase. 

If you found us through Google and you are thinking of buying a Ryan home in Shorewood, IL PLEASE do yourself a favor and ask for Jeff when you go in. If you see a woman... Run for your life. 

*end rant* 

Our brick

Not that this is a great picture, but here's a Rome in a different elevation, but it has our same brick. This is from a development close to ours. Ours will be full brick, no shake or anything like that. At least it gives us an idea other than the small sample board. 

It's finally happening... In two weeks!!!

So we are all moved in with family. It's tight, and I was starting to get the sads cause the new house hasn't been started...

Then SR calls this morning! Preconstruction meeting 8/4 and ground break that week!

Can I get a HALLELUJAH? 

I'm sure this will be the slowest 2 weeks ever.... 

Bye bye 2443... :(

I'm having a particularly sad day. We close on our old house at 2:30pm. I'm not sad for the closing, but I'm sad because it was such a huge chapter of our lives together. We got engaged in front of the kitchen sink at 8am one morning, got married, had our first baby there, and remodeled it to our exact specifications. Until our daughter came along we were sure we had enough space... Surprising how much space one child takes up. 

So we packed up the house, our three dogs, our cat, and ourselves. I'm hoping we get a call this week that the permits are in. We are about 40 days since we signed and our slow-to-respond SR said they usually break ground at 60 days. I'm hoping it happens with no delays. 

So bye bye 2443. You were a great house with many great memories I will forever cherish. I hope you make the new owners as happy as you made us! 

It's packing day... :(

The day has finally arrived... Packing day! 

I've been packing pretty much the past few weeks so it hasn't been horrendous. It still sucks. I wish I could snap my fingers and it all be in boxes... Wishful thinking. 

In happier news our SR emailed me yesterday to say that she would call us after the production meeting today to give us a start date. I'm not kidding when I tell you guys that I believe this may be the slowest community Ryan has built. I know we had a brutal winter so there was a backlog but this is ridiculous.  I try not to get too excited when I see everyone else's blog with homes flying up. For example, the house across the street from us had the foundation poured about two weeks ago. They laid down the initial lumber over the top, but that is it. We have had great weather this whole time as well! Who knows. I don't want them to rush, but I also know they aren't a custom home builder. 

My buddy isn't impressed with our boxes... 

Hope you all have a good Monday! 

Textured ceilings... Are they even serious?

So, in preparation for our upcoming pre construction meeting I keep coming across the question:

Ceilings- textured or not?

Is this even serious? I find it hard to believe they would still even do any kind of ceiling texture! Hello, this isn't the 80's anymore. If you want me to have a slap coat ceiling please give me a shag carpet option as well to really complete the room! That will be the first question I ask when we go in for our meeting! 

Do any of you have textured ceilings? Did you have to pay more to get smooth ceilings? 

While we wait... I shop...

So everything is done on our end to start the build process. While we wait, I shop...

So we didn't go with granite through Ryan. That will be one of the first things we do upon moving in. The quote for 70sq ft of Azul Platino granite was $5,300 through Ryan. Being the great wife I am I dropped the granite and we added a 3 car for my beloved! The granite cost was half of the 3 car so it was a no brainer. In our subdivision we can NOT have a shed. So add a snowblower, lawn mower, and other outdoor maintenance tools we needed a 3 car. 

I called two local granite places. I got rough quotes for the same 70sq ft for 3,000. So when we move in that will be one of the first things we do. 

I'm kind of in love with this faucet. I know I want an industrial kitchen faucet. Jim is on the same page so that's wonderful. 

So when the laminate tops are ripped out I will be getting this faucet and a 60/40 stainless sink. In our current house we have a silgranit sink. While it looks awesome, it is a pain to keep clean. So back to good old stainless steel for us. Unless I find something else... Ha ha ha! 

I also know that I want to change the powder room mirror, and the foyer "nipple" lights. Those are two things that have been a constant builder grade thorn in my side. In an attempt to de-Ryan our house those will be our first two projects. As well as trim and crown moulding in the living room and dining room. I couldn't swallow the $3,000 to do the trim, and my husband hates some of the builder trim work he has seen. So he will be doing that. 

Projects in a new home... We both love remodeling(we did every room in our current house) but projects in a new build!?!?

What are you planning as your first projects? 

Full 5% down

Not much new to report yet, but gave the remainder of the 5% down today. A little painful coming off that much money, but hopefully we'll have a hole dug sooner than later! We dealt with the other SR (the good one) and he took good care of us. Our SR was supposed to have left Change Order paperwork for us, she didn't. Par for the course. 

A few pictures of homes currently underway in Towne Center and more SR drama...

Rome, I really kind of love this blue siding!

 Pretty sure this is a Milan. Our neighbors! 

A Venice! 

Our community model. A Rome. 

5 houses in the cul de sac, all in various stages of completion. I will take better pics next time! There really is a variety of elevations in our community, so I hope the pics will help others out! 

Our SR has officially crossed to my bad side. We told her we would be in to sign a change order for our pendant lights (why this option isn't standard in Ryan Homes when they are shown in EVERY model is beyond me). She had told us previously she would be on vacation but would leave everything for us. Guess what?!? Other SR knew nothing. No change order, no answer to the water softener question, and no answer to what the final amount of our deposit was. He was so apologetic. We kept telling him it wasn't his fault at all. I felt bad that he was in the middle of it. He promised he would find everything out and get back to us ASAP. 

Oh and the BEST part she failed to tell us? We have a tentative break ground date of August 11th! Thank you so much SR! 

Thankfully he is there to help. I really wish he sold us our home...

SR... Where are you?!?

I'm not going to lie. I haven't felt great with our SR from the beginning. As I wrote in the previous posts I feel like she's pretty non responsive at times. Now that we signed the contract I feel like it's even more so.

When we first visited Ryan it was in April. She was on vacation so we had to make an appointment and come back at a later time. So we did just that. When we first met her I was actually pleasantly surprised. She was very friendly and accommodating. The first meeting was good. The first quote we got was for a fully loaded Rome and it was staggering. We had a bit of sticker shock and left pretty flustered.  We went home to think about it. She never contacted us to see  if there was anything she could do to help us, which I found entirely odd in the world of commission based sales...

We then visited another community where the model home was the Naples. We knew that the Naples was a better fit. We met with that SR and she was AWESOME! She gave us the quote, showed us the lots, and basically answered every question. Sadly, we do not like the school districts out there so we had to pass. Armed with the new quote we contacted the SR from Shorewood so we could work on numbers for the Naples. She got back to us quickly and gave us a quote for Shorewood. We got to discussing it and decided to make an offer. We had read many blogs about Ryan Homes and some of the incentives offered were just amazing. For Shorewood at the time it was a paltry $5,000. With free finished basements and free morning rooms swimming in my head we made a low offer on what she had presented us with. We were then met with a joke of an offer back where they basically removed the $1,500 lot fee. We basically called it used car salesman tactics and told her such. Without insulting anyone the way I wanted to(seriously! $1,500!) we just thanked her for her time.

Before healthcare I was in commission based sales. I knew if I didn't call, email, text, or smoke signal people I wouldn't make any money. Well, this one really dropped the ball. She never did a follow up call or email to see if there was anything she could do. Never got an update on incentives or anything. After we looked at other developments and resales we decided that we really wanted to build. We remodeled our current home to perfection and we knew we couldn't do it again with a toddler. Building is the way to go. So I decided to reach out to the SR. She then called back and said they were offering a free morning room. WONDERFUL, WHEN WERE YOU GOING TO CALL?

We put our house on the market and had an offer in 2 days. We made an appointment with Ryan, wrote up the deal, went to our appointments, and have all the ducks in a row. We are waiting on a build date at this time.

Now the reason for this post... I emailed her on Saturday asking if a water softener was included with the house or if we have to purchase one after the fact. No response. She's now on vacation from the 1st-10th. This is not a small purchase. I'm not asking for instant communication, but no response leading into vacation? Come on. We haven't met the PM yet because we haven't had a pre construction meeting so I can't ask him.

The kicker... There is another sales guy who is now working at the development. We have met him on instances when we stopped in to see the model or get other information. Can I tell you guys that I freaking LOVE HIM. Why couldn't he have been out SR? He's from the west coast and super laid back. He doesn't pressure you at all. I wish we would have been able to change cause I feel  our SR and her communication issues are going to be an issue for us.

How were all of your SR's?