5/21/2013 - Staked
5/22/2013 - Excavated5/24/2013 - Ready for Footers
5/28/2013 - Footers poured in (no pics, missed it)
5/29/2013 - Concrete forms Walls up in preparation to pour in the basement walls
5/31/20 13 - We appear to have a house.. or a clearly
identifiable basement, and it is high, and tough, and rough, and
looks absolutely beautiful!
6/04/20 13 - Waterproofing. Ha. Lots of rain. Our basement is a swimming pool.
6/05/20 13 - Electrical run from street. Rough grading, excavation space around house filled.
6/04/20 13 - Waterproofing. Ha. Lots of rain. Our basement is a swimming pool.
6/05/20 13 - Electrical run from street. Rough grading, excavation space around house filled.
We
visited on Saturday afternoon with dad and ran into the owner of SNAP
Construction Enforcement, the contractor who did the concrete forms and
drain pipes. They were installing our concrete forms on our neighbor's house (excavated on 5/29). We talked for a little bit and he was
very pleased with and proud of the end result of their work on our
house. We praised how great their work looked, and he explained a few
things about what goes into the process and some cleanup his crew still
has to do. He also spoke highly of our PM and how easy he is to work
with. It was all good.
exciting! looking forward to seeing the progress in the upcoming weeks.
ReplyDeleteThanks, I kept going after the first picture and just added progres sinto the same post.
DeleteYay! You'll be in your house before you know it.
ReplyDeletewww.romeiswheretheheartis.wordpress.com
Those houses sure come up fast! From flat land to walls in 6 working days
DeleteSo exciting!!! Wow.
ReplyDeleteAnd so it begins! How wonderful!
ReplyDeleteyep, and it keeps going too :)
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ReplyDeleteAfter the concrete pouring, it'll up super fast.
Pay close attention to the framing, I don't like the way they did ours.
Is that a portapotty in the middle of your house? :)
You know, I asked that same question about the portabpotty looking thing, it turns out the forms guys leave their tools in it, so it is easier to work with. I sent an email to our PM with some of your pictures and asked to double check the space for the beams when the forms are setup for concrete and he did. It looks really good and we are very pleased. We'll see about framing.
DeleteBuilding a Victoria too. Follow my blog http://ryanhomesvf.blogspot.com/
ReplyDeleteHi there, we are following your blog too.
DeleteWas wondering if you had any tips on negotiating upgrades and price. My husband and I are going on Saturday to price out a Victoria Falls. How above the base price did you go? Our base price in our area is 347,000 which is already around our price range. Also we don't plan on using NVR, did you all come out and tell them that up front? Thanks!
ReplyDeleteHi Evelyn.. Your question is very very very interesting, because it is the first thing everyone wants to know but people don't talk about. I actually wrote up a whole thing explaining this, but I am holding off publishing it until later on, maybe because our SR has been very nice and I don't want to get him in hot water.
DeleteOK, a very quick summary.. Victoria Falls base model was 306 when we started looking. Jefferson Square was 317. We wanted JS but SR kept pushing towards VF as it is easier to negotiate a price on it since it is cheaper for RH to build. When we signed exactly 30 days later, base price had increased to VF 310 and JS 327. We were talking about this last night. We really didn't want a VF, we liked JS and Courtland Gate, but those were more expensive. We kept adding options to make the VF house bigger to make it on the same level. We only saw a VF model 4 days ago, and in hindsight we WOULD NOT go with VF, but will do JS most likely because the rooms are a little bigger, or CG, because many of what we added in VF is standard in those models.
We did not use NVRM. We made that clear from the beginning as our lender Third Federal had no PMI with 15% down (NVRM requires 20%). Third Fed also has a rate that was %0.4 less than NVRM, AND they locked the rate for 30 days after pre-approval until you found a home, AND locked the rate for 240 days after signing if building a home.. NVRM will give you various rates for different periods but it will always work against the buyer from what I saw. Part of our negotiation success was that we were already pre-aproved and were ready to sign IF RH agreed to our priced options..
Money.. base was 310 at signing. With options and all (see its tab) we got to 400. After applying incentives and discounts we signed at 345. Within two weeks we added stuff to get to our current 353. Send me an email to ella may 980 at gmail.com (without spaces, and I can share the specifics of how we negotiated).. You may find it absolutely worth your time..
Great price on such large house. Good luck with your house.
DeletePay attention to the early stage of the construction process. If they mess up in the beginning, everything else to follow will be messed up as well (just like our foundation and garage support.)
Thanks for the good wishes and advice. We took it to heart and visited the site on Saturday and found some issues that reminded me of some of what you had. Just posted it now. Writing an email to PM and following up with voice mail. I hope it really does go into voicemail directly because I would hate to wake him up at midnight.
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