It All Happens for a Reason

After our misadventures in home buying, I was convinced we were destined to live in our rental forever. After looking at countless homes for sale online and touring numerous open houses, we came to terms with trying to build again. We had seen one other model that we liked back in the fall, but were turned off by the sales rep and lack of wooded lots available. Ryan has his heart set on having mature trees at the back of our lot for privacy, so it was a deal breaker.

We begrudgingly went back to check them out again. We liked the house just as much as we had before and this time there was a new sales rep, yay! Plus they had opened a new section of homes and had wooded lots available. What?! Yes, please.

Then we find out that this is a new model/floor plan in our area. Uh-oh. Red flags. Been there before with our first build and a newer plan. BUT because it’s a new plan {that they’ve built previously in other neighborhoods, relief!}, they were running an incentive for the first people to build it in this neighborhood so others could see what it looks like. We ended up getting a FREE finished basement (which the other house didn’t have and we were going to add later), FREE zoned thermostat so each floor has its own unit, FREE granite counters and upgraded cabinets, FREE appliances, a FREE morning room, and a FREE upgraded stone/brick elevation (which we were paying tens of thousands of dollars for on our first contract), and several things like that I can’t even remember. Oh, and the third car garage we added that caused so much trouble last time? INCLUDED.

We ended up getting $62,000 in incentives compared to $19,000 on our first contract. Is this seriously real life? Our out the door price came out over $20,000 less. We are on an acre instead of a half acre and have 5,000 finished square feet instead of 3,000. We are also on a semi cul-de-sac instead of the main road. And we’ll only have a couple small things we want to do after moving in instead of ripping out all of the counters and fixtures in the previous house. I don’t know about you, but my heart started to pound with joy as the deal was coming together. Things most definitely fell apart with our first build for a reason.

It’s a no-brainer… we signed! We should start digging near the end of may and be in by September/October. My nails got a closeup on this one because they are paying for our house. I still pinch myself that this is even possible.

Here’s our lot:

Here are a few shots from our lot. It’s hard to imagine what this will look like with our house and greenery on the trees.

And then we hiked to the very back of our lot. See the hot pink stake in front of the tree, we had to hustle to uncover that bad boy. So this is the view looking up through the woods toward our new home. My husband has big plans for these woods.

So what are we building?! A Ryan Home called The Olsen. We picked Elevation C so we get stone on the front, but it will be a brick wrap on the sides. These aren’t our exact colors, but a pretty good representation of how the front will look.

I cannot wait to share all of our choices and DIY projects along the way.