For the most part, our home building process has been pretty smooth with Ryan Homes. We’re still not happy with our Guardian representative. After four emails, he still hasn’t even replied to us about getting a copy of our options in writing. I dislike that because he included upgraded speakers that we want documented, as well as just a list of everything we’ve paid to have instead of a lump sum on the contract as “upgrades.” I think it’s super unprofessional to completely ignore emails altogether. If he doesn’t have the paperwork {or just doesn’t want to give it to us}, he could at least reply. My husband is going to call the main office and start rattling some cages. Our meeting was over two weeks ago, it’s been plenty of time.
But we hit another little bump in the road last week. Because we were previously building a different home, we already had a mortgage through our bank. When we switched to this house, we needed to update our mortgage with our new contract. Except the way Ryan does the contract is a little different. They don’t add any of your upgrades/options into your initial contract. This meant our original contract was for LESS than our desired mortgage amount. But when the options were added back in, we were back to our original price and the mortgage price we wanted. So we couldn’t give our contract to our banker for our new mortgage application until all those change orders went through and our price was back up to the purchase amount we needed. We contacted our mortgage agent and it was no big deal, she said she’d easily be able to push our mortgage through again once we had the final number.
When you sign your contract though, Ryan asks you to fill out a mortgage application with their in-house company, NVR mortgage. You’re given $2,000 in credits for making the application and they do a soft pull on your credit to get pre-approved. We agreed. Well, turns out it’s a HARD pull on your credit. That wasn’t a great surprise because we are both really careful with our credit.
But we were pre-approved and NRV wanted to meet with us to see if they could beat our current mortgage terms, so we met with NVR on March 230th. We’re using a special physician’s mortgage to save on interest rate and reduce our downpayment, which allows us to keep more money invested and growing. NVR doesn’t have this program available, but assured us that we were buying at the perfect time because their physician loan program was literally starting the next day. We signed off on the full application and waited to see if they could beat our rates. They pulled our credit again a week later, another hard hit. yay! 🙁
Then we heard nothing. N-O-T-H-I-N-G until May 6th. Turns out NVR never got the physician mortgage program at all. We could still get a regular loan through them, but it wasn’t nearly as good as the mortgage we already had through our bank. Now we’re scrambling to get our mortgage updated with our bank for the new address/price before our pre-construction meeting that’s scheduled for the 21st. Our mortgage banker isn’t concerned and the whole process only took about a week last time, but it’s super annoying that we waited over a month, had TWO hard pulls on our credit, and NVR didn’t even have the program we were applying for. Definitely wouldn’t recommend doing business with them.
I am so excited for your journey to see completion of your new home. Building, buying or even refinancing is such a pain but hopefully in the end it will all be worth it. So, congratulations to you and your hubby! I just wanted to say how much I LOVE your blog design. I would love to have one like this in gold, silver, black and white. Kate Spade style! I will definitely be ordering from you soon!
I have a question for you. My wife and I are also building with Ryan and we are using another lender as well because we are relocating and the relocation company also serves as our mortgage servicer. In a traditional pre-existing home purchase, the home goes into underwriting after the appraisal comes back to the mortgage servicer. We are well qualified buyers and already have a pre-approved letter from our provider and they have all the information in regard to our house, estimate, and we paid our deposit already.
Today, are SR came back and said that our lender won't provide full underwritten approval and will do that once the appraisal is done. Well, that can't happen because the house isn't built yet.
With that said, what did your lender give to Ryan Homes to prove to them that you were qualified buyers so that construction could begin?
After we picked out our options, our signed contract was updated with the final sales price. Our lender agreed to underwriting for that amount, pending the final appraisal. We had the blueprints and spec sheets with all of our upgrades/prices.