Elevation Errors! Your problem Ryan Homes, not ours!

Our sales rep made a BIG BOO BOO!  The day after we signed our sales contract, we get an e-mail from the sales rep telling us that: "we were discussing the other lots and then decided to move forward on 271, I transferred everything over and it didn’t even dawn on me to check the elevation."  

What is Elevation?: Elevation refers to the exterior look of the building. The same floor plan can have several different looks depending on roof line, window styles, brick patterns and use of other materials.

Why this is an issue:  The home being built next to us is a Venice and it has the same elevation as us.  You cannot have the same elevation on multiple homes next to each other and have everything look the same.  I understand, but they know this is going to be an issue when all of the home specials of the month come with the upgraded elevation.

Below are pictures of the elevations.  We singed the contract with Elevation B.  We would not have the stone as shown below, but we would have the small covered porch, shutters, and the small window over the front door that breaks the house up a bit.

The Elevation that we had to move to was Elevation C.  No porch, no shutters, so plain!!! Continued below....

Elevation B

Elevation C

The sales rep sent me an e-mail with a change order tired to paint the picture in a positive financial light.  We would received a $1,500 credit. NO!  This is NOT okay!!!

I sent an e-mail back to him advising at we "HATE elevation c.  It is so plain and an uncovered porch is really unacceptable.  This does not feel like this should be our issue as this should have been checked before we signed our contract yesterday."


The sales rep talked to his boss and he advised that they would do a deal on Elevation C, with a full front porch (normally $7,000) for $1,900 with out credit and 50% off the remaining costs.  I should have fought some more for their dumb error.

So here is a pic of what our house will look like.  I love the porch.  I am so excited to decorate it for Christmas and with big ferns in the summer!!

Ryan homes best get their shit together!!!

Final lot choice and signing our life away with the purchase agreement!

If you read about our lot drama from the previous post, the other buyers decided they wanted lot 272.  We are officially lot 271!!!!

Signing all of the paperwork was a pretty easy process.  We did have to sign and or initial about a million items!  Let me telly you, when they say you do not get much at base price, take a look at all of the add-ons below.

We ended up with the following upgrades.  All of these options were EXTRA on the base price of the home :
Elevation B - $2790
Hudson Designer Package (granite/hardwood/carpet etc) - $13,000
Finished basement and walkout sliding glass door - $17,090
Morning Room - $16,995
Cabinet crown molding and gourmet kitchen island - $3,790
Gas Range hook up - $275
Owner's Suite soaking tub and shower - $4,995
Oak Stairs - $2,995
Recessed lights, fan rough-ins, light pre-wires - $3,025
Desk - $9,216

That is a total of $75,471.00 in upgrades!!!!!!!!!!!  WHAT, holy moly. It adds up fast!!  One good thing is that most of those upgrades were included in that home site specials.  We did get a discount/incentive pricing of $38,235.  It didn't sting as hard, but it is still an additional $37,000.00.  Trust me, that number went up in the process as well.

We are really happy with our decision and we got to place our own sold sign on our lot :)

This is our lot look from the street to the left side of our lot.  3 homes will be built on the cul-de-sac you can see in the background, but no one will ever be right in our backyard.  We are also on the edge of those little woods.

James at the edge of our lot.  We are pretty high up and have a nice view of the mountains in the distance and a winery.

This is our neighbors backyard

This is at the edge of the back of our lot looking towards the street.  Nothing will be built in front of us, it is an island green space.

Sold!!!

Final picture of our community and our lot selection :) 

A LOT of LOT DRAMA!! This is why it pays off to be a bitch sometimes.

A LOT of LOT DRAMA!! This is why it pays off to be a bitch sometimes.

After we left the sales office on 8/20 and on the morning of 8/21, I was still SOOO mad that the sales rep took us out to that other lot!  WHY did he do that?  I just had enough and told James that I was going to e-mail the sales rep and tell him how upset I was with what he did to us and that I had my heart set on lot 272.  James told me I was wasting my time, but he knows me and I was not going to let this go without a fight.  When the sales rep called me back later that day, he was very apologetic but I didn’t care.  He told me that the couple that did want lot 276 put a hold on lot 272.  I told him that I didn’t really care and that his boss needed to call me.   His boss called me later in the day and I explained what went on the day prior and that I was not happy with our sales rep.  He advised me that he would see what he can do and would get back to me the next day.  The following day I did receive an e-mail from the sales rep that provided the following options.

1) We can stay with our current lot (276).  Ummmm NO

2) We can give up lot 276, and see if the couple from lot 272 wants to move to lot 276.  He gave us a new slightly higher price, but we were happy with that for this much better lot.

3) If the couple from lot 272 still wants that lot, he would do the same pricing for lot 271.  Even further away from the retention pond.

We decided that we would go ahead with 2 or 3 depending on the other couple.  Eeeeek, so excited!!!!

Inserting another view of the community so you can see lots 272 and 271.

2nd sit down with the sales rep – How mad can Holly get??? - 8/20/16

Re-Cap:  On 8/6 /16 we priced out options and did not put a hold on any lots.  We needed time to talk about this process and do some research.  At that time about 5 lots were open to choose from and we were leaving it up to fate if they all sold or not.

Two weeks later on 8/20/16, we set up a follow up appointment with our sales rep.  We made it 1^st thing in the morning so we would not run into the same fiasco as last time of waiting an hour (even though we did have an appointment.)  To much of our surprise, only one lot (276) that offered the special was left.  So we went outside at looked at the lot with the sales rep and it was right smack dab in the middle of the big ole’ retention pond, but again this was not a deal breaker for us.  After he showed us the boundary lines and how the lot would be graded (slope of the yard), we went in and started getting final numbers together.

He input most of the numbers into the system for lot 276 and then out of the blue told us that he had forgotten, but they just lowered the lot premium on lot 272 from $20,000.00 to $5,000.00.  This excited us as this was a corner lot, next to the walking trail and at the very edge of the retention pond.  We walked up to that lot and fell in LOVE.  We decided to move forward with lost 272 and went back down to the office to change the lots.   ***Side note about lot premiums and specials:  A real estate developer buys the land and divides the community into lots.  The builder only buys the 1^st couple of lots from the developer and only buys additional lots when they sell the 1^st ones they had.  At this point, they technically did not own lot 272 yet and this is why they had a premium on that lot***

So we get into the office and wait about 10 minutes for the sale reps to change the lots in the system and then he says, “Oh no, I forgot to tell you that the home site special we were giving you on lot 276 is  not available for lot 272.”  He did not even add the deck or the bathroom upgrades and we were already $20,000.00 over the price of the house on lot 276.  I was FURIOUS that he did this to us.  I fell in love with that other lot!!!  After freaking out on him, we decided we had to go back to lot 276.  I was not happy about this, but what could we do? 

We did not know if this next part was a sales tactic or not, but he told us that another couple was in the other sales office and they wanted to put a hold on lot 276.  We did not bring our checkbook, but he allowed us to put a hold on lot 276 for 3 days to think about it.