Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Week 9 Schedule and Questions...

Just a quick drop in for what's on tap for this week!

From our PM: "This week we should be seeing the electricians finishing up installing all the plugs, switches, and correcting the missing items. The plumbers will be in the home putting in the fixtures, and once the power to section 5 is turned on they will start up your HVAC system."

Also, here are a few questions I sent (in bold) with our PM's response (italics)-

If we want to have a fence installed pretty quickly after we take possession of the house, is there any way that we can have the people we want to install the fence come out and review the area to give us an estimate?

It is perfectly fine to have someone come give you an estimate on the fence. I would give them a copy of the preliminary plot plan I gave you during our preconstruction meeting to assist them in being sure they place the fence properly and on your property.
Paint - Is it true that if we paint after we move in that it voids the warranty on all of the walls that are painted? We would like to paint before we move in, but if it means that it will void anything then we won't be doing that. I just wanted to be sure since we are so close now to moving in and making plans for the house!
Painting the walls does not void the warranty. There is only one small change. Our Drywall settlement warranty includes repairing any nail pops or settlement cracks by mudding, sanding and painting these areas back to our color. In the case that you have painted a wall a different color they will still repair any nail pops or settlement cracks by doing the same process, but they will not paint your custom color. They will put our color on the wall as a primer for your paint and you will be responsible for the custom color.

I have many homeowners that choose to paint before the Drywall settlement warranty and have not heard of anyone regretting it. Typically there just may be a few touch up spots of paint on the custom color wall.


I meant to ask you about the posts on the front porch and when they are going up? We have noticed a big difference in the roofline in the past few weeks where one side is getting lower and lower. We measured it on Sunday and it's a 4 inch difference from the roof at the front door to the edge of the porch. That seems like a lot and we can see it as well. We're a little concerned over it potentially pulling away from the house?
The columns will go up once the stone goes on. I know about the difference and so does the column installer. This happens more often than you would think during construction and it will be corrected and leveled by the column installer when he installs the columns.

*We are still slightly concerned over how much the porch roof is leaning, but I am hoping that the PM is correct and it's just something that happens and they will have it taken care of.  Fingers crossed!

Also, we had one more Q & A with our Loan Officer -

I had a quick question for you regarding purchases... we want to buy a new couch for the house.  We can save a couple hundred dollars if we open up a company card.  However, we don't want to do that if it is going to mess up something with the mortgage.  I don't believe you're going to pull our credit again, so I don't think it would cause a problem in that regard... but we aren't sure. We may be overthinking it, but can you let us know as quickly as possible if we can do that? In order to get the couch delivered before Thanksgiving we need to purchase it in the next day or two. 

Please do not open any new credit prior to closing. It impacts your credit score and DTI (debt to income ratio). 

*This is interesting to me and why I think mortgage stuff is so confusing.  We locked in our rate and they pulled our credit since it hadn't been updated since May, but I didn't think about them pulling our credit AGAIN.  That's 3 times they will have pulled it.  That seems a bit much, not to mention that every time they pull your credit it's a hard inquiry that lasts for 7 years on your score.  Geez!  Also, I don't think I'm as big a fan of our LO as I once thought I was. Her answers have been short and not very explanatory lately. 

That's all I got for today - sorry no pictures!     

10 comments:

  1. Whattt? No voided warranty with paint? Our PM confirmed with us that it does void our warranty! Every community must be different! I'm kind of jealous! Oh well. One less thing we have to worry about right away I guess.

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    1. I was just getting ready to tell you to check out my update! I agree - painting right now seems like a daunting task when I think of all the other things I want to do to get moved in and settled. The pro is that we can get it done before we move the furniture. The con is that we have 3373 sq ft to tackle if we're going to paint everything - which I'm not sure if we are. And it's going to hold us up from moving in. And boy am I ready to move in!

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    2. That is really uncalled for...voiding a warranty over paint. But you can do it later...like you said, that is one less thing to worry about. We have our pre-drywall meeting today and I will ask our PM about that to see what the rules are in our community. Our PM said the paint used in most of the model is the standard color (which I happen to really like because it's not just a white color). I will have to ask him again just to get another yes (hopefully)!

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    3. Yeah, pretty crazy. I think we are just going to paint and then deal with touch-ups. Otherwise I don't know when we will have the time with work + a 2 year old :)
      I would definitely ask Eboni because it does seem like it varies neighborhood to neighborhood!

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    4. Hey there! Yes, I was just writing some posts about our walk-through. I asked our PM straight out and his answer was "You are allowed to paint as soon as you want. If there are any fixes needed to the drywall, our only condition is we would paint it back to the standard color and you would be responsible for getting your custom color back on the wall." He also mentioned (like James below) that painting over patches need to be done correctly and depending on your custom paint choice, this can be super easy or require a little more work...just to make sure everything blends to prevent you from having to paint the entire wall over.

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  2. That would be ridiculous to have to void a warranty. Paint has no impact on the drywall work. I think it makes sense that they would touch up a repair with your paint after a repair. I also wouldn't want them touching it anyway. Painting over a patch takes several steps and care to have it look good, and most company painters won't take the time.

    A hard credit inquiry only lasts a year on a report and the impact is small. Basically after 2 months or less your score rebounds to pre-pull. They have to keep an unexpired credit report until closing is complete, so on average 3 pulls will be done. So it's absolutely correct to not open new credit. That's why we just did the mortgage in my name so Bridget could open up credit to take advantage of furniture sales and financing.

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    1. Edit: Makes sense that they would not touch up...

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    2. I agree that touch-ups will look better if we do it. Our SR told us if we leave the paint the painters will use it, but it likely depends on how nice the touch-up people are.
      You're smart to only do the mortgage in your name, we didn't even think of that. Oh well, we'll just pay cash for things :)

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  3. We were told it was okay to use our existing credit to make purchases (like a fridge, W/D, furniture), but not to open up any new lines of credit. They mentioned they do a soft pull to make sure nothing has really changed, and if we opened up a new line of credit they would have to process the loan all over again since circumstances would have changed.

    A few loan officers gave the new car scenario where you get approved and lock-in your mortgage rate, get a new car, then they see the new item on your credit report and have to start the process all over again.

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    1. Yes, we also got the new car scenario. It make sense... it's just annoying being watched for every little thing you do. And clearly people are going to make purchases with a new home. But alas, that will be over soon!

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