At this point we received the floor plans for the house. After reviewing them and thinking about how we live, there were some changes that were needed. We just took a red pen, redrew some of the walls, crossed out what we didn’t want, and made notes for any other changes that would be best solved by the architect. This is one of the key benefits to working a custom builder like Freedom. We were able to use classic proven designs plus customizations that fit us now and in the future.

The redlining meeting with Mike and Jeff is to go over changes we would like so that the architect can build them into the final plans. Some of our concerns about the floorplan were in the kitchen, master bedroom, and garage. Thinking about furniture and how we would set them up, the master bedroom length was a little short. Our first thought was to extend the back of the house to make the room bigger. However, this would also add to the foundation, upstairs room, roof, insulation, and else everything in between the floors. This method would increase the cost noticeably for only a couple feet. Mike and Jeff recommended a much more budget friendly solution. By putting a cantilevered window, we could add a couple extra feet to the room, couple windows for ventilation, and the cost increase was minimal.

For the kitchen, we wanted a peninsula counter top (instead of an island) that was similar to what we saw in a few model homes. In order to fit this into the kitchen, and get rid of an extra closet, we requested a pretty significant change to the walls from the kitchen to the laundry room. The best solution wasn’t apparent at the time of the meeting, so we outlined what we’d like to have changed and leave the rest up to the architect to design. What he came back with was a great solution to our request. It incorporated all of the changes and even improved on a few we didn’t think of.

The last change was the garage. Be VERY aware of the garage size. While looking at other builders, some of the garages would be about 19ft by 20ft. That would seem like a reasonable size, but it’s not even close. When parking two cars in the garage, 19 feet might not even allow you to open the doors. An average SUV is a little over 6 feet wide. Make that two cars and that’s 12 feet with 7 feet to spare, but you need space to open doors on either side of the car. A 19 foot garage will only allow for about 2 feet on each side to open the door. This is why we asked Mike and Jeff about having an oversized garage. We could fit a 23 foot wide garage and still leave plenty of space for a side yard. This additional space did increase the cost along with the size of the room above the garage, but being able to open the car doors and allow for storage was worth it.

The rest of the floorplan fit nicely into what we wanted in a home. The only changes that increased the price was the cantilevered window in the master bedroom, garage, and bonus room above the garage. The rest of the internal walls were already factored into the costs. We just moved them around a bit. One thing Mike and Jeff did mention is that the increased wall space in the kitchen would allow for more cabinets, which would increase our costs when we pick them out.

Like Eric said earlier – all this started with a coupon from one of the big builders, Ryan Homes. We looked into building with them, I mean after all the houses were starting in the $160s (so they advertised). We looked in a couple of their local neighborhoods which they were building. From what we could tell, the larger builders have contracts with developers where they are typically the only ones building in the neighborhood. They save money on hauling equipment and labor, but you only have a few choices on where to live.

We found a model we really like that had a great floor plan. It even had a number the upgrades we wanted that would fit within the budget. The next thing was finding a lot. However, all the lots were literally on top of each other, too close to the road, and about 20 feet of backyard. The driveway would measure about 24 feet which may sound like a lot, but most cars are around 14 feet. Plus you have the driveway entry (4 feet) and sidewalk (3 feet), leaving about 3 feet. It ends up being very short if you don’t mind it. Snow removal will certainly be easy though.

Bring cones or some kind of markers and a really long measuring tape to get an idea of how the house will actually sit on the land. From what we could tell, developers are really maximizing the number of lots. You can easily end up with no room to grow, no place to put a deck, or have room for kids to play. We almost did.

Another thing was privacy. We would literally be 10 feet or less from the next door neighbors house.  For us this is a house that we want to grow into and live in for a very long time. Not having a backyard was not acceptable to us with the potential of children. We also did a lot of research on Ryan homes and there seemed to be a lot of issues dealing with quality. Finally, after all was said and done we decided against building with them.

Next on the list was Schumacher homes. This was an impressive builder. We went out to their really cool Design Studio in Akron and they have 6 finished model homes to go through and physically see the layout (along with a LOT of upgrades so be wary). It was very fun and exciting to go through all 6 homes, note what we liked and didn’t like and see everything put together. It’s funny to walk into a house and instantly be turned off. Others we walked in and instantly liked them. After checking out the model homes, we met with sales agent and told him the floorplan that we liked. We added in all the upgrades we wanted and the price came back pretty high. Talk about discouraging. I was tempted to go back to looking at existing homes.  Another issue for us was the guy didn’t really seem to care about us or take us seriously. You will hopefully have a different experience. He basically shrugged us off and said we’d have to find our own lot to have them build on – quite a daunting task because we had no idea where you even start looking for land. Later while asking around we heard that towards the end of the building process a lot of people get “nickle and dimed” with extra fees and overage charges which made us very nervous since we were already budget-conscious.

We decided to look at one more builder, Drees. This was one of the better experiences. We reviewed their layouts online (cool interactive home building tools), looked at the neighborhoods, and set up a meeting with a sales rep. He was very courteous and walked us through the model as we asked about features and upgrades. The price lined up as well even. Things were looking good, but with a few catches. One was location. We didn’t want to build where they were building so there would have been an extra fee to come out to wherever our lot would be located (not a deal breaker). The deal breaker was learning about all the corners that were being cut on homes currently being built. If we’re going to pay someone to build a home, they should do it with our interests in mind.

Finally after what felt like our 3rd strike out, my mom mentioned that she had met a builder being featured at the Parade of Homes and they were local in Munroe Falls. We decided to call them up and see what they were about. What a pleasant surprise. These two guys were excited and passionate about home building. They were excited to show us what they had done. They were super honest and didn’t hold back, which made us immediately trust them. It was so refreshing to meet people who could walk you through the process but also take the time to explain it in a way that regular people (like us) can understand.

We showed them some of the floor plans, features, and cities we liked. They showed us some of the floor plans they had drawn up that ranged from basic starter homes to fully customized homes. There was one plan that we liked that had some of our requests already designed in to it.

So here are some quick tips on builders in addition to our little rant:

1.)  Check with the local better business bureau about how many complaints have been filed about that builder and how many have been resolved.

2.) Drive around the neighborhood that you are considering and knock on doors of people that are already living in some of the homes and ask them about their experience with the builder. Any warranty issues? Any broken promises? do they keep the deadline?

3)  Typically builders give you a one year warranty (very few do it for 2 years) on everything in the house, except cosmetics, then you have to check on the warranties for the rest of the years, windows (broken seal) roof (other than mother nature tornado/hail) the foundation should have a 10 year warranty but I have seen some builders try to get out of repairing it because they write in their warranty that if the owner doesn’t maintain it (watering it) properly the warranty is void. If that is in the warranty, insist on a free sprinkler system if it doesn’t already come with the house.

4.) Ask to see a sheet that shows the basic items that come in the house, remember that usually the model house is decked out with every upgrade, don’t assume that everything you see is included. Check the outside too. Is the sod included? are the gutters included? how high is the fence?

5.) Ask if the builder pays for their own closing costs such as release of title/escrow fee/HOA transfer fee.