Adventures in Home Buying (And Building): September 2009

So a few good things happened in the past few days. On Saturday we get an email from Hugh (the selling agent for Shea Homes, the company that's building our home) saying that they had upped the closing cost credit for people buying into Phase 3 of Reflections from $12,000 to $15,000. Now, since we bought into Phase 1 he wanted to see if they could go back and increase our credit too to make it all fair, and he did. So, that was good news! Once the closing costs are covered if there is anything of the $15k credit left over we can use it to buy down the rate, which would be really nice. Plus, it gave us a chance to walkthrough our unit again and see the progress as now all of the drywall is up (pictures below).

Then today I get a call from Natalie at the Design Center saying that they had underestimated our flooring credit originally and that the cost of our hardwood floors will actually be $1,300 less than originally thought. So, we get to knock that off our purchase price. Not too shabby!

Even though the entire process isn't completely finished yet, I must say that I'm very impressed with Shea Homes and the service we've received from all departments of their company (sales, financing and design). We heard good things from other people going into the transaction and everything so far has been great with them. Technically they didn't have to go back and adjust out closing credit and flooring credit, but by doing so it shows a lot of integrity on their end which gives Bridget and myself confidence in them and peace of mind. The estimated closing date still hasn't been changed from 12/7 yet, but seeing the amount of progress they've made in such a short amount of time leaves no doubt in my mind that they'll be done before the 11/30 deadline for the $8,000 first time home buyer credit.

And now, the pictures of the drywall. We have walls!