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Thursday, March 14, 2013

Got a Start Date




We received an estimated start date today of April 15th.

Basically a month from now and over 6 weeks from Loan Approval and 10 weeks from our Production Release.

This doesn't seem to be their mean time but I guess to get a mean of 8 weeks from Purchase you have to have some at 4-6 and others at 8-10.  I guess we are the "lucky" ones to continually fall on the right side of the bell curve.

This is pretty much where we have been at every stage of this process. A loan processing process that takes an average of 4 weeks took 8.

When we purchased we were told June or July which leads you to believe late June early July.  Our lease is up in July and our kids will start at their new schools Aug 14th. Any schedule slip and not only are we out on the street but it may disrupt our transition to a new school district.

Starting April 15th guarantees we will not finish earlier than July 22nd with no issues (UPDATE: Sales Manager said July 23rd in Email then said July 24th, 25th on Phone...so still don't really know when it will be done).  Plus closing, waiting for NVR to fund themselves (a virtual shell game) and finally getting keys. 

If nothing goes wrong we will have less than a week to move out of our existing home (plus painting, cleaning and making small repairs), and get the new house ready to be moved into. This also only gives us maybe 2 weeks for the family to get unpacked and settled into our house before they go to their new schools.  Not that we are not pro's at this.  We are military have moved every 1.5 to 2 years over the last 20+ years.  That's why we are buying and settling in...so we don't have to put our family through this anymore.  Just was hoping this one would be easier.  No such luck.

We started this process mid January thinking there would be plenty of time to get in before our lease is up and school starts.  Based on what I have observed thus far, I am doubtful we will get keys before August.  We either consistently have the worst luck of any of RH customers or this region is having serious internal process issues? 

I've observed two other RH communities where people have purchased after us but are already building (30 day before us).  Same county, same builder, same lender, same loan processors, oh and the same weather...what's the difference?  There are only 6 factors that can act on the outcome of a process: Man, Machine, Method, Materials, Measurement and Mother Nature.  Well I eliminated most of them above so is it...Leadership, management, metrics, personnel, or the processes?

The probability of falling on the right side of the mean 4 times in a row is less than 6%... I'm from Vegas and nobody is that unlucky.

2 comments:

  1. Just found your blog - congratulations on your purchase! I really like the Highgrove floorplan - it's really a great house. I'm looking forward to following your progress.

    Count me as part of the "fortunate" few that are on the wrong end of the curve. Ryan was extremely slow to get us on the build schedule (12 weeks 1 day from contract sign date-not acceptable), so when we should have closed in end of May/early June will now be close to Mid July - which has completely messed up our plans for renting our current house.

    Well, here's to hoping we will make up for being slow to start by having a smooth build. Although, I will say I will be on top of Ryan (and NVR mortgage even more so) to try and ensure things roll right along.

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  2. ~C, I read your blog and have had many of the same thoughts and have faced similar dilemmas. It’s uncanny how RH customer’s can build different homes in different regions but go through a distinctly similar emotional roller coaster. (INSERT RH EXECUTIVE INNER DIALOGUE HERE: “If I only we had some way to know what our customers are thinking and feeling as they go through our process? We could really improve on customer service, satisfaction and become a market leader in the US!”). I digress.

    We went from Cherry Bordeaux to Butterscotch Glaze to Espresso back to Butterscotch Glaze. As we read blogs visited models and scoured the internet looking for pictures, we finally landed on a combination we were happy with (Correction: A combination my wife was happy with. The Butterscotch Glaze and Santa Cecilia granite). I've been actively looking for Avalon blogs because 1.) there is only one other Highgrove blog and 2.) when we started shopping last year we saw an Avalon model and fell in love with it. It was, what we considered our dream home. We were pretty much set on building one and just to make sure we were doing our due diligence. We looked at the Highgrove floor plan and realized everything we really wanted and were paying an Upgrade price for, was included in the Highgrove. When we priced out the two floor plans…they way we were going to configure the two, the Highgrove was cheaper per square foot. Who knew? Although we still love the Avalon, we’ve really fallen in love with the Highgrove floor plan and are happy we made the decision.

    Good luck on your construction. Glad to hear the permit issue was resolved. Ours haven’t been pulled yet, so I’m trying not to jinx us. I’m afraid I may have brought on bad karma for bad mouthing NVRM so much.

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