Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Deciding on a Builder

Travis, my Fiance', and I decided that we wanted to be living in a house the spring before we got engaged. We tried to be realistic and both agreed that we wanted to be married before we purchased a house together. After getting engaged last June, the talk of buying a house came up again and this time we decided that we would only look at houses at that time. We were in between building and buying a preowned home for a long time. Travis wanted to buy an existing home and I wanted to build because I had seen my mother build with Darling just a few years ago. After looking around for a few weeks we went to see some homes in the area. We started by driving around to get a feel for the neighborhoods. After seeing the condition of a lot of the homes in existing neighborhoods we decided to build in a new community. There are several new communities throughout our area so we drove through the neighborhoods again to see how we felt.

In August 2011 we visited a community called Castle Hills, which we quickly fell in love with. We looked at the available builders before going into the model homes so that we did our homework (no pun intended!) and then went to visit the homes just to see what the builders had to offer. We visited two out of the three available builders because those homes were in our price range. We went to the first model home on the block which was built by Mercedes homes, I especially loved one of the floor plans with a sunroom that the cats would love. Upon walking in the doors, we were bombarded by the sales consultant. She cornered us and spoke to us for at least an hour. Even after telling her that we weren't interesting in building until at least January or February, she still pressured us into putting money down on a lot now. She stressed all of the deals she has available and pushed us into giving her our email information. We walked out of there bruised and honestly not wanting to see another model home. Instead we decided we would go to the David Weekley model home and then head home after that. We walked into the model home and saw the sales consultant was busy so we toured the home which was beautiful! After we looked around the whole house the sales consultant was free and began to talk to us. We were apprehensive at first, but also let her know that we were not interested in building until the following year. This sales consultant was a breath of fresh air, she gave us all of the information about the community and just a taste of what David Weekley had to offer and then just talked to us about what we did for work and what we did for fun. At least an hour passed and we did not even notice because it was so easy to talk to her. We left feeling really good and had David Weekley at the top of our list.

We did not decide right then that David Weekley would be our builder, instead we looked around a little bit more. Darling Homes, which my mom used a few years ago, was building in the area as well within our price range so we went to see what they had to offer. We decided as soon as we pulled up to the model home that the community was not right for us. The homes were zero lot homes, now when I say zero lot I mean no yard at all. After a few months of looking around and playing with the floor plans that we were given by David Weekley we decided that we were going to build with them. I really fell in love with "The Mayer" floor plan and could not get it out of my mind! (I added it below with all of the extra options you can add).
Keep in mind that choosing the right builder is the most important decision in this entire process. A lot of the builders offer great incentives like free wood floors and granite counters, do not let that help you make your decision. If you choose the right builder all of those will be worth the price and because other more important things are included in your home.

Yes, the biggest reason we went with David Weekley was the sales consultant, but now after having gone through a few months of the building process, we are so happy that we went with them!

<3 Elisabeth

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