Introduction

My family and I are relocating back to Northeast Ohio from North Carolina due to a new role with my wife's employer.  We started looking at homes in the area based on where we would like to land and kept finding ourselves disappointed with pre-existing homes.  My last trip to Ohio to look at homes with our realtor was left me wanting.  Houses looked great in pics, but in person, each house had that one compromise that we didn't want to make or there was something odd going on with the area, or the house just needed to much work to have what we wanted.

My wife is assigned a realtor in Ohio who actually turned us onto an investment property with Ryan Homes, however, the house won't be available for possession for a year or two?!  Not sure why our realtor even brought it up, but she did ask if we would be interested in building and that Ryan has a "quick start" program.  So we asked our realtor to get us all the details because our mortgage will be serviced by our relocation company.

Weeks of asking our realtor for the information never happened.  So I called Ryan Homes and got the ball rolling.  I gave our SR the details about our relocation, what we were looking for, and our absolutes in what we wanted in a house.  She quickly came back with estimates for three models: Florence, Venice, and the Milan.  The Florence was a bit small in the bedroom department.  The Milan is a great home, great space, and floor plan.  But it was putting us at the top end of the budget and that was before flooring and Guardian were decided.  The Venice came in as the winner.  Great floor plan, nice size bedrooms, the square footage we wanted in a house and a few other perks.

After a few more discussions, a walk through of a completed Venice (thank you home-owners), we decided to build and submitted all our options and were presented with a price point that we couldn't get with pre-existing houses on the market.

We signed on the dotted line and paid our down payment.

This Blog will hopefully share our experience with those looking to build with Ryan Homes.  It is very easy to go online and find review after review of people who have had issues.  I always remember that there are two sides to every story, so remember, just because it's on the Internet, doesn't mean it's all true.  By chance, back in Ohio doing some training, I had two very good conversations with friends who built with Ryan Homes and had great experiences.  They gave me the good the bad and very little ugly.  They advised that things will happen, but Ryan always made it right with them.  One home is six years old and the other four years old and happens to be in our same community.  Both owners say that the homes have been great with no issues and would build again.  That really helped sell me.

A few details for those that might ask.

• Were not using NVR because our relocation company serves as our mortgage company.  Our mortgage provider provides perks and incentives that NVR can't match.  There was a small amount of back and forth, but once our SR talked to NVR rep, they realized that it was not beneficial for us to use NVR, plus Ryan Homes has dealt with our mortgage provider and vice versa, so both companies understand the process.  This was the first relo for our SR and she wasn't real sure how well it would work and could possibly delay our start.
• So far our SR has been great and has dealt with my questions and answered them all on a timely manner.  I have no reservations about her or this process so far.  
• We are relocating and are supposed to be using a "Quick Start" process that gets us building quicker than normal homes.  The "Quick Start" process requires us to have all options and decisions made.  Once they are made, we are done.  There is no going back and asking for decisions.  Ryan Homes orders all supplies to get the ball rolling.  I'll keep this process up today.

Next - More details about our house, options, elevations, etc.