Drywall, Rate Locking and a Closing Date!

Drywall is all up. The have to do a couple more coats of the joint compound. With the super cold weather we had last week the deck guy didn't get to start and the stuff is taking a while to dry. They had fans blowing and a propane heater in the basement (at least it was somewhat warm in there now). Cabinets and doors had all been delivered and were stacked in the garage (forgot to take a pic so will try to grab one next time if they haven't already started installing them).

We double checked all the stuff that was supposed to be taken care of after our pre-drywall meeting and everything looked good. I'm somewhat concerned about the placement of the light box in the dining room. It's so hard to tell right now where things will sit, so I'll just have to wait and see when we get the furniture in there. We did notice the light at the bottom of the stairs wasn't centered. At first our PM said it couldn't be, but I pointed out the model's is centered so he said they'll fix it. That's the kind of stuff I look at and say, how could the electrician look at that like, yeah, let's make that light off center...

It's funny, some rooms seemed smaller and some bigger with the walls up. The laundry room and 3rd bedroom for example felt tiny, but the master bedroom and bathroom feel bigger. Hopefully they'll make lots of progress on the trim and tile when we visit next Thursday.

We were told at our pre-drywall that the house would be done on 2/12 and that's when our walkthrough would be. I'm trying to plan movers and have a conference for work I'm supposed to attend at the end of February so I was anxious to get our closing date. We were in daily contact with NVR last week as we were well within 45 days of closing and could save some money by waiting to rate lock. The rates have been a bit unpredictable lately. They bumped up after our original NVR meeting in September. The Fed meeting voting to raise interest rates didn't seem to help much either. Things stayed fairly elevated through the end of the year. Luckily, or unluckily depending on your situation, the world economy, oil prices and a million other factors I'm sure started to bring the rates down. It was getting to the point where every day was a gamble. Up today, down tomorrow. We gave them a couple days and went ahead and locked. We ended up paying a portion of a point I think to bring the rate down a bit, but it will pay for itself in less than 3 years and we plan to be in this house at least that long. (Tip: It's not worth paying for extra points if the time it takes to make up the difference in interest is longer than you plan on staying in the house.)

Anywho, once we locked we asked NVR when we were scheduled to close and they said Ryan sets that up. It had been a few days so I emailed our SR and asked if she knew when or how we'd find out the closing date. She reached out to their office and I got an email immediately from them (so not really sure what the delay was...) They confirmed our walk-through on the 12th and said our closing date was scheduled for the 17th. A whole five days later... I didn't understand why they scheduled it five days out, especially when our PM said we could close anytime after the walkthrough. Granted the 12th is a Friday and the following Monday is Presidents Day, but still, impatience wins.

I emailed them back and asked if we could move up the closing date. I didn't hear back for a couple days so I had to follow up (kind of annoying). She got right back to me and said they ask that they schedule the closing at least two business days after the walkthrough and she'd have to check with our PM if we can do it sooner. I let her know no one ever told us that and if moving it back was a big inconvenience, don't worry about it. She got back to me today and confirmed that we CAN close on the 12th later in the afternoon! Already less than 30 days away, it's so close I can taste it!!!

Kitchen, Entry, Dining Room

Kitchen

Living Room

Master Bedroom - loving that tray ceiling!

Master Bathroom

Bedroom 2

Bedroom 3

Upstairs Bathroom

Basement

Basement Office (aka Exercise Room with the wall pushed back)

Basement