I'll have to check into that. I have a "low voltage" to schedule, which I am not sure if that is separate from electrical. I got the actual prices for the data runs and they are taking people to the cleaners.
They install RJ11 (telephone jack) as standard to the family room, kitchen and master bedroom, additional telephone jacks are $90 each. The kicker is, they use Cat5e cable for those runs and for those who don't know, Cat5e is your standard ethernet wire. They charge $115 per data jack (RJ45) and none come standard. There is maybe a $0.30 difference in the price of the connector and each run is $25 more for the same cable. I emailed the guy back and told him that I work in IT (which I do) and I asked him what the $25 upcharge buys me? What's to stop me from having him run the $90 telephone jacks to all the other bedrooms, keep the ones that come standard, then switch them all out after close saving close to $200 (literally $2 per termination and about 30 minutes worth of work)?
He hasn't emailed me back, but he is out of his mind.
I've thought about that as well - pretty sure Cat6 runs are like $145 per run which I can understand an increase there because Cat6 is a way more expensive wire than Cat5e, but $145 is still an overcharge.
Future proofing with Cat6 should be sufficient as it is capable of 10Gbps (depending on how you terminate and length of cable (less than 160 some ft)) which should be enough for many years ahead. In actuality, I don't need any RJ11 and I wish I could get a credit for not wanting them even though they come standard. I would then take the credit and put it towards Cat6 which would be worth it to me. I might ask him on that.
As far as the area, I will be building in a subdivision in phase 3 in semi-rural Georgia. The land is under USDA if that is any indication. The funny part is, I inquired about utilizing a USDA loan, but I make too much money. It seems the cap is at like $83k a year... So the people who qualify for USDA will have a hard time qualifying for the cost of the house and the folks that qualify for the house won't qualify for USDA. Funny ol world. Because I went with the elevation with bay windows, if I keep my budget at $300k, which I found will be doable, that puts me at $84.50ish a sqft. Final sq footage in the plan is 3551. Without the bay windows elevation, it is 3511.
I have design rescheduled for Monday, but they let me onto the online catalog to make a wish list. House is at $283k, so that gives me $17k in upgrades. The builder quoted me $10,000 give or take for 3.5" engineered hardwoods to cover the entire downstairs, wood stair treads and hardwoods for the upstairs hall. If I go Monday and the materials are acceptable, I am without a doubt using $10k for that. The other $7k I have planned out for kitchen cabinets, extra drawer space, upgraded marble in all the bathroom counters, cat 6 to all bedrooms and family room, wrought iron stair spindles and level 4 light fixtures. Puts me right at $17k. Also called about hidden costs of landscaping... sod is provided in the cost of the house, so no extra, irrigation is my responsibility, which is fair.
I will have to ask my LO on when I generate lock. It is def a concern of mine, but the est completion is January 31st. They had to pull new permits, because they had plans to build a different floor plan for the lot before I contracted it. Once they have that and my design appointment is complete, it's off to the races.
Another update, had a long exhausting day of design today, but we got it all settled. Of course we went over budget (DW made sure of it haha), but not too bad. It was difficult to get the upgrades we wanted without having to upgrade other things as a prerequisite.
The big ticket items though were hardwoods on the entire first level, wood stair treads stained to match floors and the upstairs halls as hardwoods as well. We had to make some tile upgrades in the shower in order to get the frameless glass shower in the master, I ate it hard on that. In the end though, we went with ivory white cabinets full extending and dovetail. A soft gray granite in the kitchen, soft gray subway tile backsplash with white grout. I think it will look amazing when it is done.
Bathrooms we kept the secondaries the standard tile with the standard marble, in the master we put money into upgrades tile, a gray with carerra marble for the vanity counter. Some misc other things like flood lights and whatnot that nickel and dimed it.
End price for the house is $304,100.
The big ticket items though were hardwoods on the entire first level, wood stair treads stained to match floors and the upstairs halls as hardwoods as well. We had to make some tile upgrades in the shower in order to get the frameless glass shower in the master, I ate it hard on that. In the end though, we went with ivory white cabinets full extending and dovetail. A soft gray granite in the kitchen, soft gray subway tile backsplash with white grout. I think it will look amazing when it is done.
Bathrooms we kept the secondaries the standard tile with the standard marble, in the master we put money into upgrades tile, a gray with carerra marble for the vanity counter. Some misc other things like flood lights and whatnot that nickel and dimed it.
End price for the house is $304,100.