Mortgage Loans

[luckyashes04]

Ours was only $170 over the base price...we got a few upgrades, but thankfully the builder was offering $4,000 in upgrades.  The main thing we had to have as far as upgrades were blinds...we did not want to mess with installing them ourselves.  For other upgrades such as hard wood floors we will do ourselves, much cheaper and with a father in law who owns a construction business we can also get free labor..lol.

[indecison]

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jzsnow wrote:
Well that stinks because the highest we can go is 200,200 through naca! Guess we won't have many upgrades.

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Often times builders will give you X dollar amount in free upgrades. I would suggest getting a realtor to help you negotiate so you get the most you can for the money. Also another thing that can cause you to go over the base is the cost of the lot. Some lots cost more than others. The lot we chose was a 15K upgrade but we got it for free.

[tooleman694]

The house we are building now, the home came with like almost everything.

[Mike_B03]

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jzsnow wrote:
Is the barebones house that much different from the model? What is the main difference?

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It really depends house to house and builder to builder. Some include granite while others charge you for the upgrade, and then some that include it offer it in only one color (usually an ugly one) or give you a few choices to pick from.

I will say it's probably almost impossible to buy an stay at the base price, there is always something you'll want or be forced to buy. For us as an exmple, we had to pay a $4100 lot premium but all the lots had some sort of upcharge, there were no "base" lots available. 

Other things we got were 8' interior doors (vs standard 6'8"), bay windows in a couple rooms, dining room convered to a den, additional bedroom/teen room, upgraded baseboards/door trim. upgraded kitchen layout/cabinets and a few other things. Ended up spending $55,000 over the base price of the house.

[violetsmom]

We opted to have the builder finish our basement, upping the sq footage by over 1000sqft and adding a 4th bedroom as well as an additional full bath and large rec room.  The basement finish added about $35k to the purchase price.  In addition to the basement finish we selected structural upgrades such as making the living area an office, and gourmet kitchen with gas hookup.  We also upgraded the carpet throughout the house (including the basement), upgraded the cabinets and door/bath hardware (all carried throughout the basement as well) and added tile flooring and walls to the master bath, AC, and stainless appliance upgrades.  Including the basement, our final price will be about $60k over base price.

[tooleman694]

You guys make me feel like I am cheap or something.

[Mike_B03]

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tooleman694 wrote:

You guys make me feel like I am cheap or something.

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Yea right...your house already came upgraded to the nines!

[Mike_B03]

So now I got curious and pulled out the paperwork to see what exactly did we all upgrade...it's a pretty lengthy list...

Paver driveway

Paver walkway

8' interior doors

Add bedroom #3 and change former bedroom #3 into teen room

Add exterior French door to teen room

Convert open dining room to den w/ French doors and sidelights

Gas stub for BBQ in the backyard

Upgrade garage door to different design

Bay window at nook

Bay window at master bedroom

Fence return (this was the stupidest thing I've ever heard of...without this the side fence to the backyard stopped at the back of the house instead of coming toward the front of the house, meaning all the bedroom windows would be accessible from the street **bleep**)

Upgraded toilets

Upgraded sink in powder room

2 panel interior doors (upgraded from standard 6 panel doors)

2 panel front door with English Walnut stain

Upgraded bronze door handles

Whole whole lighting package (can lights and ceiling fans in every room)

Under cabinet lighting in kitchen

Upgraded kitchen layout with wall microwave/wall over opening/83" refrig space

Gourmet kitchen upgrade (smooth glide with full extension glides on all kitchen/bath drawers)

3 Pendant prewire lighting in kitchen

Lot upgrade

Front elevation upgrade w/ veneer stone

Coffee bar in master bedroom

5" baseboards instead of standard baseboard

Kitchen cabinets/drawers handles

Upgraded kitchen cabinets

Upgraded kitchen granite countertops

Upgraded Kitchen-Aid appliances

Satellite TV prewire

Speaker prewire to the patio

...and that's it, I think. 

[tooleman694]

Yeah pretty much all of that was standard with my builder.

Its when you start adding things like this it is a pretty big upgrade.

[Mike_B03]

Damn that's nice! That's your house I assume? Is the stair rail also standard? Looks great.