We're going to be homeowners....

On Friday, August 24, 2012 - we signed our contract with our awesome Sales Representative (SR) for the purchase of our first home.  It will be a Ryan Home, Palermo Model in a new and exciting planned community in Chesterfield County, VA.  The road to the contract has been a long one already.

We originally fell in love with the neighborhood driving by on our way to our favorite pizza night spot.  The homes were gorgeous, well manicured and sat on a beautiful lake.  There was not one thing I didn't love about this neighborhood.  We stopped in for a tour of the on site Model, the Ravenna and we were in Awe!  I wanted that house so badly.  It was absolutely gorgeous on the inside. At that very moment though, my partner and I were both rebuilding our credit and we knew that the time wasn't right but kept that house in the back of our minds.

Finally in April of this year, we were ready to take the leap but after almost a year of hard work MY credit this time said otherwise.  Luckily there were tons of mistakes that I'd overlooked and after about 4 months my score shot up 61 points and  we were ready.

DS holding his very own SOLD sticker.

Ironically we'd picked out a lot in April that our SR said that he'd "hold" for us, it was a premium lot in the section of the neighborhood that only had a few houses so I loved the fact that it was still under development.  Well, that lot sold (& I don't blame him).  He called us last week with an awesome deal.  There was only 1 lot left in the first area of development but it only had enough "buildable" space for the Palermo Model.  At first I was thinking, what is this reject deal he's trying to offer us?  He offered to drive us out to another community in Chester to show us the Palermo Model since there were none in our neighborhood of choice and he promised that we'd love it.  The Palermo is a new model to the Ryan Homes fleet so we'd be the first to own one in Richmond.

After touring the Palermo I was in LOVE with it.  I really loved the Ravenna but with a formal dining room, an eat in kitchen, a formal living room, family room, first floor office, 4 bedrooms and a bonus room on the second floor... it just felt like sooo much house for myself, my partner and our 2 year old son.  We've been living is a pretty modest apartment for about 7 years so I was thinking.. it will take us a year to furnish this place.

The Palermo just felt, right.  The space was perfect for us.  Since we we loved it and agreed to the lot (which is a premium lot that backs up to the lake) we were on board.  We got the August Incentive plus the premium lot incentive since we agreed to build that model there since it is the only option.  So going into the deal with almost 30k in credit was a plus for me.

Please follow our journey as we build our first home.