Friday, August 10, 2012

Customs is Closed!!!! THE REQUEST

We submitted seven non standard requests and I was told yesterday that we are prohibited from submitting any more non standard requests.  I am happy to report that each of them were granted even though it took some leg work to get them handled by doing some of my own investigation/research.  My SR worked closely with us and the costing department to get them approved and I find her support extremely valuable.  She mentioned that she got her hand slapped because the requests were being added.  The longer it took for us to get approved, the more time it allowed me to mull over our selections/upgrades/customs. The only problem I am having with this response is that the email to my SR read in the subject line: "Customs Closed to the Proctors." What!??   We gave them our non standard requests back in February and they refused to look at them because our loan wasn't approved.  Our contract was finalized yesterday and we are still in limbo because of the newest request to add the front porch to Elevation C.  Until then, we do not have a confirmed pre construction meeting or breaking ground date.  We are tentatively on the schedule to break ground on September 9 which I believe looks promising because we are already two weeks into the DSR with the county for the front porch.  They estimated that it would take 2-4 weeks to get the approval which means we still have at least two weeks to make any adjustments; however, she is telling me that they refuse to take another request except the one for the front porch once it is approved.  We do have one final request because of the change from Elevation from E to C  but they will not consider it!!!  Would you cause a stink and persist that they consider the request or would you be content with the customs closing SIGN!!  As it stands, my SR said, they will not allow her to do it.  Would love your feedback?


****Here is our request: Once we reverted back to Elevation C we intended to choose the all brick option which we later learned that Elevation C isn't built with all brick; only A & B.  It does come in all vinyl; however, they do not offer the all vinyl in our community; nor did we want all vinyl.  Our last request is for Elevation C with the partial brick veneer front with the brick extended around the entire garage instead of just the bottom.  This does not seem out of the ordinary because every home in our community (with the exception of one home on the South Side of the Chapel) has brick around the entire garage, so we thought why not ask for it. But we are still in limbo and I really don't see what the big deal is for this request because it's standard with most of the homes. Not to mention, it will only take a week, maybe two, which is pushing it to cost out the brick around the garage which would definitely return with pricing before the front porch request because it had to go through the review board especially since they want to offer Elevation C with the front porch to future home owners in our community.

16 comments:

  1. I guess after this long I would just want a ground breaking date. But on the other hand, this is your dream home and you deserve it to be everything you want it to be. Part of why Ryan Homes is such a bargain over other builders is their streamlineo process and being able to prefab a lot of the wall sections. Any custom request goes against their business plan. Maybe you hit that limit where they cant make a profit? If anything you MUST push for the porch. I would love a porch.

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    1. I appreciate your feedback Charlie R! I hear you loud and clear! My husband and I have waited so patiently and now that the time is here, we can move forward with building our dream home. We are thrilled to say the least. RH does have a set of standards that they want to abide by and they are not used to making custom requests. So here I come...and it appeared to have overwhelmed the costing department. My SR always reminds me that they are not custom builders and I understand that. I just want the outside of the garage surrounded with brick instead of just the bottom of the garage. I have no complaints with RH, they have been willing to do everything they could to support us in getting this house. I am in full gratitude and appreciation. I just don't get why the costing department is denying us any more requests when we still do not have a confirmed, unwavering date to break ground. As of today, we are penciled in on the calendar with the expectation that we will have the porch approval and at that time we can get a confirmed date to break ground. So this time in between is available to get an cost estimate within a week for the brick garage before the porch request returns approved.

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  2. That's a lazy costing manager talking IMHO. It's like saying 'we don't want your business'. But I can see what Charlie's saying about going against their business plan. I don't see why they wouldn't be willing to consider your custom request if you're going to pay for it. If you ask, are they going to say, "sorry, since you're asking after we said no more customs we're not going to build your house anymore..." I guess I'm living through you because I would have done everything you're doing, but didn't have the foresight to think of it, so go you!!!!

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    1. Maria, you know we see eye to eye!! We have been working diligently on our dream homes. I swear I am a construction manager in the making. It's just important to me because this is our "forever home" and structural requests must be done now. AND, AND, yes...we are willing to pay for the extra brick. Everything else, I can add later. Thank you for the compliment.

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    2. That is a different Maria! They always make money off of non-standards, because they never give them to you at cost. If they do not want to grant non-standards, then they should just shut them down altogether. We were always told that it would take 2 weeks for an answer on each request. That never made sense when it takes about 5 minutes to get a price (for example, on cabinets). I am glad that the island request worked out for you. Now, I cannot wait to see pictures! :-)

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  3. It may be more about the build time and materials...every non-standard means additional time spent building, and more likelihood of a mistake being made. We've seen on a ton of the blogs where the workers were just doing "same old same old" and had to fix things after the fact. That's wasted time and materials. Just a thought. In any case, I would think that given the history of what's going on here they would allow you to make a change that came about because of their error. It might be worthwhile to try going up the chain a couple steps.

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    1. I appreciate your feedback, Amanda! I should have mentioned this above in my blog--I will add it now. Once we reverted back to Elevation C we intended to choose the all brick option which we later learned that Elevation C isn't built with all brick; only A & B. It does come in all vinyl; however, they do not offer the all vinyl in our community. Our last request is for Elevation C with the partial brick veneer front with the brick extended around the entire garage instead of just the bottom. This does not seem to out of the ordinary because every home in our community (with the exception of one) has brick around the entire garage so we thought why not ask for it. But we are still in limbo and I really don't see what the big deal is for this request because it's standard with most of the homes. I agree with you that considering the history, they would support us; however it's the costing department that refuses to cost it out for us.

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  4. Well, seven is a lot. :-) Angela is awesome! I'm always happy if a company tries to even meet me half way, which Ryan seems to have done, right? The more custom requests, the longer before we get to see our new neighbors. :-)

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    1. Honestly, Angela, is the GREATEST!! She isn't the person saying "no". It's the costing department denying the request and we still have four weeks not to mention we do not have a date to break ground until the porch request is approved!

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  5. I wish you the best of luck with your requests. I've made my blog private so if you can't access it, please put in a request and I'll grant you permission. I have had some quality issues with my house and perhaps you would like to take a look so you can make sure they don't happen with your house. Best of luck!

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    1. How do I join your blog site? I tried to different ways and both are blocked!

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    2. If you're signing people up, I want in, We signed to build our Rome 2 weeks ago

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  6. I would love to follow you. When I click on your profile, it says "profile not available ". There's no place to request access.

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  7. We got a full stone front, but the garage isn't stone on front. We asked to get it in stone as well and the answer was no. I can't understand why, it's not like we were asking to do something which would have made it look worse. But the answer was no.

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    1. I agree Tammigirl! Most of the homes in our community have brick garage fronts so the request was not far fetched. The bottom of the garage has brick and I just wanted them to extend the brick around the entire garage. At first this was not on my radar because I thought we were going to get a different Elevation; however, once we were told we could not have it I revised the exterior colors to accommodate the elevation change.

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  8. I also tried to request access to the blog. I looks like it's been shut down.

    My guess is, since they were having problems, she felt she had to shut it down.

    She wouldn't be the first blogger to have this issue. NVR monitors these blogs regularly. I see it in my stats. They keep a spreadsheet of blogs and go through them . I can see that from my stats, too.

    Also, I know of other bloggers who were having issues and Ryan forced them to remove blog content. They agreed to fix the problems, but the blog posts had to be removed. Now, why wouldn't they want people to just say "Update, Ryan Homes did the right thing..." - because they don't want to have to do it for everyone? I would think that would be good publicity. But what do I know? I'm not a corporation protecting my bottom line.

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