Design Center Tips, Do's Donts, Check list? ROI (Dallas: sale, new house)

[tbone9900tx]

Ok so I picked out my home...now headed to the design center...any hellp on what to do? tips? im thinking about creating an Excel spreadsheet that details what I want to get done, what areas, ROI, what it costs to go outside the builder, what the buidler is charging, etc...any ideas...please help!!

[nsumner]

It is very easy to go outside your budget in a design center. Make a list of items you absolutely must upgrade and stick to that.

Flooring is usually the first thing that gets upgraded, and since you are building you have some time to decide if you want the builder to do it or not. Get the measurements of the areas you want to upgrade and shop around. Most of the time the builder will be cheaper and even if it's within a few hundred dollars worth not having to deal with the hassle later.

Naima

[eltbee]

Not to sound too cynical but you are about the find out what you should have asked for before you signed the contract on your house. At least that was my experience. When you buy a new house you should have everything you want in mind prior to signing and use it as a negotiating point: I want this floor plan, with x for flooring, and y for window treatments, etc all for this price. By the time you get to the design center you are roped into it already. Builders aren't in business to lose money - not that there is anything wrong with this by the way. It is in their best interest to make the standard features just unattractive enough (or minimal standard tiling areas, etc.) that you are "forced" to upgrade at the design center. And then when you are there you start playing these games in your head: "If I walk from here w/o changes then I have to rip out what they install later and jack with it, blah, blah = $$$" so you just roll over. That's what I did.

Design Center = Profit Center

Otherwise don't worry too much about it and have fun. At this point your are going to need to be thinking more in terms of what you want to live with and enjoy and not so much about the money.

[needsomeinfo]

make sure you check the prices for blinds/window treatments. our builder (suprisingly) had a really good price on them. I'm sure we would have spent more for the same thing elsewhere, plus had the hassle of getting them installed after move-in.

we did, however, save money by installing our own ceiling fans in the rooms where they were not already included (secondary bedrooms, etc.) they wanted $200 per fan. we got some great hunter ones at lowe's for $89 each. we also bought a new kitchen faucet there (didn't save any $, but got a much nicer faucet and selection for the upgarde price). we came out way ahead, even with hiring a handyman by the hour to install them for us.

[tyanger]

Originally Posted by eltbee

...At this point your are going to need to be thinking more in terms of what you want to live with and enjoy and not so much about the money.

+1

Unless you are actually intending to turn around and sell the home quickly to try and make money - don't think of the upgrades in terms of "return on investment". I haven't heard of very many upgrades/remodels (if any) that will actually add more to the sale price of the home than it cost to put it in. Usually the most you can hope for is that the upgrade(s) will end up making the home sell faster when it's time to do that, but you won't get close to what you actually paid for it (If I had to guess I'd say 50-60%). Areas where houses steadily increase in value do so for other reasons besides types of amenities and upgrades.

With that in mind I suggest you try to think more in terms of:
"Do I like ___ ?"
"Will I use ___?"
"Can I afford ___ right now?"
"Can I afford maintaining ___ for the next 5+ years?"
"Is ___ a pain in the a$$ to keep clean?"

[TheViking85]

Lighting, though you might want to get in a specialist on this.

Getting the right amount and kind of light into a house is what makes or breaks it, it really is, and well worth the extra money.

[tbone9900tx]

Wow...no joke on the upgrades...just got back and I think a lil vaseline would have been nice....the standard granite was horrible..seriously black and white...geez...the salesperson told us that most people dont even spend the 10k in incentives they give them...chaning to bigger tile and 1 level up shot the price by 5k....im thinking the minimum upgrades that were our must haves will be about 13K....i knew that i would be price gouged, but man.....it highway robbery...i wish I would have known at least some ballpark prices on stuff....im thinking about calling the whole thing off and losing out my 1000 deposity...

[galore]

I had them put in the cheapest resilient (linoleum) flooring (instead of their low-end tiles, which would have been a pain and mess to remove) and re-tiled for a fraction of the price afterwards (design center quote for slate tiles was $12k, I paid $3k "after-market").

[MurphyPl1]

Everyone has given good advice. I would add that you probably want to consider prioritizing things by ease of having it done during construction vs after. For example we have scraped hardwoods in a large part of our downstairs. For us, it made more sense to have someone come in and do it during construction rather than put in carpet and then do later. If it had been one room or a smaller area we might have waited.

Also we pre-wired all of the bedrooms for ceiling fans. It's just DH and I so those rooms are currently an office, hobby room and guest room but we know that people here do want to have ceiling fans. Adding a ceiling fan correctly isn't the easiest home project in the world and this way we just have to add the fan when we want.

On other hand the carpet upstairs is an easy switch out and we painted our media room ourselves (first project after move in - Super Bowl was around the corner). They wanted $800, Dad offered to do it for $200. ;-)

[SOON2BNSURPRISE]

Not a Dallas area resident but I see the same issues as when we built our Arizona home. We felt like we were being held captive at the design center. No prices were discussed while we chose everything we wanted. My wife and I had an idea beforehand what we had to have in our home. We also knew what we could replace on our own later on. Our builder had given us a $10,000 incentive. When we finally saw the price we ended up $12,000 over the incentive amount. Before we signed the order for all that stuff, we cut back the order to $3,000 over the incentive amount. My wife had wanted a kitchen drawer trash can storage bin. The builder cost was just under $400. The same item at Home Depot was less than $100. I put it in myself. We went with the basic sinks and faucets and I ended up changing them later on my own for a lot less. My thought is to pay now for something you just don't want to do or don't have the ability to do. With things you can change later, take the basic stuff and make changes later.