Building a new home? Best advice? (Grandale, Durham) (Fayetteville, Cary: loft, mortgages)

[amcjap]

Yeah, the cul-de-sacs are nice. We're on one and it's really wonderful. PM me if you need any info.

[AndreaF1]

We went back to the Ashbourne and they totally changed the inside floorplan - still not a big fan.

We sat down with Regina - who is great - and did a quote for an Edgemont. Then, afterwards, we drove by and saw the outside of the Edgemont and hated it. lol....But we love the floorplan. So, we may go back to the Carlyle.

2909 sq feet, 4 BR, 2 1/2 bath, Loft, 2 car garage, 2 story

Base Price: 289,800
Lot premium: 10,000
Options: $63,370

After options: $357,070

We added:

-Screened in porch
-Separate tub and shower in master bath (marble tub, walls, floor)
-Stainless appliances
-Upgraded intererior doors ($190 for the whole house)
-Dedicated 20amp circuit in garage
-Crown Molding - entire house
-Recessed lighting (6 cans) in kitchen
-2 car wide driveway
-Chase pipe for wiring
-Hardwoods in most of the downstairs and stairs/upstairs landing and hall
-42" Maple cabinets (upgraded)
-Kitchen island
-Raised vanities (this seemed like a scam!)
-Iron pickets on stairs
-Add remaining sheetrock and insulation to the garage
-Quartz countertops (Looks exactly like granite, but cheaper)


Any thoughts?

We still have to do this with Brightleaf at the Park and the Shea Home. But, we're really leaning towards Grandale because of the location.

How much negotiating power do we have with these, do we think?

[sneezecake]

Andrea,

Yes, Regina is great

I can tell you right off the bat that you will get "more house" for the money at Brightleaf - of course, part of that is the location being in a less established area, but for the needs of my fiancee and I, it was better and more central. Also, while Grandale is in "better" schools, it's still in the Hillside zone for HS so it is not really any better than Eastern HS in Durham when compared with Jordan or Riverside.

Let me break down a similar Shea for you-

Call the base price 305k
NO lot premium
Screen porch - maybe 5k? I'm not sure, never priced this.
Separate tub/shower in MBR? Standard - includes tile surround in the shower and tub also.
20 amp circuit is an upgrade - 200 bucks maybe
5 recessed cans are standard in the kitchen
Crown is standard in most of the house except bedrooms I believe - Master, Family, kitchen, dining, living, hall all standard
2 car wide driveway - standard
Chase pipe? Not sure - Our floorplan has an open family room to the upstairs hall so its not quite the same dilemma

42" maple cabinets - standard.
Raised vanities - Standard in Master, the secondary baths are standard "her height"
Iron pickets are an upgrade - depending on the plan, its about 1500 to go from a half wall to a wood picket, and about 1800 to go from a wood picket to iron, so call it 3000-3500 - this is on a Napa like the model so assuming you know it, it includes a full rail going up AND 30 feet of railing across the upstairs hall. Would have just been 700 or so to do the stairs alone
Sheetrock is standard in the garage, not sure about insulation.
Quartz countertop - upgrade cost is about 1400 bucks since Corian is standard - I am sure this is significantly less than Centex...'

So, based on just this alone, you are looking at about 13k in upgrades including appliance upgrades and a total home price of 320k

Now, I don't want it to seem like I am hard-selling Shea just because that's what we did () but my point here is that one really nice thing about Shea is that many of these options are already included.

I will PROMISE you that you will spend more $$ than you think on upgrades when the time really does come. Are you really not planning to add or upgrade any hardwoods? Tile? Carpet? These items are notorious for builders for being pretty poor. What about vinyl flooring in secondary bathrooms? Landscaping? Add an island to the kitchen? Lighting allowance? Is the garage door opener included? How many cable and phone/data
outlets do you get?


As for negotiation with Centex, I have no idea if they will or will not - they have seemed pretty adament that they dropped the prices therefore they feel they are in line with the market. I disagree, but so be it. Shea also will not negotiate - this I know from experience. Certainly this can change, but right now they are offering an incentive that amounts to about 10k off on a 340k home, so that helps (and Centex has no incentive near as I can tell).

Just to give you a reference point, our house, had we not chosen a basement premium lot, would have worked out to 349k for the following:

3050 square feet
4 bedroom, 3 bathroom, plus a 450 square foot bonus room
Extended front load garage (3 car sized)
Granite/Stainless/Gourmet split appliances with Gas stove
Butlers pantry cabinetry with granite
Stacked stone fireplace
5" Cherry plan hardwood floors downstairs
Wrought iron stair railings and upstairs hall railing
Upgraded tile floors in the secondary bathrooms, Max-upgrade tile (18x18) in the master bath
Upgraded tile backsplash in the kitchen
Upgraded interior Paint color throughout
Landscaping standard (several trees, bushes, shrubs, and sod)
Crown everywhere except I believe secondary bathrooms and bedrooms
6 low voltage outlets (Cable/data/phone) pre-wired...our choice
All brick front, cement fiber siding (Is Grandale hardi-plank or vinyl siding standard on the back and sides?)

Anyhow, location is a huge consideration I know, but I thought this might help represent how differently I felt the two builders' pricing strategies were. Night and day, and in the end it's what did Centex in, because we planned to make our house "nice" without going over the top, and Centex kills you even for "nice" unfortunately. Our Carlyle, at 2800 feet, with comparable upgrades/features to our current home, would have been 25k more...and we liked the community at Brightleaf much more anyhow. Feel free to DM me if you have any specific questions on any of this!

[sbanawan]

Ryan, you're killing me with your logic! Stop already. Am I going to have to lobby the wife for one more look at BL?????

[sbanawan]

Update, folks looking at Grandale: they've dropped their base prices $5k. I'm not sure whether that means they've dropped the standard features. I'll post back when I find out more. If they didn't drop the features, it gives us about $40k to play with and stay within our budget. Exciting times!

[coltank]

I think Brightleaf is definitely a better location, and waayyy better amenities. I still can't figure out why people want to be so caught up with all the traffic of Southpoint, besides the fact that Grandale seems to be stuck in an area that is so hard to get to. Brightleaf is right of 70 with easy access from Sherron as well. Also, that area is still new. MacGregor development is planning another huge development off Doc Nichols kinda behind Brightleaf. When that happens, I think Brightleaf's values will really go up.

[amcjap]

The location was one of the main reasons we picked Grandale. I keep reading about the traffic but have yet to experience it...

[PDXmom]

Originally Posted by amcjap

The location was one of the main reasons we picked Grandale. I keep reading about the traffic but have yet to experience it...

I live a stones throw from Grandale and have been here for 10 months. The only traffic I've seen around Southpoint was in the mall parking lot at Christmas. No real traffic on the main roads. But I guess like other things traffic is relative.

[sneezecake]

The traffic right around Fayetteville/40/54 is annoying, as is the westbound 54 traffic between Alexander and Fayetteville in the evenings. Beyond that it's not a huge issue to me, but I do see it getting worse (not that it has this over BL, necessarily...Miami Blvd deals with RTP commute traffic)

[durhammom]

Hi!

I'm another one that lives close to Grandale and have for years and the Southpoint traffic is generally not a problem. Plus you have easy access to I-40 and via back roads accessing I-540 is now pretty easy too.

Of course convenience is always dependent on where an individual needs to go. If you expect to do a number of things that are Raleigh based then Brightlead if more convenient; things that are Chapel Hill or Cary/Morrisville based are more convenient from Grandale. Both have decent access to downtown Durham.

As for schools -- given the economic level of the new development going on in Brightleaf the new school there will probably be fairly good however Parkwood is also decent, just older. The middle schools in Durham all seem to be highly dependent on who is principal at the time your kid(s) need to be there. However there are a lot of magnet and charter options. And right now the high school options for those subdivisions -- Hillside (Grandale) and Southern (BL) -- both have fairly poor reputations. They are both probably better than their reputations but they both have work to do.