Building a new house is hard. You go to the builder, you see they are offering about 15 different floorplans, but they only have 2 or 3 model homes to show you. Ok, how do you see those other 12-13 floorplans?
You then ask the builder if they have any inventory homes that you can walk. Ok, there are another 5 floorplans you can see. What do you do now if the floorplan that looks perfect on paper is not available to walk through?
Do you imagine what the house looks like? Do you take some of their other floorplans and assume some things because they look similar on paper?
I do this everyday with my buyers. I help them picture the paper floorplan and try to have them walk as many homes as possible that are similar to the plan so they're not surprised when it's complete.
Can I do this for myself? NO!!
We are still contemplating moving to Austin. My husband found this awesome floorplan that he absolutely loved. The builder sent me the floorplan with all the room measurements. Their website had 2 pictures, one of the kitchen and one of the family room. However, the pictures were "stretched" so I couldn't tell the actual dimensions of the space, and I'm a very visual person.
He mentions that the floorplan was stolen from the Houston market and brand new in Austin so unless we wanted to drive to Houston, there was no other way to look at it.
I immediately get on the phone and call my buddy Greg Nino. I promised him some non-mentional things (just kidding) and he said he would be happy to go to the model home and take pictures. He doesn't takes a few pictures to email me, but he takes 80 pictures and puts them on a disk, and NextDay delivers them to me. WOW! Thanks so much, Greg! (if you need an agent in Houston, he's the man!)
You would think 80 pictures would help me determine if it was a worthy home. Yes, the pictures were great and showed a lot as Greg did a wonderful job taking pictures from different angles and rooms. However, the pictures left me wanting more. If I was going to build this house, I needed to walk the floorplan and make sure I could picture my family living there.
What did we do? We hopped in the car Tuesday morning at 7am and drove to Houston. That drive is a lot longer than I remember it being the last time I drove down. We got home just before 5pm. Yes, we drove over 4 hours to look at ONE house and then drove straight back to Dallas.
I have never suggested my buyers drive to a completely different market to look at a house, though I've suggested they drive to different communities within the Dallas area. Have you ever had buyers drive to other markets just to see a house to know if they wanted to build it? Have you ever done this yourself? Man, it was sure worth it as it was a very nice house. I just wish we knew for sure about my husband's job so we know if the drive was truly worth it or if we spent over $150 in gas just to spend some alone time together with Alyssa spending the day in daycare.
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