Fools Rush In!

We had been looking at houses for a few weeks and we saw some properties with our realtor that we we really liked but in the end they had one issue or another (smelled like cat pee, walls were bowing in the basement, water damage in the basement, etc.) Once we got the shiny new flyer from our realtor about the new Fischer Homes community in Worthington, we got really excited. We decided to visit the lot to see what Fischer had to offer. We drove out to the location and there was literally nothing except grass and 2 houses in the cul de sac. We had nothing else to do that day so we googled a Fischer model and decided to go see the community Royal Elm in Blacklick.

We do remember a little voice in the back of our minds that was our realtor saying not to rush in to sign anything, but we may have gotten a little too excited about the house and signed everything that day, along with giving them a $3000 deposit. In retrospect we should have asked more questions since neither of us realized that while we did get first dibs on the biggest lot offered, there was a TRAIN track running through our backyard. Now, we had a few days of panic where we wondered if we made the right decision to go with a new build in this location not to mention that we googled Fischer and found a site devoted to complaints from ticked off customers. Our realtor (Donna Mathias who was awesome by the way) talked us off the ledge. We talked the features we wanted, the type of house we were looking for, the school districts we were interested in and diversity of the different locations. We also discussed our price point and wanted to stay well below what the bank had suggested that we could. So we were all in all settled with our decision. Though we did the discussing on the back end and both agree that it could have worked out very poorly, we think that we made the right decision for us with a new build in this area. We stopped by the lot one night and were able to see and hear the train and we felt even better about the location of our new home. We were also able to come up with some questions for our sales rep and set an appointment for a meeting with him to address some of our concerns.

Now for the advice part:
-Do go to the site of the planned homes, drive around the neighborhood and really make sure that you see what's going to be in your future backyard.
-Take 24 hours (or more!) to think about what was discussed with the sales rep and then if you want to move forward go back to sign the papers. Now this one is tricky because we did receive a good incentive for being one of the first houses in the community, but anytime you plan on spending 6 figures you should at least give it a day's thought (or more!)
-Use your realtor as a resource. They know the city and can help you find a place that will meet your needs

From zillow.com

Tomorrow is our selections appointment where we finalize all of our options for the house. wish us luck (and that we don't spend another 10K LOL)