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If you've built a house...
What can we expect tomorrow morning? We're meeting our realtor and the builder's realtor at the model home tomorrow morning to sign the agreement for our lot (we're very excited about this!). Our meeting is at 9, and she's showing lots to another couple at 10, so I know we won't be there more than an hour.
But, she also mentioned bringing us samples, which we assume are things like flooring and cabinet samples. Do you usually get to take them home? Since we haven't even picked the house style we want built yet, I assume we won't need to make those kind of decisions tomorrow. She also is supposed to be bringing us the list of things that are standard with all their houses and things that are upgrades.
Anything else we should be expecting when we go would be appreciated! We definitely will be heading over to our lot to take pictures. 
Re: If you've built a house...
It varies by builder and what their timeline is.
Ours was:
We paid 1000 to hold the lot. (Refundable if we backed out)
In the next week we went through all of the options we wanted and negotiated price. At the end of this week we signed our contract and paid our deposit. The contract was pretty lengthy and had many signatures.
We had a month after that to visit their design center (in the basement of one of their models), and pick out all of our colors. Ours didn't let us take any samples home, we just had to visit the design center often.
It sounds strange to me that you are meeting to sign the agreement tomorrow, but haven't reviewed yet what is standard and what the upgrades are? Typically you review those types of things prior to signing a purchase agreement.
Like PP said, it my experience you don't take samples home, but view them at the model or design center to make your selections.
An hour does not give you much time to review the details it sounds like you need to go over. Good luck!
We did go over a lot of standard features when we met the builder on Tuesday and he took us through a couple of the homes they are currently building. He really took a lot of time with us to answer all of our questions and point out things that we wouldn't even think to ask. His realtor, on the other hand, is just an idiot, but that's a really long story.
This is how ours went too. Our lot didn't have a lot premium on it, so we just paid the earnest deposit of $2500 to hold the lot. Then we met with the sales rep and went over floor plans, prices, structural things like elevation, trim. We made our decision over the course of a week or so which floor plan we liked (poor sales rep, we took him back and forth from three different model homes multiple times just to make our decision lol ), then about a week later they scheduled a short intro meeting to the design center. That was just to get a feel of the options, get an idea of what we liked, then a week later (yesterday) we had our official design center appointment. After that we met with the loan officer and signed our contract. Now we just meet with the builder in a week or so and the building is scheduled to begin May 7th! All in all it's been about 3 weeks or so in total of preliminaries.
Completed 2012 Races: Cupid's Chase 5k Feb. 11th: 26:20, Donovan's Run 5k March 10th: 25:00, Statesman Cap 10k March 25th: 57:19
Upcoming: Komen Race for the Cure 10k May 12th (SA)
I agree it will vary from builder to builder.
Have you already signed a contract and agreed on price and extras? If not, go armed with a list of the extras you want and ask them to add them into the purchase price. When we made our offer we meet with just our agent and prepared the paperwork. The paperwork went to the builder and then he signed it back to us. The night that we got a signed contract we meet and selected colors for our outside brick, siding, windows, doors, garage door and trim. Because they had already poured the foundation they needed to start ordering items asap to get building on the house.
We were able to see a completed home of the same floor plan as the one we selected. Seeing a finished home was nice because it had all standard finishes and we knew what we were seeing was what we would get. Thankfully, our standard options included a lot of nice details like upgraded cabinets and granite countertops. If you can see a finished home, even if its not your floor plan, do it! This will give you an idea of the quality of the finishes.
Since that first night, we have meet to do the cabinets and countertops and one other time to select tile, carpet and our backsplash. We will meet again to pick lights in the weeks to come.
When we made our offer, we did a kind of ask for the moon see what you get kind of deal. It worked for us because the builder agreed to do it all without increasing the purchase price. If you want to read about the things we asked for you can check out my blog post here (< - - clicky).
ETA - To address the question about taking samples home. When we meet the firs time to do outside colors and brick we didn't take anything home. During our second meeting when we did the cabinets and countertops, we did take samples home because we couldn't decide on the granite we wanted. It was no problem for us to take them home and call the next day or a few days after with our decision. I'm sure had we needed to, we could have done the same for the flooring.
Our house building adventure (UPDATED 8/20/12)
Wedding Planning Bio
Our wedding blogged! (Click Brad & Briana on the right side)
This. It's wierd to me that you haven't looked at standard vs upgrades yet and are already signing a PA. Before we signed the PA, we had a pretty good idea of the upgrades we wanted and when we signed the PA it was for the lot and house price. After we signed the PA, we then went to the design center with in a month and actually picked out the finishings we wanted, but we had a good idea. They told us that most people added about $5-10k of more upgrades at the design center and to plan for that. After we went to the design center we signed an updated PA with the new price.
How would you know how much the house is going to be if you don't do this yet? Just a word of caution...everything is an upgrade and upgrades are expensive. We added $105k of upgrades.
Our house building adventure (UPDATED 8/20/12)
Wedding Planning Bio
Our wedding blogged! (Click Brad & Briana on the right side)
It will vary by builder as so may others have mentioned, but with most large builders, you will have to sign a PA prior to making the design center appointment.
I have built twice and both times we put a binder on the lot, then selected a model and signed the PA.
With my first build we picked upgrades as the build progressed. It was a smaller, local builder. We went to all his vendors when it came time to add fixtures and cabinets, etc.
My 2nd build was with a national builder and that was where you go to the "Design Center" and basically spend 4 hours picking EVERYTHING in on shot.
I know a lot of people love that process, but I HATED it. It gets to easy to go in there and pick everything and then you get slammed with a huge total when you're done. I requested prices of everything prior to going in to my design meeting so by the time I walked in there I knew everything I was getting down to the dollar. They hated me. LOL.
I was always told that upgrades average another 5% on top of the price of the house.
We also added over $100K worth of upgrades, but the majority of those were structural add ons.
All of this, especially the upgrades. Ours was $2k in upgrades we negotiated when we signed the PA. We opened up the main stairwell to two banisters and had a transfer switch for a generator put in. Some stuff the builder might throw in for free (we got a pull-down staircase for the attic...yay). We could have easily spent 5-10% more of the base price on upgrades to the floors, cabinets, and flooring. Make sure you know what you're willing to spend there!
Depending on your design center, you might get to take samples home (e.g. Countertops). We also were able to take the samples for the siding, roof, and shutters home. We were also the only home being built at the time.
Edited for clarification
a married bio
Everything was an upgrade: electric garage door ($100), there were 5 levels of carpet and hardwood flooring and anything over level 1 was an upgrade, gourmet kitchen ($16k), stainless steel appliances, light fixtures, faucets, toliets, etc. I should add that this is our 2nd house (not our starter house) so we upgraded most things. I would still caution OP to have an idea of what upgrades they want before signing the PA. Most likely the model house is not showing the base price. It is showing A LOT of upgrades. Also need to know what's included. Items like window blinds, gutters, decks, water softness, etc are normally not included.
It's amazing the things that some builders consider an upgrade. I mean a garage door open is an upgrade? Geez. lol
I feel like we got a pretty good deal when it comes to standard vs upgrade. Our came standard with stainless steel and granite. We negotiated an upgraded carpet pad.
I can't imagine going into a design center and having to pick EVERYTHING in one day! How stressful! I've enjoyed the process of going from one builder to another and selecting different pieces of our home over the last month or so. My IL's how built a much larger and more expensive home than we are building didn't do the big design center either. They picked things slowly over a few months just like us.
Our house building adventure (UPDATED 8/20/12)
Wedding Planning Bio
Our wedding blogged! (Click Brad & Briana on the right side)
I LOATHE the process of the design center. Even with all my selections pre-picked and a SPREADSHEET with prices (I'm so type A sometimes) it was a 3 hour process and I had two kids in tow.
I was told it could take 4-5 hours.
Not to mention, the person in the design center, nice as she was, new nothing about the quality of this or that.
It was sooo much more personal to build with a local builder, go to various vendors, ask questions about this kind of tile or that kind of granite.
I'm just happy to be done with it. I love my home, but putting it together was not fun for me the way my first build was.
To the OP, here is how our upgrades added up:
Electrical: $9915
this included adding high hats in the kitchen, the family room, bathrooms and MB. It also included adding junction boxes to the ceilings so I could add overhead light fixtures later. Most builders will only include wall outlets as standard in bedrooms. A junction box was $150, a high hat was $150...electrical is a big add on.
Flooring: $8000
we got hardwood throughout most of the main floor, but the Level 1 carpet was crap. We upgraded most of the carpet and padding. Also, the upstairs landing was standard carpet...we wanted hardwood. That was a $3600 upgrade
Plumbing $990
Generally just adding better toilets to the master and powder room, plus nicer fixtures because the ones that came with the house are god awful
Kitchen $24,000
This was $15,000 in custom cabinetry plus $8000 for appliances
I went way off the deep end on the kitchen. When I walked into the Design Center, I was told that they don't customize kitchens the way I wanted...I blew a fit. I threatened to not upgrade ANYTHING if they were going to force me to gut my house as soon as I moved in...they ended up bringing a cabinet designer in to work with me.
Structural Add ons included a sunroom ($17,000), and en suite bedrooms above that for the kids ($30,000). Curving our main staircase because the one that came standard was straight (that was a $16000 add on)
We did a gas fireplace that was stoned to the ceiling. That was about $4000
A clear span garage for DH $9000
Built in bookcases in the office $4500
We received about $45000 in credits and builder's incentives.
This is our 2nd home so we basically added everything that we felt we lacked in our first home.
Even with all all the above, there is still a lot to be changed out of this house to make it "less builder" and more suited to my family. The bathroom light fixtures are a throwback to the 80's as was the thing they decided to put over my kitchen table.
I can only imagine! And having to do it with an experience person would be even that much worse. My MIL was a little concerned that since we were using a local builder we didn't actually get a "designer" to help us make selections but overall it hasn't been a problem. Since we aren't doing any upgrades are selections are a lot more limited than if we had chosen to look at upgrade options. I will say the best thing about our local smaller builder is that is a husband wife team and the wife is great. She told us up front she would never show us anything no in budget and that has been really helpful. She has kind of worked as the designer for us since they have built so many homes she has a pretty good idea of what works and what doesn't.
Our house building adventure (UPDATED 8/20/12)
Wedding Planning Bio
Our wedding blogged! (Click Brad & Briana on the right side)
I totally agree with this. We'll end up with about $120,000 in upgrades when we're done, and we would be in a ton of trouble if the base price was at the top of our price range. We never thought that we would need to spend that much, and our house comes with everything standard (i.e. we could move in without upgrading anything, but we might not love it). Understanding what's standard or not will help make a decision about if this house is actually in your range.
Most of our upgrades are structural (expansions of the house, central air and heating aren't standard for some strange reason, attaching the garage), but at least $25,000 is for things we never thought we'd need to upgrade. As others have mentioned, the models are never standard, so we actually had no idea what the standard appliances, cabinets, flooring, fixtures, etc. looked like until AFTER we signed the contract. And then they have you over a barrel...you can't shop around and are stuck with whatever price they offer. I really wish we did have examples and prices of that stuff before signing.
We negotiated 95% of the upgrades, design center options, and structural changes prior to signing the contract. We too spent over $100k on these. There are so many different options it's really good to figure things out before settling on a price. I wouldn't be afraid to ask for something different if it's not what you want -- our builder was more than willing to do different things than their standard choices if we needed it.