Well, Cadence was supposed to respond to our offer by the 16th, according to the contract that their agent wrote up. We didn't hear back until the 22nd! We were pretty frustrated that they didn't even communicated to us that it was going to take longer to respond. We were left in the dark. BUT it was during that extra waiting time that we realized it would be a very good idea to take our home plans to some other builders and compare their quotes with Cadence's. DUH! We're the ones in power here, we own the plans and can have whomever we want build for us. We have no loyalties. So Cadence responded the 22nd with a price much higher than we anticipated or even thought reasonable. We immediately schedule to meet with the builder himself that evening and talk to him in person rather than through a third party. In the meeting I feel we did a great job explaining ourselves and negotiating. We realized that in the contract where we asked for a certain discounts, the builder's agent had passed on her losses to him (ie, rather than reducing her profit from 6 to 3% of the home price, she put it as more discounts in upgrades, which would be a much bigger blow to the builder than to her, if that makes sense). We explained that to him, and he said, "Now that things are much clearer, I'll reconsider and get back to you tomorrow." Good. It sounded promising, and it sort of was. Well, he took two days to respond, another strike for him. He did meet our original offer, but with the condition that we add an extra 10K of upgrades. What? Nu uh! And we also found out that it would be an extra 4K just to finish the driveway. We countered his offer, of course. We felt he was trying to nickel and dime us! The day before his third counter offer, we met with Pantheon Construction, a company we had met with before find Cadence, but we walked away from them because we were wary of their stipulation of having us take out the construction loan. And we thought we could do without their agent and his fee. Pantheon quoted us a SIGNIFICANTLY lower price than Cadence (even with the agent's fee)! We were excited, but we said we were still waiting to hear back from Cadence's builder. The next day we heard back. He countered too high, again. So we declined and walked away.
We were glad to walk away from a price we were not comfortable with, and we weren't impressed at all, to say nothing of satisfied, with their manner and timing of communicating with us and meeting their deadlines. However, we were bummed to walk away from the wonderful neighborhood, location, and lot size! But - we still had hope because we were able to find the developer's contact info! (The builder's agent wouldn't give us the developer's name or number because it would be a conflict interest for them. So I called someone else and got the needed info immediately, ha ha!) I was able to get ahold of him this afternoon, and he said he would sell us just the lot without making us build with Cadence! And for a price we think is a great deal! If this works out, we're going to have Pantheon build our home. We're meeting with the developer tonight at 8pm!
(Today I also talked to one of my friends' dads because he is a home-builder on the East Coast, and he thinks everything sounds good and legit, which gave us a lot of confidence. We've also talked with Peter's great uncle, who has built 4 custom homes, and he's given us valuable advice as well.)
I've just never heard of anyone getting a floor plan from one party, getting the lot from another party, and having yet ANOTHER party build the actual home. Are we just super picky? Or do we just have strong enough wills to find a way to get what we want? So many times we've almost settled, almost. But then the idea came to me, "Maybe McArthur will sell us just the floor plan?" And then, "Maybe we can just get this lot without having to build with Cadence?" This has been such a process for us, and I'm sure we're not even half way done yet. But we're getting closer, and we're getting excited! Like I said in the last post, everyone we've talked to has somehow helped us get to where we are now. And we are indeed grateful.
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