August 3, 2022

What to do while you wait for your new construction home

This has to be the absolute worst part of the new construction home building process! This is the process that we are currently in as I am writing this. The builder will try to give you an expectation of when your home will be done. Just do yourself a favor and throw that out the window.

My mom always said that construction and renovation projects always take 3 times as long and cost 3 times more. Which is 100% true! We were told it would take about 5 months. They already had all of the permits. We are looking at about 11 months right now as of the current close date (in two weeks!) So stoked!

Luckily for us, we were able to sign the price into the contract! The price of wood has gone up tremendously, so we are very fortunate. So while you are waiting for this crazy crazy long process to be done here’s what you can do!

Get all your financing docs

One of the first productive things you can do is to collect the financing docs. This will include 2 years of tax returns, bank statements, and pay stubs. To make sure that you qualify for the mortgage (if you are going the financing route).

You’ll also want to shop around rates from different lenders. For us, there is a preferred lender that offers us benefits for going through them as the lender. They are helping with closing costs and we’ve been given lots of free upgrades to out home.

Although we have been able to talk them down on the interest rate by using other lenders rates and benefits. So it can be extremely beneficial to shop around and negotiate a little bit.

I also hate negotiating I absolutely despise it, but this loan is for 15 – 30 years of your life and could save you potentially tens of thousands of dollars. We’ve saved about 50k over the course of 30 years by taking two days to get rates and negotiate with lenders. Talk about a return!

Drive by the location

Another thing we’ve done a lot is drive to the location of our new home. We have been able to see the progress on the home! We like to go at night or on the weekends so no one is there. You can walk through and measure things out without getting in anyones way.

This has been really helpful to see the progress for ourselves and not wait on the builder to get back to us. There are a lot of benefits to driving out there. The first is measuring. Most recently we measured for a mirror in our half bath and the staircase to see what kind of baby gate will fit. So we can buy those things if needed and have them ready to go when we get the keys to the home.

Also a fantastic part is meeting the neighbors, other people walk around their homes the same times, nights and weekends and we’ve been able to meet loads of neighbors in the same scenario and sometimes learn what they did at the finish of their home.

For example, one neighbor gave us the number to the landscapers and the catalog for us to be able to choose the front yard landscaping. Now thats a great neighbor!

Another great thing is if you se something that is not quite right you can point it out to the builder faster. Like a wall is where it shouldn’t be or an outlet should be added in a place where it’s not before it’s too late and it be comes money and time intensive.

You can also plan out the day-to-day. Maybe how you’ll drive to work. For us we wanted to figure out if we could walk or drive to church and if we could do grocery delivery at the location (which saves so much time and money!).

Also what activities and the kind of school we wanted to put our baby J in once she got old enough. Near us, we have loads of homeschool co-ops, language immersion public schools, charter schools, and private schools. All are worth weighing the options.

Plan out the decoration

Just about everyone I know loves pinterest. It’s great to plan out the decoration. Maybe you’re already established and have a lot of decor for your home, but this is out first home! So we are starting fresh on the decor. I am laying what I want on my pinterest and getting an idea of things to buy.

I have a space for filming youtube videos and a space for our baby J to play so I need to find functional pieces to go in those spaces. All of which I can start to plan out on pinterest and measure out when we go to the house on the weekends!

Also, with a year of waiting and planning you can get holliday gear on sale! We live in a very patriotic corner of the united states so 4th of July and memorial day are both causes to decorate and celebrate! Along with the Christmas sales. We can buy Christmas gear for the new home on sale before it runs out to save a bit on it!

Plan out the move

The next thing that we will be doing is planning out our move! This means that we’ll be planning out what to pack what to keep out incase we get pushed out again. As well as moving help, baby entertaining help (shout out to my mother in law she’s the best), and packing help. We can plan out a uhaul and what days/times to get things all done.

Theres also a huge laundry list of things that need to be changed when you move. So planning this out will make life so much easier! Some things would include kids schools, phone plan, electrical, water, wifi, sewer, work days off, licenses with address changes, amazon delivery spots, etc.. I know I missed a bunch, but if things are not crucial to get mail to that address you could move it over early and save some time.

I like to move things over right away and have us be settled. My husband on the other hand just waits until he needs something and changes it then. That would be so stressful for me!