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Build a new house
 For many, owning your own house is a life changing
experience. Our first house was a quaint 1920's bungalow with 3 bedrooms. With
the incredible rise in property values in recent years, I've been able to sell,
after only 2.5 years, and make a little step up to something better.
After becoming engaged to my fiancee, Rachel, in 2004 we decided to
plan for the next step. She works in the electrical contractor business
specializing in new construction. This gave us both great insight to what's out
in the market for new homes. We knew what builders had good business practice,
based on how they dealt with their subcontractors, and which ones were built
well and held their value. Basically we found that pretty much any builder is a
good choice, except maybe KB Homes, but
thankfully they don't build in our region.
Like any project we defined requirements, in no particular order:
Having lived in Southern NJ and in Philadelphia suburbs, I
decided I wanted a more open atmosphere without the overpopulation, traffic
jams, and related inconveniences of living in a metro area, like Philly. There
are plenty of such areas in NJ and PA, however they come at a price,
particularly in property taxes. The more I looked around, the more I found that
Delaware had the best overall value, for no matter what you were buying in the
market. Delaware property taxes are easily half or less than equivalent
properties in Delaware country, PA. NJ? Forget it. I'm not paying $5,000+
on existing property and $10,000+ on new construction. Delaware is currently averaging
less than $2,000 in many areas for new construction. That's why people are
flocking to areas like Bear, Wilmington, and now Middletown.
We browsed web sites and toured model homes from the likes of
Anderson Homes, Benchmark Homes, Blenheim Homes, Dilsheimer Communities, Handler Corp., Louis Capano, Nolen Companies, Pulte Homes, Ryland Homes, Ryan Homes, T.H. Properties, and Toll Brothers. Some were reasonably
priced, practical sized homes, and some should come with indentured servants to
maintain a house that's just way too big. Since I already determined Delaware
will be our new location, I found that only a few builders have available
construction sites in Delaware. But of course, it's always good to research the
competition anyway.
So what did I choose? I went with Ryland Homes in Middletown, DE.
The model is called
Dinmont II, named after the Dandie Dinmont
Terrier. It's not exactly terrier sized, especially since it will be
housing our two great danes. It has a decent sized attached 2 car garage for our
car hobby, a spacious finished basement, 9' ceilings, garden bath in master
bathroom, huge master bedroom, walk in closets in all bedrooms, big bonus room
on 2nd floor, 1/3 acre land, corner lot in the back of the developement, and a
slew of other niceties. Having previously owned an old house, I found it fairly
easy selecting practical options and knowing what questions to ask about the
building process. What else, it's also nestled in with 4 other developers:
Anderson, Louis Capano, Ryan, and Benchmark. Most of the homes in the
development so far are very large houses, which, in my opinion, is great for our
property value. The development, Estates at Dove Run, is built on top of an old
farm. Hopefully they keep the old barns and silos around as a historical
monument to the original owner.
June 16, 2004: Old house sale is settled and new house
construction is now set to begin immediately.
July 14, 2004: Finally, something happened to the dirt!
They surveyed the land for excavation.
July 24, 2004: Yay! They dug a hole.
August 8, 2004: Footers are poured.
August 9, 2004: Foundation is poured!
August 15, 2004: Foundation is waterproofed. Note that only walls
exterior to living space is waterproofed. The garage and front porch walls are
skipped. These have channels cut at the bottom of the walls so water can get
out and not pool up inside.
I decided to take a few surrounding pictures of the open area before it gets
blocked by some of the houses.
August 28, 2004: Wood has arrived!
October 13, 2004: Much progress!
February 12, 2005: Long overdue final update.
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