House Purchase Advice

[WRXtranceformed]

We just put in an offer on a house built by Ryan Homes here in Cville. It was built in 2007, like right at the height of the housing boom, so I'm a little concerned that Ryan, being a national builder, might've cut some corners since they were trying to put up houses as fast as possible. I'm hoping that the housing inspection doesn't turn up anything too horrible. Is there anything in particular I should be concerned about with a Ryan built home?

That is exciting Brian congrats! So my short answer is have a healthy concern of any home built by a national or large scale builder, especially back then. Ryan has built some fine homes. I live in one right now, but it was owned by a project manager for Ryan who was an acquaintance of mine and built it himself...so it has a lot of "tightening up" (stringers were screwed instead of nailed, way more blown insulation in my attic than the other townhouses, etc.). I also had him go through a punch list I made for him before I bought it. I will also say however that I worked alongside Ryan project managers in the first shared community I built homes in and they did some of the dumbest stuff I have ever seen. I never walked through one of their homes under construction there but I saw a number of oversights on the outside of the home before close in and they had OSHA on site several times for violations whereas we didn't have a single visit (other than routine inspections). The county building inspectors always talked trash about the Ryan PMs to us too :lol:

I also built another Ryan home down here before a contract dispute with the company caused me to cancel it before completion. The PMs down here were really good and did a great job, I helped frame check the house and I found very little that needed to be addressed before drywall. Toll Brothers had an AWFUL reputation in Virginia but they are fine down here. I guess my point is that it really depends on local construction leadership and PMs. I would definitely trust a run through from a home inspector. And yeah, your AC is going to need to be replaced soon and unfortunately your windows are going to be complete builder-grade junk. It's generally a little more costly but I decided that our next home is going to be custom built...not necessarily a huge one but one that has energy efficient windows / upgrades as well as an HVAC system that is worth a damn.