Building a Home (Part 2)

As if building a new home weren’t frustrating enough when things go well we’ve run into weather and construction site problems. The biggest barrier to progress on our new home has been lack of planning by the builder. They decided to begin building the home without first pouring the road for our cul-de-sac. This decision has worked against us because in November we had a lot of rain and this rain and the lack of roads inhibited the progress of construction. Very little was done in November and December for this exact reason.

Realizing that not having the roads in place is costing the builder money they have gone into overdrive to try and complete the road. However, an unexpected and thick rock bed is slowing down the installation of the sewer drains which is a required predecessor to the pouring of the roads. The builder really made some big mistakes by diverting their resources to other developments in late fall rather than tackling this road work earlier. Had they planned a little better I can’t help thinking that we would be closer to moving into our new home. We were at one point hoping to be in the home by December but now we are praying that they will be done by the end of February, when our lease on the apartment we are renting expires.

This brings me to my second topic: the sale of our other home. I’m not quite sure if selling our home and moving into an apartment was the right thing to do. Yet I wonder what it would have been like trying to sell the home with and deal with all of the construction delays that we have experienced. When we originally put the home on the market we were trying to arrange a January closing date thinking that this would have coincided with our closing date on the new house. However, the builder does not provide the actual closing date until 30 days before the closing so it would have been an interesting game of chicken trying to arrange all of the closing dates so that they coincided perfectly. I think selling the house early and doing the double move will in the long run reduce our overall stress level for this entire process. However, at this point I can’t say that I feel any less stress. Hopefully, the transition into the new house will be painless and make all of our efforts worth while.