Week 6 - NVR Initial Info

We finally received our "overnighted" package from NVR on Monday (we had been told it was sent last Wednesday, but the package clearly showed it was sent on Friday for the next business day).  There was a ton of paperwork to go over.  We scheduled a phone meeting with our NVR guy for that Monday evening to go through it all together, but he never called.  We let our sales rep know, and then we heard from our NVR guy first thing the next morning.  He was very apologetic and rescheduled a phone meeting with us for Friday.  We spent a lot of the week researching what everything in the mortgage paperwork meant since this is our first mortgage.  When we finally did talk to him on Friday, we found him to be very friendly, helpful, and straightforward, and, as we have been a little leary given the almost nonexistent communication, we were pleasantly surprised.  The good faith estimate from NVR is pretty good; the rate is great, but the closing costs are a lot higher than we were expecting, largely due to living in a high tax area and the very high NVR administrative costs.

Prior to finding our Strauss, we had been pre-approved by a small bank recommended by our realtor.  The small bank greatly impressed us; we were able to speak directly to the VP who personally handled all of our information, was very communicative and prompt with information, and was immensely helpful with explaining our likely options to us.  When we surprisingly found the Strauss, we were offered the common incentive of $12,000 for a finished basement if we went with NVR.  We shared this information with our realtor, who was pretty sure the small bank wouldn't be able to beat that (since not using NVR would mean a $12,000 higher purchase price), but she asked if she could share the information with the VP anyway.  Surprisingly, we heard from her the next day with the message that the VP would like to try to beat the $12,000 incentive.  We had a phone meeting with him after our meeting with our NVR guy, and he sent us his good faith estimate with a great rate that did actually end up beating NVR's offer slightly, even with the additional $12,000 tacked on to the purchase price.  We were pleasantly surprised.  Our sales rep said that NVR works very smoothly with Ryan Homes, and that despite our initial disappointment in our NVR loan officer's communication, he was really one of the best and it was just a crazy time.  He also told us that NVR would probably fight to keep us since our credit is excellent, so we will contact them tomorrow to make them aware of the offer from the small bank to see if they can at least meet it.

Since there is so much time before we close, nothing mortgage-wise is actually final yet, so we still have a long time wait to see what the actual rates and costs end up being.