We looked at several floorplans of homes that Ryan Homes was offering at Timber Ridge and initially priced out a Florence with our sales rep. The Florence is a 3 bedroom 1,952+ square foot home that starts in the low 210's. I found that when pricing this home out everything was basic and it would take a significant amount in upgrades to get the home to be something that I was happy with. The Florence had a separate living room and family room but the living room was not going to be a functional space for us. The Florence also only had three bedrooms but we really wanted four to help with resale value and because we think we would utilize the extra bedroom. After pricing out the Florence and then bringing home the price sheet to play with numbers even after making a ton of upgrades I still wasn't in love with the home. We knew from doing our research that upgrades could be a substantial amount so we had originally went with a home that was on the low end of our price range because we wanted to leave a good amount of our budget for upgrades.
After realizing I wasn't going to be happy with the Florence I took a look at the Palermo which is a four bedroom 2,265+ square foot home. The base price of the Palermo was in the upper 230s but I found that a lot of the upgrades that we would have to pay for in the Florence came standard on the Palermo. The Florence had a loft that could be converted to a fourth bedroom for more money but the Palermo had four bedrooms standard. Also we would have had to pay several thousand for kitchen cabinet upgrades in the Florence but in the Palermo cabinet upgrades didn't cost us any extra. After pricing both options out the Palermo was about the same price to slightly more than the Florence but the Palermo offered a mudroom, dining room, and office that we plan on converting to a play room, and more square footage. The Palermo also is located on an estate lot instead of a single family home lot which offers a much larger lot.
My advice is to price out several floorplans if you aren't set on one particular one. We ended up getting much more house and choosing a home we really love and originally overlooked due to the higher base price. Since upgrades and what is included can vary greatly it isn't always informative to base your decision on just the base price.
Just stumbled across your blog. We came to the exact same conclusion in our development, and just decided to go with building a Palermo over a Florence. The layout just seemed odd in the Florence and pretty much required you purchase the morning room or you'd really have no dining room. The master in the Florence was quite a bit larger though and you didn't have to walk through the bathroom to get to the closet, which is one thing that we were a little wary about with the Palermo.
ReplyDeleteSeems like you've probably been in the home for a bit now, we aren't breaking ground for a few more weeks.
Not sure if you're still monitoring this but if so curious to hear your thoughts and any last minute tips for requests/changes for the building process!