Ryan Homes Inc review: Home lot grading and final product.

We are set to close on our home built by Ryan homes on 8/25. The development is Coble Farm located in Fuquay Varina, North Carolina. One of the main desires I had when looking to purchase was to have a flat yard. The Representative showed us three available lots. All had lot premiums. I choose a lot that looked to be the flattest. However, when it came to the house color selection, I was not given a choice at to color because it was "pre-selected for the house being placed on that specific lot. So, in order to get the color of the house that I like, my choice was to pick one of the other lots. Logically, this made no sense and it should have been a hint as to their overall inflexibility. (More on inflexibility to follow). The lot I had to choose had a drain in the back corner of the property. When I pointed out that the drain was significantly below grade ( about 3 feet down) I was told that the drain would be raised. Their land department later told me that it would be raised approximately 1 1/2 feet and that final grading would include a swale to meet the drain. Not ideal, but I thought it was something I could live with. We later met with the construction manager who gave us a set of architectural engineering blue prints. He gave a general explanation of what was represented on it. When I question the grading and/or treatment of the yard with the drain, he assured me that it was to be raised and I would be pleased with the outcome. Naturally not being a civil engineer I initialed the blue prints, taking them at their word of what was being explained. Final grading of the property was completed yesterday 7/21/23. My Ryan construction manager sent me pictures of the work but it was hard to ell grading, so I went to see for myself. I was shocked to find that the drain was still a good two feet below the surface. A so called "swale" was graded to meet the drain. Note that adjacent yards were also "swaled" to go through my yard which is understandable. However, in order to make the water flow into that the two feet deep drain, the "swale" in my year is a good two feet deep on one side and at least the amount"2 feet) wide. Needless to say, the "swale" looks like a dry streambed. This is not acceptable. It shows a lack of understanding of what grading had to take place in addition to general statements made to me to aleve my initial concerns. The fact that property at to an older subdivision whose yard is which buts up to my back yard totally flat. My lot (Except for the drain) was exactly like that until civil engineers began playing with it to create swales (dry stream beds) and angle to create unnatural water flows and ruining a perfectly nice yard. Clearly the main cause of this was an improperly installed drain, which was to be address by was clearly not. In short this was a total misrepresentation of what I was to receive. To add insult to injury I had to pay a premium for the land when in actuality they should have paid me to select what they knew was going to be a mess. As to inflexibility, one instance waqs the selection of the color siding of the house which I explained above. I basically was forced to pick another lot because they would not allow me to put my desired color on the lot I was originally selecting This should have been RED FLAG warning #1. Next, upon going through my dry wall inspection I asked to have two puck lights in the kitchen moved six inches to align with the "island". They refused to do it. Mind you I did not ask for extra lighting. The change would have resulted in zero cost to them. No extra lights and no extra wiring, just moving what was there six inches to the left. I pressed them on that more then once and their answer continued to be " it was not in the plan" This is a totally asinine and illogical statement but one I had to live with. I found their sales representative to be a nice person and and given that her ultimate goal is to sell houses she is certainly good at her job. The construction manager was friendly and basically tells you want you want to hear to a point. Then it's just a party line which basically is illogical and ultimately to some degree degrading. It turns out to be take it or leave it. At this point after forking over tens of thousands of dollars it's hard to "leave it" without losing your money. Based on my initial dealings with the sales representative (knowledgeable and focused on her sale) and their finance people (excellent in my judgement), I'm an extremely unhappy buyer. I think in the end their attitude is take what you get. That would be okay if I wasn't paying for the house and they were giving it to me. I'm sure nothing will happen with this complaint in the end, but at least this can serve as a warning to other potential buyers, that they are inflexible and somewhat deceiving when it comes to property selection and grading.