Background

My wife and I recently relocated to central New York from Fairfield County CT. We have to find suitable housing as soon as possible but by June 30th at the absolute latest. We were looking at existing housing stock in the area (greater Syracuse) and found that houses are much less expensive than back in CT. We somewhat expected that. What we didn't expect was that we could build with Ryan for the same or less than purchasing an existing structure or what I like to call a "used house". I was initially reluctant to build again as I had done that in CT previously and it was a nightmare. However, the people at Ryan were very reassuring and we therefore forged ahead.
We are going into this knowing that we are not purchasing a custom built house dream house with luxury options galore. Although this would be close to a dream house. We are purchasing our "next house" and we fully plan on building our dream house sometime in the future. In the meantime we need a house that will meet our current needs and our short term future needs (5+years).
Our initial choice was a Ryan development closer to my wife's job but the only lots left were under high tension power lines or a 1 acre lot that included half of a pond. I'm no insurance expert, but I figured owning a pond, next to a public sidewalk, in a New York village, wasn't the best option for us. A Ryan salesperson suggested we look at another new development 20 minutes away from where we are currently.  We found that the lots were 1/2 acre or more and that there is a terrific state park and golf course close buy. Also, the school system is one of the best in the area. This, plus the incentives sold us. We picked a Ravenna, added a few upgrades, and now we are under construction. Ground was broken on February 14th.