Ideal Homes - Anything else is less than ideal.

Want to move to a city that is widely regarded as safe, family friendly, and still accessible to average buyers? Who doesn’t? Well, welcome to Yukon, OK! We at Ideal Homes heard the buzz about Yukon’s high quality of life by way of the distinction that was published in 2009, when BusinessWeek named it as “Best Affordable Suburb” in Oklahoma because of its strong local economy, clean air, easy commutability, low crime, and excellent schools. 

We knew immediately that this was one town we needed to make available to Ideal Homes buyers. The result? Three new communities, one of which we’re delighted to tell you about today. It’s called Somer’s Village, and it’s where buyers can own an Oklahoma green home from the low $100’s in one of the most promising small cities in the state. At Somer’s Village, buyers can choose from nine one story floor plans, designed to offer you plenty of room to spread out and enjoy. 

Abundant natural lighting is the standard here, as are safety features like tornado ties and anchor bolts and a clean water delivery system. But our home building experts know that aesthetics are important to you as well; so, little extras like hidden hinges in the cabinetry, plant ledges in the rooms you enjoy decorating the most, and full landscaping are all part of the package. 

Ready to learn more about these Yukon new homes? Check out Somer’s Village at 13301 SW 4th Street, Yukon, OK 73085. Or, call the community sales office at (866) 277-2670 to ask your questions.

You’ve probably heard a lot about Oklahoma City new homes being more affordable than new homes in other parts of the country. If so, guess what – you heard correctly! Oklahoma City is a great place to live and raise a family for many well-documented reasons, and affordable new homes are definitely among them. And as always, you can count on Ideal Homes to bring you some of the most desirable new homes you’ll find in the area. 

You’ll love our Country Place community, which features homes affordably priced from the mid $100,000’s. Many of these Oklahoma City new homes are move-in ready, and their appearances are a delight inside and out. With ten floorplans to choose from, there’s plenty of opportunity for personalizing your space; and, the central location (between Interstates 44 and 35) makes this one of the most ideally positioned neighborhood in Southwest Oklahoma City.

And, don’t forget the advanced energy savings that are available to all owners of our Oklahoma green homes. When the energy-related features of your home exceed the government’s Energy Star standards (and they do!), you know you’re in for some serious savings on electricity, heating, and cooling.

 For more information on Country Place, contact the sales office at (866) 277-2670; or, stop in to see these Oklahoma City new homes in person. It’s located at 2340 S.W. 135th St., Oklahoma City, OK 73170. We can’t wait to see you there!

Yes, we’ve told you that Ideal Homes offers some of the most affordable Oklahoma green homes you’ll find, but for those of you who are ready to move up,  check out our Norman new homes at Carrington Place.  The location in West Norman is in high demand and with incredible floorplan designs you’ll be hard pressed to find a better Community in Norman, Oklahoma.

Take, for example, the Lancaster. In this plan, the 4 bedroom, 3 1/2 bath, two story Energy Star qualified home includes an optional, upstairs bonus room; a French country style kitchen features bricked walls (a favorite with style savvy buyers); and, a luxurious first floor master suite tha is everything you’ve dreamed a bedroom retreat could be. Oh, and did we mention the textured walls within these beautiful Norman new homes?  

Plus, these Norman new homes come with a landscape package, reducing the amount of time you’ll spend toiling in the yard. Instead, you can enjoy your weekends relaxing inside, or out and about in the family-friendly city of Norman. We encourage you to browse through the 11 different floorplans that are available for this outstanding community; each is distinct in its design, so one of them is bound to speak to your homebuying needs. For more information on these new homes in Norman, OK, contact the Carrington Place sales office at (866) 277-2670.

That was quite a hail storm on Sunday!  Unless you’re one of the fortunate few, you’re probably hearing from some roofers this week. Here are a few tips to keep in mind:

Unless you are a pro, roofing is not a DIY project. Which means that the guys are out in force, knocking on your door, leaving brochures, telling you everything you want to hear. That is: “We’ll fix it, and you won’t owe anything.”

For some of us it’s not exactly going to work out that way, which is another story, but there are things you can and should ask before you hire anyone.

If you haven’t done so, be sure to file a claim with your insurance company. Not only does this get the process started, but they may have specific vendors they want you to use.

If you’re on your own to select a roofer, be sure to ask for the following:

• Full name and address of the company – Someone based near your home may give you quicker service.
• Proof of license, bonding capability, liability and Workers’ Compensation insurance. Don’t forget to get the same information for sub-contractors
• Company history – How long have they been in business, are they members of national roofing associations, and are there any pending legal actions against the company?
• Customer references – Ask them to include someone who had a complaint, so you can get an idea of how the company handled it
• Get a written contract – The contract must include total price, deposit (how much and when due – 20% is reasonable), payment instructions, the company’s guarantee and manufacturer’s warranties, and latest start date. Ensure that the estimate includes replacement vent flanges and flashing, not reused materials. The contract also should include a written description of how unexpected costs, such as rotting roof decking, will be handled. Always get a written estimate for add-on expenses before authorizing the work.
• Make sure the company obtains the REQUIRED permits.
• Ask about the repair process – Be sure the crew will not remove more roof than they can replace in a single day and that they have enough tarps to cover the roof in case of bad weather.
• Be sure the estimate includes clean-up, hauling away old roofing materials and project trash, and that the contract amount covers costs for the dumpster, hauling and dumping. Don’t forget to have them go over your yard with magnets to find stray nails.

You should get:

• Written proposal
• Signed written contract
  

About payment:

• Never pay in cash.
• Don’t pay in full until the work has been completed and passed the final permit inspection.
• Don’t pay in full until you have received both material and worker’s liens.

Congratulations! You’re the proud owner of a new home (hopefully an Ideal home). You’ve survived moving day with your marriage, your relationships with friends and family, and your back mostly intact. 

You’ve unpacked at least 100 more boxes than you packed, and the garage is still stacked to the ceiling. In spite of your best efforts, the coffee machine and your favorite t-shirt are on the missing list. And, worst of all, your house just doesn’t feel like home yet.

Consider something green and growing. Indoors or out there’s no quicker way to make your home feel welcoming than festive container gardens.

Tip #1: Just buy them. If you have no inclination toward planting and tending, you can find patio pots in a wide variety of colors at garden centers, hardware and home centers, and the plant tents cropping up in parking lots all over town. Do decide in advance if your container garden is going into sun or shade and pick accordingly. If the tag doesn’t give you this information, be sure to ask. Getting this part wrong will doom your pretty pot from the start.

If you’re sick of unpacking, grab the kids and take a swing at planting your own pots. Here are some ideas.

Tip #2: Pick your container carefully. Clay, stone, concrete and iron pots are gorgeous, but once you fill them with plants, they are very heavy. Resin and Styrofoam offer a lighter choice. These have improved so much that you can hardly tell them from the real deal, and many of them survive the winter better than clay pots.

Tip #3: Pick colors that look good with your home. Here are some sample palettes that always look good together.

Foliage (leaves)

• Red, silver and blue
• Dark green and lime
• Dark green, red and variegated (2-color)

Flowers

• All one color – any color, just vary them from light to dark
• White with anything – makes all the other colors show up better. Try Diamond Frost euphorbia. It works in sun or shade and makes any pot look professional.
• Cool colors – pink, purple and blue
• Warm colors – red, orange and yellow

One Last Tip: Thrillers, Fillers and Spillers. Choose one attention-getting plant to be your focal point, at least one plant that will drape over the side of the pot and medium-height plants to fill in between.

So that’s it. If you need more ideas, check out www.ProvenWinners.com for ideas and pot recipes. And enjoy going green!

There are a lot of resources on-line that give great tips for moving into a new home.  Here are nine that might come in handy:

• Make an investment in your marriage and friendships – hire movers.  Don’t eat for a month, sell your car and ride a bike to work, sell a kidney…just do whatever it takes.  Hire people to carry and transport your stuff! You will not regret it.
• Ok, ok, hiring movers won’t work for everyone.  If you can’t hire movers, start sucking up to your truck-owning friends several months before the move.  Do not wait until you have announced that you’re moving.  That’s too obvious.  If you have friends who own trucks, think strategically.  Birthday cards, un-solicited acts of kindness, etc.  The key is getting them to a point where helping you move is their idea.  Or better yet, the idea of the truck-owners spouse.  Here’s what you want her to say, “Honey, did you hear that ______________is moving?  They’re so nice, why don’t you offer to help them.  You have a truck and they are our only friends who remember our birthday and offer to bring ice cream when they go to Braums.”
• You also need at least one “geek friend” to help you move.  Who else is going to reconnect all your electronics?  Research shows that 95 percent of cussing occurs when working on electronics.  Ok…that’s made up, but it seems right. You can use the same tactic mentioned above to recruit your geek friend.  Do not make them carry stuff.  They have one job – to get your TV, Computer, and Stereo working.
• Personally carry and transport your own underwear.  No matter who helps you move, at least one box always gets dropped with the contents sprawling out all over the place.  That box is always an underwear box.  Take that one on yourself.  
• Guard all remote controls with your life.  They always end up in a box with dishes or socks or garage stuff.  You can lose lots of things and get over it, but you do not want to lose the remote control to your TV.  You won’t go buy a new one because you’ll convince yourself that, “it’s got to be somewhere.”  But you’ll never find it.
• Threaten to fire all of your service providers (phone, cable, internet, etc.).  “Since I’m moving I think I’ll take this opportunity to switch providers.”  Maybe you’ll get a cost reduction or cool incentive.
• Do not put boxes with household items in the garage of your new home.  Period. Put them in the house.  If you have to walk around something it increases the likelihood that you’ll open it and put it away.  If you set it down in the garage, even for a moment, you will never open it.  Even if it’s full of cash.  You’ll always say, “It’s out the garage.  I’ll get it this weekend.”Go meet you rnew neighbors instantly.  Don’t wait for them to come to you.  They are secretly making irrational judgments about you by the stuff coming out of the moving van.  Go to their house and say the following, “Hi, we’re the ________________.  We are so excited to move in.  We’ve heard great things about the people who live here.  If we ever do anything to annoy you, please do not hesitate to tell us – we have thick skin.  Once we’re settled we really want to get to know you better.”  Then say something nice about their home.  Now you’ll get the benefit of the doubt.
• Finally, set up the guest bedroom first.  If you have family in town to help you move, they will most likely offer to stay at a hotel or with another relative.  This seems like a good idea, but it is not.  Insist that they stay with you.  When you’re moving in, they are not family any more, they are your workers.  You do not want them to leave.  Who knows when they’ll be back.  As soon as you release them…you lose control!  If you allow them to leave the premises, they tend to take long lunches and run personal errands.  Take advantage of them while you have them there.
• I hope that helps.  Happy moving.

Here at Ideal Homes we make it a point to carefully select the cities in which we proudly place our new homes. That’s because we want the owners of our Oklahoma green homes to enjoy the finest quality of life possible; not only when they’re enjoying their home inside, but when they’re busy living their lives throughout the community as well. With that in mind, we’d like to tell you about Sundance.

Sundance is a community of new homes in Midwest City, OK. within the Nicoma Park School District.   Here at these Midwest City new homes, “the spirit flies high” (as indicated by the town motto), and there are plenty of ways for families to safely occupy their free time: parks, sports, shopping…you name it. Plus, Tinker Air Force base is minutes away from these Midwest City new homes for sale; many of our military homeowners find this to be one of the greatest conveniences Sundance has to offer.

But what about the homes themselves? Don’t worry: They’ll get your attention too. Like our other Oklahoma green homes, Sundance features Oklahoma Energy Star homes that help families like yours manage utility budgets while minimizing impact on resources (in fact, we built a total of 649 Energy Star qualified new homes in 2009, and we plan to do more as this year rolls on).

But energy efficiency isn’t all these Midwest City new homes for sale have to offer. Sundance provides homebuyers with their choice of nine distinct floorplans, starting at prices as low as $128,452. In fact, our largest floorplan in this community is still at the affordable price point.  For more information on the Midwest City new homes located in Sundance, stop in to their office at 12612 SE 16th Court, Midwest City, OK 73020. Or, give them a call at (866) 277-2670. Don’t forget the $8,000 Tax Credit ends April 30^th, 2010!

Ideal Homes is proud of our most beloved communities – beloved because it’s located in one of the most ideal (no pun intended) cities for Oklahoma families to call home.  It is also a 600 acre, master planned community offering home from $115,000 t0 $300,000.

Valencia is conveniently located 15 minutes from Oklahoma City.  It falls in the Edmond and Deer Creek school districts. For those unaware, Edmond is the place to be if you want your children in great schools, your family near great recreation, and your home in a safe, quiet neighborhood – and who doesn’t want those things? Nationally, Edmond has been recognized by Relocate America as one of the “Top 100 Places to Live,” and Universal Publications of New York recently declared it “America’s Best Small Town.”

Other than its incredible location, what does Valencia in Edmond have to offer buyers? This one of a kind community features curving streets surrounded by lighted sidewalks, as well as over 30 acres of parks and open spaces. And guess what? Valencia in Edmond is the only new home community that offers that!

And what about Valencia in Edmond new homes for sale? Currently, we have five move-in ready Valencia homes for sale (although plenty of others are underway). As you’ll see, they’re incredibly spacious and loaded with interior amenities. For more information on Valencia in Edmond, OK, visit our friendly sales office at 2200 NW 182nd Street, Edmond, OK 73012. Or, call them at (866) 277-2670 to arrange an appointment.

You may have already heard the buzz brewing, but it’s time you heard it from the horse’s mouth: Ideal Homes is currently developing two new communities of new homes in Norman. Oklahoma new green homes, our specialty, will be the star of the show when these two communities roll out later this year:

Red Canyon Ranch: Nestled in a part of Norman known for rolling hills and an abundant greenbelt, these homes in Norman, OK will range from 1,555 to 2,498 square feet.

Green Leaf Trails: Located closely near its predecessor, this brand new community in Norman will have homes starting in the $150,000s.

As always, we’re leading the way in innovation with these two new communities. Because we were the first American homebuilder to construct affordable Energy Star homes, and we built the first Certified NAHB Green new homes in Oklahoma, you know you can count on Ideal Homes to bring green to the masses.

That’s because for us, energy efficiency is more than a trend: It’s the fiber of our company. After all, why should an elite class of buyers be the only homeowners to reap all the benefits of an environmentally sound home?

There will be more updates as these communities move closer to their debut; but for now, suffice it to say that you will be impressed by the way their names reflect the character of their surroundings.  Stay tuned to the Ideal Homes blog for new developments on our newest batch of Oklahoma new green homes.

We’ve already addressed that energy efficient homes can lower a homeowner’s energy costs, and explained that our incorporation of Energy Star appliances into our Oklahoma City new homes has helped our buyers save time and time again. But what else can energy efficiency do for you?

In each of our Oklahoma City new homes, energy efficiency results in more favorable living conditions for our homeowners. Unlike new home builders that don’t adopt energy efficient practices, Ideal Homes offers a home living environment that is more:

Cost-effective: Lower utility bills mean more money for other obligations – including your mortgage, which could potentially be paid off more quickly as a result of your savings.

Durable: Less wear and tear on the home’s infrastructure means increased protection of your investment.

Comfortable: Your quality of life can be enhanced by minimized noise, emissions, and other pollutants.

Sustainable: An energy efficient Oklahoma home contributes to the longevity of its local environment, including the outdoor landscaping.

Each Oklahoma City new home that we build is twice as energy efficient as Energy Star qualifications in heating and cooling.  What would you do with an extra $50 – $80 bucks a month?