Never never never say things are going well or that you've been lucky like I did in my previous post.
On 18 September we'd just returned from a week in San Antonio waiting out Hurricane Ike. Our new house was virtually undamaged. We were to have the final inspection with the builder on Friday and hoped to close on the following Monday.
We had our final inspection on Friday. It went relatively well. Some things undone, because of the storm mostly, and Wife found a few dozen more items that needed touch up paint, but generally we were pleased.
But, while we were having the inspections, three business jet aircraft flew directly over our house. I would conservatively guess they were at 500-feet -- close enough to see the pilots. They flew directly at our family room windows then proceeded to land at Sugar Land Regional airport, which is 1-2 miles away.
I was moderately freaked out; Wife was solidly freaked out. We came home and the first thing I did was to start an online search of Sugar Land Regional Airport. I found that the airport services "more than 7200 aircraft a month" and that it "Handles small, private planes to the largest corporate aircraft, such as the Boeing 737 BBJ." Further digging revealed that in August 2008 they handled 6,961 takeoffs or landings. Digging into yet another site I discover that at peak times the airport can have as many as 10 operations per hour. So much for "it's just a little regional airport for private pilots".
We go out to the house on Saturday at about the time we expected the most take offs and landings. No jets came over head, but we realize that the house is right in the gun barrel of the airport runway. We see three jets taking off in the opposite direction away from us. We have more than a dozen propeller driven planes take off toward the house, but turn left before reaching us. We're still freaked.
We sweat things out on Sunday and on Monday, I call our realtor and the sales agent calling off the deal ... and watching our earnest money disappear ... and the deposits on the utilities. And probably the money for inspections, etc etc.
We're dispondent.
On Tuesday I write to our housing company telling them what happened and asking to extend the lease on our corporate apartment. We're supposed to check out on Wednesday. I start receiving emails saying, "No can do." Because of people needing housing from Ike, all apartments are booked. I swallow hard and start searching for hotels. The nearest one I can find is all the way back in San Antonio -- three hours away.
Now I'm suicidal.
The first ray of sunshine shows up late Tuesday afternoon. The head of Oakwood Apartments for Houston calls me himself saying that he's pulled all the strings and called in his chips and we can stay for 30 more days. Being the manly man I am, I cry on the phone.
We start looking for houses to rent -- figuring that god is trying to tell us "Don't buy a house right now. Weren't you paying attention when I put a landfill next to the first one you wanted, sent a hurricane, and now put this house in the glide path? Go rent." But, he's not helping us: everything we see to rent in Houston is crap. The depression grows.
So today, we're back looking for new houses. We visited 16 houses today north of the city. We found quite a few possibles. We're organizing our thoughts, and 700 pictures that Wife took today, and we'll try to make another decision.
Sorry for not writing more. It's been a long 10 days.
Showing posts with label Telfair. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Telfair. Show all posts
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Done and dusted - or at least half-way there
We bought a house today. Well, at least made a commitment on one. After a long and tedious battle in trying to decide between Erik's house and Vicki's house. We finally landed on Erik's. 
We made an offer, he made a counter offer, and we took it. And I, for one, am just thrilled. We'll work out details starting on Tuesday or Wednesday next week, depending on what Hurricane Gustav does. We have to go through all the formalities, including inspections, arranging the loan etc., but for all intents and purposes, we're home owners. It's thrilling. It's been a long, long time since I've owned a house. I didn't realize how much it meant to me until we finally said, "Go" on this one. I'm very, very happy.
For those of you that want to dig deeper, I put pictures and captions on FaceBook. The pictures were taken on two different days: the first when we viewed the property on our own with the sales agent and the second when we viewed the property "open house" with our realtor, Marla, yesterday. You can tell the difference between the two days because they dressed up the house with plants and do-dads for the open house.
For those that want the gory details, read on:
We ended up picking this house just because it is so darn pretty inside. We loved "Vicki's" model home too, but it had a lot of hassles and we just ran out of energy to deal with them. Vicki came down a lot in price -- $6000 lower than Erik's offer -- but she couldn't tell us whether we could move in right away, plus the whole upstairs would need repainting, plus it was a model and had some wear in it, plus we had the problem of what to do with the furniture -- some of which we liked, but much of which we didn't, and finally we couldn't figure out how to convert one room into somewhere to practice our dancing. We loved the lake access, the landscaping, the nearness to the community pool. In the end though the problems out-weighed the benefits.
The new house is in Telfair subdivision. That's a newly opened tract of land just opened in Sugar Land, Texas. We're about 23 miles from downtown Houston on Route 59. That'll be 30 minutes at the best of times and 50 minutes during commute ... or so we think. The house is built by David Weekly Homes and they tout how "green" they are.
The subdivision has lakes in it, and you can kayak and canoe on them. No one could tell me if there's any fish, but there's a lake at the end of the street, and you can bet I'll give it a try.
I'm very, very happy, and thanks to Robert Mondavi, more than a little drunk tonight.
We made an offer, he made a counter offer, and we took it. And I, for one, am just thrilled. We'll work out details starting on Tuesday or Wednesday next week, depending on what Hurricane Gustav does. We have to go through all the formalities, including inspections, arranging the loan etc., but for all intents and purposes, we're home owners. It's thrilling. It's been a long, long time since I've owned a house. I didn't realize how much it meant to me until we finally said, "Go" on this one. I'm very, very happy.For those of you that want to dig deeper, I put pictures and captions on FaceBook. The pictures were taken on two different days: the first when we viewed the property on our own with the sales agent and the second when we viewed the property "open house" with our realtor, Marla, yesterday. You can tell the difference between the two days because they dressed up the house with plants and do-dads for the open house.
For those that want the gory details, read on:
We ended up picking this house just because it is so darn pretty inside. We loved "Vicki's" model home too, but it had a lot of hassles and we just ran out of energy to deal with them. Vicki came down a lot in price -- $6000 lower than Erik's offer -- but she couldn't tell us whether we could move in right away, plus the whole upstairs would need repainting, plus it was a model and had some wear in it, plus we had the problem of what to do with the furniture -- some of which we liked, but much of which we didn't, and finally we couldn't figure out how to convert one room into somewhere to practice our dancing. We loved the lake access, the landscaping, the nearness to the community pool. In the end though the problems out-weighed the benefits.
The new house is in Telfair subdivision. That's a newly opened tract of land just opened in Sugar Land, Texas. We're about 23 miles from downtown Houston on Route 59. That'll be 30 minutes at the best of times and 50 minutes during commute ... or so we think. The house is built by David Weekly Homes and they tout how "green" they are.
The subdivision has lakes in it, and you can kayak and canoe on them. No one could tell me if there's any fish, but there's a lake at the end of the street, and you can bet I'll give it a try.
I'm very, very happy, and thanks to Robert Mondavi, more than a little drunk tonight.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Tomorrow the real fun begins
First, thanks to those of you that commented on yesterday's post about the model home in Chelsea Harbour. As my daddy used to say, "If it seems too good to be true, it usually is." Well, the truth came out today. Read on ...
Wife went to bed last night with terrible stomach cramps and various other forms of gastric distress. She'd been to the dentist who'd prescribed antibiotics to knock out the tooth infection it seemed she had. Her body doesn't seem to like the pills at all. She was miserable last night, and not good this morning. She pushed herself out the door with me at 11AM for a full day of house hunting. Today was 1/2 day for revisits and 1/2 day for new houses -- eight (8) in total.
We drove northwest to Cypress to look at our favorite house in the Sydney Harbour subdivision. We'd nicknamed it the Karina because that's the name of its floor plan. This is the house we like the best, but it is also the most expensive and has the most difficult commute. A re-visit didn't change our feelings about it.
Our realtor told us that the "cheapie" red brick house in Jersey Village that I'd been sort of holding out for, was now under contract and off the table. One less house to look at and consider. So be it.
From there it was a 45 minute drive south then west to a house we'd peeked into, but not entered. We were calling it the "Wood Floor House" because we'd seen a sign through the window "Take off your shoes. New hardwood and carpeting." Well, yes, it had that, but the bedrooms were tiny; they'd dismantled the kitchen sink and range and not connected them. Generally, it just seemed a little out of sync.
From there we drove to the house next door to the model home (we call it "Vicki's House" in honor of the agent) in Chelsea Harbour that we thought we could get with furniture. We thought there was an outside chance we'd like it better than the model. It was lots bigger -- the biggest we'd actively considered actually at more than 3800 sq ft. Inside, it was frankly 'buggy'. Lots of dead little critters in all the corners. Once again, we just didn't love it.
At this point the truth about the model next door came out. We'd wondered why our realtor hadn't taken us through it. When I asked she said, "The agent told me that you couldn't move in for two months. You'd buy it then lease it back to them for two months." Now that's NOT what we thought we heard from the agent. Well, we're right next door so I go over and ask her. She says, "That's right. We'd lease it back from you for $2500 per month. But, if you really need to move in now, I'll talk with my supervisor about it." Also, as we've thought more clearly about it, do we really want all that cheap furniture that isn't our taste? Sure, sure, we could sell it piecemeal on eBay, make some money and buy our own stuff over time. That's still an option.
From there we drove to Telfair subdivision. Wife and I had visited and seen a house we liked quite well. We took to calling it Erik's house. Its claim to fame is that frankly it's beautiful inside, has a big (comparatively) back yard, and the Telfair subdivision is the closest commute we've been able to find. 
The subdivision sits within five minutes of a main artery (Rte 59). You jump on that and it takes you straight downtown. Vicki's house requires maybe 15 minutes of driving just to get to the expressway. It's our classic dilemma of trading of commute time for other things.
Other builders in Telfair also had houses that we thought might fit our ticket. With our realtor's help, we saw three of these. One was just a couple doors down the street from Erik's house. Erik's house was open again. When we walked in, it confirmed our initial thoughts. Our realtor said, "Wow, impressive."
So negotiations start tomorrow. We're going to get the best price we can from the builder for Erik's house. Their "Sale" ends tomorrow. He better throw up some discounts. We'll also talk with our realtor about how to negotiate for Vicki's house. That's much more complicated. It's not just price and fixing what's broken; it's move in date, amount of lease back if any, handling of the furniture, and probably other things I've not thought of yet.
So tomorrow the fun starts ... finally.
Wife went to bed last night with terrible stomach cramps and various other forms of gastric distress. She'd been to the dentist who'd prescribed antibiotics to knock out the tooth infection it seemed she had. Her body doesn't seem to like the pills at all. She was miserable last night, and not good this morning. She pushed herself out the door with me at 11AM for a full day of house hunting. Today was 1/2 day for revisits and 1/2 day for new houses -- eight (8) in total.
We drove northwest to Cypress to look at our favorite house in the Sydney Harbour subdivision. We'd nicknamed it the Karina because that's the name of its floor plan. This is the house we like the best, but it is also the most expensive and has the most difficult commute. A re-visit didn't change our feelings about it.
Our realtor told us that the "cheapie" red brick house in Jersey Village that I'd been sort of holding out for, was now under contract and off the table. One less house to look at and consider. So be it.
From there it was a 45 minute drive south then west to a house we'd peeked into, but not entered. We were calling it the "Wood Floor House" because we'd seen a sign through the window "Take off your shoes. New hardwood and carpeting." Well, yes, it had that, but the bedrooms were tiny; they'd dismantled the kitchen sink and range and not connected them. Generally, it just seemed a little out of sync.
From there we drove to the house next door to the model home (we call it "Vicki's House" in honor of the agent) in Chelsea Harbour that we thought we could get with furniture. We thought there was an outside chance we'd like it better than the model. It was lots bigger -- the biggest we'd actively considered actually at more than 3800 sq ft. Inside, it was frankly 'buggy'. Lots of dead little critters in all the corners. Once again, we just didn't love it.
At this point the truth about the model next door came out. We'd wondered why our realtor hadn't taken us through it. When I asked she said, "The agent told me that you couldn't move in for two months. You'd buy it then lease it back to them for two months." Now that's NOT what we thought we heard from the agent. Well, we're right next door so I go over and ask her. She says, "That's right. We'd lease it back from you for $2500 per month. But, if you really need to move in now, I'll talk with my supervisor about it." Also, as we've thought more clearly about it, do we really want all that cheap furniture that isn't our taste? Sure, sure, we could sell it piecemeal on eBay, make some money and buy our own stuff over time. That's still an option.
From there we drove to Telfair subdivision. Wife and I had visited and seen a house we liked quite well. We took to calling it Erik's house. Its claim to fame is that frankly it's beautiful inside, has a big (comparatively) back yard, and the Telfair subdivision is the closest commute we've been able to find. 
The subdivision sits within five minutes of a main artery (Rte 59). You jump on that and it takes you straight downtown. Vicki's house requires maybe 15 minutes of driving just to get to the expressway. It's our classic dilemma of trading of commute time for other things.
Other builders in Telfair also had houses that we thought might fit our ticket. With our realtor's help, we saw three of these. One was just a couple doors down the street from Erik's house. Erik's house was open again. When we walked in, it confirmed our initial thoughts. Our realtor said, "Wow, impressive."
So negotiations start tomorrow. We're going to get the best price we can from the builder for Erik's house. Their "Sale" ends tomorrow. He better throw up some discounts. We'll also talk with our realtor about how to negotiate for Vicki's house. That's much more complicated. It's not just price and fixing what's broken; it's move in date, amount of lease back if any, handling of the furniture, and probably other things I've not thought of yet.
So tomorrow the fun starts ... finally.
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