The Fat Plat

I contacted the home builder this morning to let her know that we are interested in one of the lots and we want to secure it as soon as possible pending it is facing the correct direction and is as appealing in reality.

The realtor wanted to meet everyone at the builder's site in the afternoon but I didn't want to wait that long. Then, we found out our builder POC has the next two days off. She did get back with me to let us know that since it's a corner lot we can face either street North-West or North. One other thing the realtor told us about was that this particular builder will put 1% of our base cost towards closing charges. They have an additional incentive today to add another 2% off the base cost of the house.

I told her we could wait to meet in a few days but I want to secure the lot today. She confirmed that we could do that. So, I drove home to pick up the wife and kid and we drove over to see the lot. I had Fiona get out and put a compass on it to be sure she was happy with the direction.

Everything worked out. We drove around the corner and placed a deposit to hold the corner plat that we like so much.

While we were there, we were given their preferred lender contact details. When I got back to work, I called this new lender for instructions and did the online application.

So, that plat is being held for us. I'm going to try to get at very least a pre-qualification letter from this new lender so that we'll be ready should we decide to get a contract down.

Now let me talk about this fat plat. I'm calling it that because the lots in the same area and same price are skinny. I used two methods for measuring the difference. The first was Zillow and I don't know how reliable it is. They claim our plat is 155% larger when compared to the surrounding plats. I did my own measurements from satellite photos and some geometry. I cam up with 187% larger when compared to the surrounding plats.

In either case, the extra space and it being a corner lot will make this plat very desirable in decades to come.

I am eager to see what rate this new lender can get for us, because the first lender seems to be high for our situation when compared to the average market rate.

House Hunting - Day 1

My wife and I were on Zillow most of yesterday looking at houses and saving the ones we wanted to go see. Later in the evening we reviewed our list and removed the homes that didn't meet our common criteria.

We started out the morning with a list of 8 homes to see. We met the realtor at her office at 10:15 am to give her the list so she could schedule visits with the sellers.

Zillow is not precise. That should come as no surprise to the experienced home shopper. Many homes came off the list immediately. One house is in the wrong school district, one was already sold, two have pending contracts, two are in option periods. That left two houses available to be viewed right out of the gate.

The first is a new home nearing completion. We looked at two models. We passed on both and here is why. They are called express homes. That means the buyer takes it as is. No upgrades, no swaps, no extra money for perks. It's just whatever is there. So, that was the first and biggest issue.

The first house of these two had small bedrooms and just felt kind of cubical. No tub in main bath, just walk in shower. Large bathroom counter and one sink. Stupid.

The second of these two had slightly larger rooms, but the kitchen was a deal breaker. It has an island with a space for a dishwasher that when open would be right in the way. There was no exhaust duct in the kitchen either. Really weird.

The drive was much farther than we imagined as well.

We skipped over to the next town. This one is much closer to our jobs and current location. This house was looking like a very good choice but unfortunately someone made a cash deal on is about an hour after we looked at it. Bye bye!

Lastly, we went back to our town where one of the option period houses is located. We really liked this one though a few surface cracks in the rear ceiling is concerning. It meets or exceeds most of our important needs/wants. Perhaps it could become available but we won't wait for it. Here are some photos of this one and a video.

Right School Right Home Location

I spoke to my sister who is a teacher. She brought up a very important thing to consider when looking for a place to live.

We all want our children to get the best education that our tax dollars can buy. Narrowing it down to a school district is about as far as I had thought about that.

I've always known that Rockwall schools are very good. What I didn't consider is there are often more than one high school and some rank better than others.

It's important to choose the right location to live because it is indicative to what schools will feed into the high school of preference.

We will need to be sure to put that down as part of the criteria for the realtor.

Zillow has a pretty cool tool for accessing school ratings in a given area. Here is an example for Rockwall, Texas. http://www.zillow.com/rockwall-tx/schools/