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 2

I left work an hour early today so that we could go look at two houses before it got dark. We never made it to the last house because we liked the first one so much. Here is a video and some photos.

We decided to drive back to the realtor office to make an offer. It turns out that there were a couple of offers on it already more than the asking price.

This house has almost everything upgraded already which makes it attractive visually and monetarily. What it will appraise for is a separate issue.

We decided on our top dollar offer based on what we've been researching with the area, the upgrades, and everything else. We have offered $4k over the list price, buyer pays closing costs and allowing the seller plenty of time to pack it up after closing.

I made some video walking through the house to look at again later. When we got home neither of us wanted to watch it for fear of getting emotionally attached.

Now we have to get a $100 check over to the owner for our option payment (get out of the deal money). We also have to get $1500 earnest to the title company for the deposit.

The realtor has vouched for us so that we can get the deal on the table as serious shoppers.

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/