I miss Bob Barker.

I mentioned that the real estate market went crazy this winter/spring, right?  The prices didn't so much gradually creep up as they shot up overnight and kept climbing.  Homes don't last more than a day or two on the market before they go to "pending" status.  Builders are snatching up lots left and right, putting down cash offers which are attractive to sellers as they can close faster with less risk of default.  We were definitely NOT putting in a cash offer so we were already at a disadvantage in the market.

Generally there are three options in the GOOF area (Garden Oaks-Oak Forest):

1) New, larger, two-story homes done by builders with pre-picked models where buyers can pick the final finishes.  Price rating: $$$$$

2) Older, 1950s/1960s ranch-style, single-story homes which have had some remodel, renovation and/or additions. Sometimes the layouts are odd from the additions but they are generally nice homes.  Price rating: $$$

3) Older homes with no or little renovation that are being sold at "lot" value.  Price rating: $$ and climbing

We were targeting that third category, as we planned to tear down the old home and build to our taste and budget - our budget being max $$$$, relatively speaking.  

Besides being able to design to our functionality, the benefit to custom building is that you can control the cost better.  For us, the budget is the budget, so whatever is eaten up in the lot cost decides the house budget.  There is obviously a reasonable size range and design level that we have to stay in based on comparable homes and resale opportunities later, so that is a large factor in limiting that lot price maximum.  If you are willing to do a lot of research on details and make most decisions regarding design and amenities before you even have a construction contract, you can manage the cost and expectations better (famous last words) throughout the construction process.

When we became more serious about the Oak Forest neighborhood, we casually started playing our hand in the offer game.  We lost twice, not offering very aggressively and trying to get a feel for what the price market was like.  Frankly, the idea of a bidding war sickened me.  The options were OK, maybe good even but not great, and I think we weren't quite ready to be serious about it.

A couple of weeks ago, a Wednesday afternoon I was working from home, I spotted a listing on HAR that I had not seen previously that day. I have been stalking HAR relentlessly so it doesn't take long for me to notice new posts.  I called Andrew, no answer, he was in a meeting.  So I called our builder and told him about the listing.  He asked if I wanted to offer, I said yes, I would tell Andrew when he got out of his meeting.

Who does that, right?  Who makes major financial decisions about their future home without consulting their husband?

In my defense, I knew Andrew would be on board with this one.  It was a larger corner lot, with great access to the park and schools, zoned to Lilly's elementary school in the exact area we liked most.  The lot was on a street name I liked and the address had the number 13 (Andrew's lucky number) in it so I took it as a sign (I subscribe to convenient superstitions).  For the record, Andrew was on board and was excited about the prospect.

The home went on the market Wednesday afternoon, we submitted our offer on Wednesday night, sight unseen.  We did however drive by that night to make sure the listing wasn't misleading.  Thursday morning the seller's agent asked us for a bank pre-qual letter, which we had, so we sent it over.  In the time it took for us to receive the request and send it over (maybe an hour?), more offers poured in.

Great.  Now we go to bidding war.

The seller's agent asks all bidders to submit the best and final offer through the weekend and we would find out who won on Monday.  Time for strategy.  This is a blind bid, we know nothing about the other bidders or how fast the seller wants to close, and we need to decide how bad we want this lot.  At this point, Andrew and I were starting to picture our life in this house, in this location, so we don't want to lose by a tiny margin but also don't want to blow the other offers away.  It is The Price is Right up in here.  Welcome to the realities of the Houston real estate market in 2014!

We deliberate all the way through Friday, going back and forth on numbers, come up with a competitive and what we think is generous offer given the market (with a number four as one of the digits because fours are lucky for home buying, yes, more wack family superstitions), and fingers crossed, submitted it on Friday the 13th.  We held our breath the entire weekend.

On Monday morning, Andrew and I were on the phone when our builder called and Andrew quickly texted me that we got the lot.  A familiar feeling of joy and panic set in.  We are financially committed.

Holy crap.  We are actually going to do this.  We are going to leave the house and neighborhood we love and move to Oak Forest.  But what are we going to live in?

Pipelines, Poo Water and Pantry Drawers

The back and forth on the state of our sanitary line tie-in has been nail-biting for us.

The City, as expected, was no help and "offered maybe, no promises" to grant us access to the line our neighbor hooked up. Gee thanks City, that's great except it still means we have to open saw-cut the road for a good 60 feet which is mucho dineros. That's not even the shortest route for us, so I'm not sure how they felt this was a concession. A proper concession would be, hey, install the pipe you supposedly provided (but didn't) and let us tie into that or compensate us in some way (we pay taxes to have sewer hookups!) so we can hook into one of the surrounding lines. No dice.

The great news is that the Builder found a contractor who did our water line tie in today, and they are going to be able to saw cut the street going in the other direction (the shorter distance) in front of the empty lot within their utility budget. OUR OWN PERSONAL FINANCIAL CRISIS AVERTED. Hopefully. All that nail-biting was for naught, and I now have nubbin fingers.

I've never been so happy to be given a pipeline - it's better than birthdays.

Lesson Number X: Thoroughly check your utility tie-ins during design, so that you don't end up with an unexpected bill for insane procedures.

Lesson Number XX: Outline as many details as humanly possible in the design phase and keep a paper-trail, and I mean every last little shelf, toilet paper holder, and drawer pull. Even if you think it's obvious, write it down, because it is not inherently obvious to anyone else. Else you will end up with more unexpected change orders that ruin a good buzz. We are having discussions that lead to us tracing emails in the tangle of information that was exchanged during design, pointing saying "we asked for this! we talked about this!" and having the awkward "what was discussed exactly" conversations with the Builder and the GC (in regards to our pantry design actually). Change orders are for things that change AFTER the contract, specs and design were signed. Everything we discussed and documented, unless excluded specifically, is included in the contract price. I'm sorry if you didn't price it, that is something I can't really control. I'm not trying to screw you, I'm trying to protect myself, and I don't have an itemized open book estimate so I have no frame of reference. Otherwise, if it's impossible to specify every item prior, you agree on an appropriate contingency for those known items and build it into the contract price - it's called Funded Liabilities. No one is happy to get slapped with a big bill after the fact, not being able to roll it into the mortgage, and facing the music with hard cash. We'll see how this goes...

Maybe Compost or Septic.

Last week, I had planned to write about fun pretty things, like some of my design ideas, until, well, yuck happened.

Yuck is a gross under-statement.

Remember when I briefly mentioned issues with a sanitary sewer line that was troubling the Builder? They thought at the time it was a lot deeper than they originally expected. The City was sent out to clean it because the lines were thought to be so deep and covered in dirt, that they couldn't be seen. It turns out, they needn't have worried about the line being backed up. It simply does not exist. Anywhere. No where.

To clarify, there is no place to put our poo water.

In the City-published GIMS maps below, the ones the Builder (and the entire public) relies upon for underground public utility information incorrectly represent a 6" sanitary sewer line running in the street in front of our house (see the thin red line in front of the red box - our lot). There is a manhole about 50' to the right of our lot, and one 50' to the left as well, but no line was ever put in between the two, connecting to any sewer system.

When we heard this, I pretty much lost my sh**. Which is ironic, considering the circumstances.

The City permitted us for a 6" line which does not even exist. After some research, it appears that the City paid a contractor to install this line a few years ago, but it was never put in. Great contractor. It would seem that this would be the City's problem. We pay taxes for public utilities for which we were not given full access. The City ordered a line and never verified it was actually installed. The City publishes information which is inaccurate in its portrayal of utility access.

We are trying to get ahold of someone at the City to help us, but there is a huge, looming chance that they'll shrug their shoulders apologetically (best case) and say "oops." And never do anything about it. Try suing the City. We'd have a valid case, but that would mean extensive delays in construction, no guarantees, and legal fees out the wazoo. I die inside a little when I think about the implications of going that route. We are 100% at the mercy of the City, and it's infuriating.

This week the Builder needs to figure out what is the closest and most cost effective option to connect to a nearby-ish line. I can't even comprehend the dollar signs which will be associated with this. This kind of scenario? This makes me feel like we're a stereotype - the new home builder couple stereotype, learning the hard lessons the hard way.

And I fear our old friend "unforeseeable circumstances." If that isn't the biggest catch-all phrase in a contract that's eating my lunch. We will have to discuss how this works with the Builder, but I'm pretty sure this exact scenario is uncharted territory for them as well. If I were a betting woman, my money would be on our money making an exit from our bank account rather soon. I will keep you up to date, as soon as I'm done crying softly in the corner.

To end on a positive note, in spite of the drama unfolding in sewer-land, work on the house itself has been moving forward regardless as far as it can. All plumbing, electric, natural gas work is complete, all the windows are in place, the balcony railings have been put in place, and the siding is totally complete. Once inspections are done, we will be ready to start closing up the walls with insulation and sheet rock, but not before the sanitary line hook-up is complete (the walls have to be open in order to test the line once it is connected). July 1st completion looks like it's slipping away...

Week 8 - The good news is all the windows are in, and the balcony is nicely railed.

Keep Calm and Carry On!

Additions

The solution to the problem with the floating cinder block has been solved by bringing down the siding farther to meet the bottom of the balcony header. Voila, no floating cinder block, but we do now have to drop the dining room window on the west side so it's not right up against the siding/cinder block seam. Fortunately, that is an easy fix at this stage in the game.

Did you notice the addition of fencing around the perimeter of the site? That is new as well due to a run in with a homeless man who may or may not have scared the living daylights out of me when I was checking out this place myself this weekend. This is the joy of building in a high density population area. It's not that I mind if he hangs out there to rest at night or get some shelter really (although I'm probably not supposed to say that), I'm just not keen on the idea of other activity happening. If you could be so kind, please do not deal crack or relieve yourself in my future home (say hello to the convenient port-o-potty). Much appreciated.

(That hasn't happened to my knowledge. Yet.)

Take That and Rewind it Back

Remember when I said that all the extra work that needed to be done to our site to get the debris out was the responsibility of the builder? That was a funny idea wasn't it.

Welcome to our first financially painful lesson. Let's hope this is a short list.

Based on the facts that we hired a geotechnical company to come in an do soil borings, in addition to the fact that the GC never mentioned anything to us about additional funds during the grand-mack-daddy dig, I very naively assumed we were not liable.

I read a lot of contracts in my line of work, so you would think my mind would have jumped here when this situation arose. Lesson number whatever: READ AND UNDERSTAND your contract. Turns out a burned down house five feet below the surface counts as what legalese likes to call "unforeseeable circumstances."

At Friday's meeting, the Builder showed up to deliver the bad news, an apology for not discussing the situation sooner, and the fat invoice for the additional equipment and soil that was necessary. We listened in silence, processing. It's not what we wanted to hear, and I know it's not the Builder's fault. There is inherent uncertainty in digging up a lot which hasn't been inhabited in decades. Before we cough up the cash, we have to think this through. Do we point fingers?

Who's fault is it anyways?

Yes, the soil borings were done RIGHT AROUND the location of the debris. Oops. That is really just unlucky coincidence.

Who could have known? The former lot owner? Is it their fault for not disclosing the history of the site? Perhaps. However, we would have to prove that the owner knew and intentionally did not disclose what lay beneath. Which means more delay, more money to lawyers (unless we win), and more frustration.

If it was an amount that would break the process, we would consider the latter scenario in order to continue. The truth is, the invoice is enough to hurt, to make us put off or rethink if we will feasibly be able to buy some of the "wants" we had planned on, but it isn't enough to break the process. And the thought of delaying the process in order to go down that rabbit hole doesn't sound very appealing.

We are all in agreement that the Builder should have let us know about this when we were all standing around, looking at the enormous pit of debris, instead of after the foundation was poured. When it comes to money, I want to be upfront, clear and documented - in matters of business especially. But in reality, it wouldn't have made a difference, removing the unusable material had to be done regardless.

So we have our first major sting of the construction process. The Builder is getting his own as well. Because they didn't check the sanitary sewer prior to contract signing, they are finding out that it is much deeper than they anticipated. They will have to saw-cut the street in order to tie in, instead of just directional drilling to the line. That's several thousand dollars on the Builder's tab. Looks like they're going to drain their contingency in the first couple weeks of construction. Good times all around.

We are hopeful that the "unforeseen" portion of construction is behind us, and that there won't be a freak tsunami or anything that takes out our neighborhood. The coming week should see the sewer being connected and the framing on the first floor starting. I will provide too much photographic evidence, I'm sure.

Week 3 - We have floor. Not to be confused with flooring.

Underneath It All

Wednesday, Day 8 of Construction, was our first day where rain was a probability. Early on, the weather plays a large role in timing of progress as everything is exposed. So as a result, Andrew has become our own little all-in-one weather-reporting system. He can report any published weather from any station to you on command for a minimum of the next month, probably next year if he searched hard enough. Not the same zip code? I'm sure he can do some sort of mathematical iteration.

Luckily, the weather has been amazing, and the crews have been able to forge on. With plumbing in place, the trenches were dug for the massive underground support beams. Because our house is 3 stories tall, we're having to put in 30" x 12" beams in strategic locations to handle the load. Once the trenches were done, the vapor barrier was placed over the soil, and tension cables were put in a grid like pattern for the post-tension slab. It has to be done exactly to spec, so let's hope they know what they're doing...

Day 8 - Getting in the trenches.

Day 9 - I hope you Gentlemen have done this before. Please read closely.

Day 10 - Voila! You have under-stuff ready for slab!

Our weekly meeting on Friday let us know that slab would be poured on Monday, mostly because they don't like to leave a slab over the weekend unattended when it's wet. Day 11, Monday afternoon and evening, the crews were hard at work pouring and scraping concrete. Hurray!

Day 11 - Doesn't concrete just make you want to go streaking? HAWT.

But whether it's poured on Friday or Monday, it doesn't really matter, because as we learned this morning, defacing is inevitable. Someone managed to write "AC/DC" on our future front porch while the concrete was wet. Seriously? You couldn't have picked a better band? I could have respected "Bob Dylan" or "The Beatles" or "Britney Spears."

Day 12 - Formless, firm concrete. I am standing on the porch. I think it needs a swing.

I'm still hoping framing starts this week, but I'm still not sure about the plans and curing times. Andrew swears that they could start tomorrow on the first floor but I'm leery. That is our next big step, and we're annoyingly excited. We'll get to "see" the space!

Wherein I Get All High and Mighty on the GC

Thursday was Day 4 of construction, or The Day We All Sat Around And Scratched Our Heads About What To Do. There was a lot of haunted debris that needed to be exhumed, and the little dozer originally tasked with our lot was going to take well into the next century to dig it up. We might as well have been out there with teaspoons.

The GC, made some calls, and found out he could get an Excavator (The Grand Daddy Master) out on the site on Monday when it finished up another job. So imagine our surprise when on our way home from work on Friday, we came across this:

Now we're talking. If we're going to put in a pool, we might as well go the distance and aim for an ocean. We were overcome with tears of joy happy to see some major and unexpected progress. High Five for a good end to week one. They even managed to bring in a small load of the new and improved dirt that will actually be supporting our house.
We were hopeful over the weekend and the start of week 2 did not disappoint.

I should stop and mention at some point, that in a past life, I was a civil engineer, and took riveting classes like Earth Slopes and Bituminous Mixtures. Up until this point, this experience has served me zero help in this process. However, I do remember learning about the different types of soil compaction equipment in geotech, and the sheepsfoot roller always stuck in my mind. I have no idea why, it is one of those random facts that gets stored in your brain under "completely useless trivia." But. BUT. I finally saw an opportunity to use that part of my brain! Or acknowledge it's existence! In the weekly meeting on Friday with the GC, I asked if they planned to use a sheepsfoot roller for compaction, you know, nonchalantly. The GC looked at me like I was a little wackadoo and said, "No we're going to use a regular roller." I felt a bit sheepish [terrible, terrible pun] and shut my trap. Well guess what got delivered to the site over the weekend?

That, my friends, is a sheepsfoot roller. SEE DAD. That engineering education you paid through the nose for was 100% legit.

I'm done gloating now.

Monday, the trashy dirt was all hauled away and our pretty dirt was delivered, packed and graded. There was even wood laying (lying? which is it?) on the site in anticipation of putting up the forms.

Full steam ahead, by today forms were up, and we even had all the sanitary sewer/gray water piping in. We are hoping they will get to pour the concrete foundation this week so it can cure during the good weather supposedly coming this weekend (I believe the foundation has to sit untouched for a week according to code, but I'll report back). Before that, the rebar needs to be laid out for the post tension slab. With any luck, we will get started on sticks (framing) by the end of next week or the beginning of the following. That will make it feel real, I hope...

Construction Progress, Days 2-3: A Delightful Box of Chocolates

It has been three total days of construction, and wouldn't you know it, we've hit a hiccup. on Day 2, the grading of the lot began. The bobcat's drove up and started moving dirt to level out the lot for a house pad (i.e. concrete foundation).

Grading a lot is sort of like opening a gift from Forrest Gump - you never know what you're going to get. In our case, after a little scraping, it became fairly obvious that some kind of dwelling once stood here, because all kinds of strange things popped up. This lot has been vacant for decades, but we'd heard it was once a record store way back when. I have no idea how you can actually check on that. At a quick glance, we could see a decomposed mattress and dozens of wood boards, splintered and burned. The GC called out the engineer to come check it out, because you don't want to pour the foundation for a three story home on questionable soil. Decaying building contents qualifies under the category of questionable.

So Day 3 rolls around and the GC gives Andrew a call to let him know that there is going to be more moving of dirt than they thought, and about the foundation engineer coming to check it out. He knows we'll be snooping around at some point during the day - our offices are about 1.5 minutes from the construction site, so surprise visits are inevitable.

Before the Grand Dig, the plan was that a large amount of dirt was going to have to be hauled away. Turns out, we have the opposite problem. We're having to remove all the charred debris and replace it with soil which has stability. Andrew runs by during lunch, and there is a 6-8 foot deep hole in the ground where our house should be. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they don't find any decaying body parts, because I'm not sure how we would handle that. Can a house be haunted by ground ghosts? Whatever building was once there was obviously burned down. Now the contractor is attempting to separate the "good soil" from the rotting debris in an attempt to limit the amount of soil which needs to be brought in from elsewhere.

The one good thing is that this is not an extra cost to us. Before we finalized the plans, the Builder brought in a geotechnical company to do soil borings and test the soils' stability. It is therefore the Builder's responsibility to plan (i.e. pad their estimate) for such possibility as much as is reasonably possible.

But wait! There is more fun! In addition to the rotting wood/mattresses/laundry baskets, we have come across decayed galvanized pipe. Which, my first reaction was naturally "Cool, maybe we can make something out of it!" But no. Silly Marysia. It is full of water. Let's not ask what type of water. As the soil and debris is being removed, the pipe is releasing the water and we have a nice little hot tub developing right in the middle of our yard. Which is a great idea and all, but I was hoping the hot tub would be more warm and bubbly and ... clean. So maybe for extra fun, we'll have to pump the site of all this charming sludge. Good times.

Playing the odds, I think it is necessary to do a prediction by vote. According to the Builder, he quoted 20-23 weeks total for construction. I am the ever realist pessimist, and think that is insanely impossible. Being conservative, if our Builder is amazing AND right, we would be done by July 22nd. If you feel so inclined, guess a date when construction will be completed and residency permitted in the comments. Closest without going over wins. Something. I have dibs on August 14th.

Construction Progress, Day 1

The most important part of the project arrived today. Hello Port-O-Potty and temporary electricity, you are a lovely addition to the neighborhood. But as the GC pointed out, with out a "john," crews don't show up. Priorities!

Awesome! NOW what??

We resume!

The next morning, Andrew wakes up to a new email from the seller, and the first line states:

"Congratulations, we have decided to take your last offer in the amount of $[truckloads of cash]!"

Woah, what? I thought we walked away and it was all over. Switch mental gears again, now we're really excited. Jumping up and down excited. And this is followed by the complete rush of "holy schmidt, now we really have to do this." Wait, are we really going to build a house? Is that even possible? WHAT ARE WE DOING?!?

We hadn't really done any research on what it take to build a home at this point. During the period before closing on the lot, we spent time meeting different architects, some we found online, others were recommended by neighbors or friends. To some one who would consider designing their own home, I would highly recommend to interview many architects. because there is a wide range of approaches, price ranges, styles and comfort levels. We heard everything from, "bare bones, no real flooring, it is impossible to do this project for less than $175 per square foot" (!!!) to "what's your budget? Yeah sure we can do that."

Even though budget was really important to this project, the style of the architect and how well you connect with them is key to sanity. The truth is, you're choosing a relationship, and it is one you will pay a dear amount for, so you better like that boyfriend/girlfriend with a pencil. Looking for an architect was a roller coaster ride for us; some days we thought there was no way to make this work, others left us hopeful. Even after we closed on the lot, we continued to look, and eventually after several months we came to a few realizations about what we were looking for.

Andrew and I had a good idea of what we wanted the design of our home to look like. In reality, our lot is pretty tiny, space is a major constraint, so there weren't a whole lot of directions to go but up. We drew up countless layouts in Microsoft Visio, and it's humorous now to think where we started, and where we ended up in design. The first house was a mansion, straight out of one of the countless home design magazines that took over our kitchen table for several months.

We were fairly confident that we knew what we wanted and we could draw it ourselves, we just needed someone with experience to guide us through the logistical details: how much space is needed for HVAC, where is the best location for conduit, how practical are tankless water heaters, etc. So what was the point in paying an architect to draw up plans that we had 95% already drawn up ourselves? When we designed our home, we didn't reinvent the wheel, and weren't looking for any front-page accolades in Architecture Digest. We wanted a home that fit our style, our family, how we live, and how we wanted to grow.

It's a personal decision for everyone, but we decided against an expensive architect, and went with a small builder (under 50 homes a year) who has a long list of excellent references, and has an in-shop architect. That is probably not a popular choice for architects, but given the work we had done already on our own, we wanted to make the most of our resources [read: cash] and paying a $15 - $45K fee to have someone re-draw what we had drawn, or worse, scoff at our design from an artistic standpoint, did not sound appealing. Going through the design process with the in-house architect was easy, not intimidating and enlightening in a lot of ways, and at this point, I can say I am happy we took this route.

Of course, I say this before we have seen any physical manifestation of our home, so here's to hoping we are still happy with the design when we see it live...

How did we get in this mess?

About one year ago, I took a nap. I know, that is pretty amazing stuff when you have an 8 month old. Naps are pure gold dipped in chocolate and Twizzlers. Andrew offered to take The Wee One for a walk, so I could get some rest. I was in grad school at the time, and the schedule of balancing academia and home life was taking it's toll.

I should back up and explain that for about a year previous to said glorious nap, Andrew and I were looking for homes we could buy once I finished school and rejoined the employed. It was a demoralizing effort. We were looking for something perfect within the following simple criteria:

1) inside the loop
2) single-standing home
3) 4 bedrooms

It didn't seem like that should be hard to find. I mean, wasn't everyone touting the buyers' market of the weakened economy? Fat chance. Criteria #3 was the sticking point really. Finding a 4-bedroom that wasn't considered a tear-down, inside the loop for under half a million dollars was unheard of. Maybe I should have brought up budget earlier. That was the omnipotent criteria, trumping all criteria's criteria. I hoped patience would become my virtue, that something amazing would fall into our laps and precisely the right moment and price point but I was slowly losing hope. We were going to have to relinquish the easy life of inner-looping, idiot-yuppies, where anything farther than 610 requires GPS and road-trip supplies. Andrew was the most crushed. His need to be within walking distance of bars we rarely inhabit is deep-seeded.

Back to the nap.

All too soon, my bliss was interrupted by Andrew attempting to wake me up.

Andrew: "Hey Hun," [sweetly while I scowled at him] "what if we build a house instead of buy one?"
Marysia: "Where, in Katy? We could never afford that here." [pulling the pillow over my head]
Andrew: "No, here. I called about a lot that went up for sale in the neighborhood, and it's not too bad. In fact it's affordable."

That is where the fun began. Andrew's innocent phone call prompted by a "for sale by owner" sign. He proceeded to spout off hypothetical fairy numbers to me while I tried to figure out if he was joking or delirious. I pretty much left that ball in his court. If we could get the lot for something reasonable, I figured worst case, it would be an investment that we could sell if nothing materialized in terms of a house. Hopefully it wouldn't hurt too much in the wallet.

So with in the week, Andrew did some intense research of "comps." Lesson Numero Uno: "Comps" are slang for "comparables," and it is how property is priced for market value. Basically, he had his uncle pull all the properties which had been sold in the area within the past 3 years (typically it's 6 months, but not a whole is for sale in our area so we used longer time frames), and we tried to put together an "apples to apples" comparison of said lot and those lots which had been sold recently. For us, the big comparison was based on neighborhood and square footage. Ahh, the spread sheets began...

The First Offer
We put together an offer which we thought more closely reflected the market value according to the comps, and then dropped it a bit from there, figuring that there was going to be negotiation and we needed wiggle room. Andrew had been in discussions with the seller for about a week, and they were playing a bit of a game in terms of tugging at the heart-strings a bit. There was a "woh is me, we are selling our family property" going on. I should say that this family owns a lot of property in the area, none of it was for sale, and frankly, this was peanuts for them.

We waited excitedly for a response, thinking they would budge from listed price a bit, but we were wrong. They came back with the listing price, not dropping a cent, and quoting us their comps. The comps they pulled were for neighborhoods not even close to us in terms of vicinity. We weren't even sure how they could be legitimately be called comps, as some of the said "lots," actually had improvements/partial homes on them. The lot we were looking at had none of the above.

The Second Offer
Ok, fine. I was already starting to sketch pictures in my case books of room layouts and patio furniture. We wanted that lot. So we submitted another offer, based on our comps, but without dropping it, and even padding the value a bit for contingency. We talked to the neighbors who within the last few years had built like we were attempting. They had gotten their lots for considerably less. We felt our offer was fair, had substantial back-up evidence for it, and damn it, we weren't going to be taken on this. Anxiety ridden, we turned in the offer, knowing that we weren't going to budge any further from that number. If it was meant to be, it would happen. Otherwise, we'd never feel good about the purchase, and that is a terrible way to start.

The next day we got our response. Counter offer of... you guessed it, the listing price. They didn't budge at all. Nada. I was almost relieved. We figured it wasn't meant to be, and this was the sign. That evening, Andrew and I wished them luck and pulled out of the negotiation. According to the seller, there were other potential buyers showing interest. We were prepared to let them have it. Andrew and I were content with the decision, even if there was a cloud of disappointment. We erased the Miami-bungalow style patio from our dreams, and figured it was over until...

Next Time.