Life's a Filet of Fish: Home Economics

For the uninitiated, getting a house is a lot of work. There is a lot of physical, mental, emotional, and most importantly, financial exertion involved. Alison and I had casually started looking at online listings as early as last July. That's when I learned about her negative feelings toward garage faces and strong preference for nice big kitchens.

Once you see it, you can't unsee it...

Back in February I finally broke down and got a real estate agent. I was referred to her through USAA, and so far, she has been very helpful. I told her up front that we were playing the long game. I thought the long game meant that we weren't actually looking to buy until next year or something.

Well, Houston has become a pretty active buyer's market. In the past few months, inventory has shrunk and prices have started creeping upward. With mortgage rates at historic lows, it started seeming like we needed to act soon. We stepped up our efforts, pounding the pavement. With Alison working in Porter and me working off of 249, it became increasingly apparent that our search was narrowed to the NNW segment of Houston.

We're still in our lease for several months, and resale houses are disappearing within 15 days of their listings. We're looking to build, because that offers some pretty significant advantages: lock in a lower price, choose exactly what goes into the house, lower utility costs, lower maintenance costs, and a longer lead time to closing.

By now we've probably looked at 10 different model homes. Each builder touts their "upgraded" features, their energy efficiency, and of course, their excellent financing options. Despite all this, judging the builders by their track records and value, four builders in our price range come out on top: Meritage, Ryland, Plantation, and David Weekley.

The Plantation home that we looked at was very nice, but there was something off about it to us, because it was awfully inexpensive for the features that they were offering. Plus Ms. Realtor didn't seem to be thrilled by the area. David Weekley isn't building anything in our area. That left Ryland and Meritage. Our agent preferred Ryland to Meritage, but only by a small margin. That's when the real decision making happened.

Ryland homes are pretty nice, but the floor plans we liked the most were out of our price range. We were able to find something that we liked well enough. The neighborhood is gated and butts up against a railroad. The noise didn't really bother me, but that gate did. I've lived too long behind gates.

The other option was Meritage. They make a big to-do about their "green" features, including their spray foam insulation that they install in all their homes. I'm pretty impressed with the stuff; it seems much more robust and reliable than fiberglass batts or insulation. The stuff doesn't flake off as much or make you itchy (I hated going up in the attic when I was a kid because of it). Alison and I saw one floor plan and immediately fell in love with it.

Not the house we are buying...but it could look like this

This is a 3 bedroom, one story "starter" house. We've been so heavily advised by various sources to upgrade features that it seems downright luxurious to me. But...according to some of my spreadsheet wizardry, it can be affordable.

An interesting note is that despite Ryland's lower overall cost, it isn't all that more expensive than the Meritage home due to the difference in tax rates. That's been one of the biggest eye-openers for me during the process: the principal/interest portion of your "monthly payment" for your home works out to only be about half of what you pay for taxes, HOA dues, and homeowner's insurance in the price range we're looking.

Now, here's the catch: the community is nothing but cleared dirt. No roads, just a bunch of clearings in the middle of trees. It makes it kind of hard to envision what the final product is going to be. We've been promised a recreation center along with the sun, moon, and stars...of course, we might have to just settle with a couple of little flecks of comet dust by the time it's all said and done. There's a baseball park nearby (and I mean that literally, there is room for parking, 4 baseball diamonds, and nothing else), as well as a "convenience store." It feels pretty "country" out there.

Then there comes all the questions about what you have the builder do versus what you do yourself. Should we try to install sprinklers ourselves? Should we consider a gas dryer rather than electric? Should we attempt to do our own landscaping? Our own window treatments? Is the nice 17" tile worth the extra five grand? I'm hoping to clamp down on all the upsell, but I'm afraid we may run up our budget another ten grand before I even realize it.

The next step is to sic Ms. Realtor on our Meritage sales guy and see if she can negotiate on any items, including the steep lot premiums. Big thrills...

In other news, Alison didn't, and now has, her full-time position at her high school. Her administration was almost a classic case of tsundere.

I eat a Frosty with French fries.