Housing Part 4

Well, thank you for all the housing advice.  We agreed the majority of people and decided to switch from our custom built house to the colby #1 - house A.  They did drop the price from 360K to 355K which increased our incentives to almost 18K.  Not as good as the people buying from scratch but still okay.  The two homes across the street from us sold this summer for 500K so that is going to help us maintain home value.

Things we are excited about...

1- The really large, spacious kitchen

2-  Very open floor plan

3- 0.8 mile walk to the front door of the elementary school
4- community playground and swimming pool
5- Neighbors with small kids

Things we are NOT excited about...

1- Total waste of space in the master bedroom closets (they are the size of a bedroom) -- should have been made into an extra bathroom.  This really, really annoys me but there is nothing we can do about it.

2- This is minor but it would have been nice to pick out more upgraded bathroom flooring and lighting throughout the house -- not a big deal at all really

3- fairly small lot (it is all usable space though and will be plenty big for kids to run and play)

Overall, we feel very good about the decision we made.  I would really have nothing on the NOT excited list if it weren't for the lack of bathroom/wasted space issue.  We think it will be a great neighborhood and great house.

I took a few photos of it tonight.  I will update them as the house is finished.

Our street

Standing in the kitchen looking at Victor in the family room

Back of the house.  This does not show the entire yard.

Kitchen in early stages

Now we just need to sell the WI home!  Thanks for keeping us in your thoughts and prayers!

Curious George

Erik loves reading.  One book he likes is Curious George.  This weekend Victor and Erik went to a Broadway-style curious George production.  Erik liked it a lot.  He said he clapped his hands the whole time, really liked the "meatball machine", and got to see the "movie" twice (before and after the intermission).  He also seemed to enjoy special one-on-one time with his Dad. 

Here are a couple of photos...

Housing Part 3

We made a verbal offer today on Colby #1 (house A) for 349,000 (asking price 360,000).   We have not heard back from the builder but are hopeful they will at least come down to 355,000 or so. If they do we will probably renegotiate down to 352,000 plus one upgrade we want added to the house.

The builder we had planned on going with continues to be gracious and is allowing us to stay under contract with them until Monday.  If the builder for Colby #1 is unwilling to negotiate we will likely threaten and follow through on building with their competitor.

We are nervous/excited/anxious and hopeful that we made the right decision.  I will feel good about things if we can get the house between 350K and 355K.  We will see.

Waukesha house --- one very interested couple went through this weekend.  They spent over an hour in the house but have not followed up so apparently they are not interested.  Err!!  Another couple went through yesterday -- no follow up.  We are planning on dropping the price another 5K tomorrow.  We really need to close on the house no later than late October so we can use our equity (whats left of it) for a down payment on the Maryland house.

It is very painful to be losing money on our Waukesha home but on the upside the house we put a verbal offer in would have cost us somewhere between 400,000 and 450,000 3-4 years ago so we are losing money in one place and gaining it in another.