1-29-11 Saturday (We Might Have Crabs)

With Jim’s laptop hard drive failure eminent, I started the laptop pricing game yesterday.  Thanks to a deal reporting website called fatwallet, I spotted an Acer at OfficeMax that was available as a 2 day special for $180 off.  Today we went to our closest location but struck out.  They called another location and held one for us.  When we went to check out, the total came out much higher.  We pointed out the sale price per a 2 day sale flyer they had sitting in the store.  They manually adjusted it which made it feel even more like a deal.

We drove around doing our typically house hunting routine and found some awesome neighborhoods tucked away in places we hadn’t expected.  We’re thinking we’ll seriously consider some homes in this area.

Last weekend we stopped at a new model center in a development, Crab Orchard, that’s up and coming and in a very convenient area for us.  3 different builders utilize this neighborhood (they each bought pieces of a bankrupt builder’s assets).  We didn’t get to look at Adam’s Homes, a very reputable builder, the last time because the sales woman was out of the office.  We stopped here again and got to talk with Michelle.  She was extremely helpful and pleasant to talk with.  Jim and I settled on a floor plan we love.  We picked out the last larger, wooded lot.  No one close behind us (backs to a preserve with a creek), a large drainage ditch on one side and a home on the other side.  Click to enlarge:

Bedroom #4 would be deleted and made into a living room/family room.  The existing living room would become the dining room.  If we build this house, I’ll give more specifics.  I’ll also get a clean copy (we wrote all over ours) and scan it to post.  The on-line version I found is too small to read clearly? 

It’s definitely a larger home than we need but we likey likey.  If we go with this, the price is within our budget of what we were going to spend on a pre-existing home, including the lot!  The HOA payment is cheap.  Another plus. 

They’ve got a lot of standard design features (above).   We kept Michelle there fifteen minutes past closing time.  While I’m sure she may have a whatever- it-takes-to-make-a-sale-attitude, we departed saying we’d think about it and probably see her tomorrow.

We went out to dinner and made a list of possible changes, including potential upgrades, to the house.  The list is long but we still have a budget to maintain so we’ll have to decide what’s truly important.  The only con we see about building is that it will take approximately 7 months.  We’ve built a house before so we know the ins and outs. 

By the way, in the last house we built, we thought of everything.  We loved it.  Like I said, some things we’re gonna have to make due with out however feel free to make suggestions.  To give you an idea of what we’ve done in the past: added outlets UNDER master bath sinks for rechargeable razors, added extra outlets outside for Christmas lights, extra cable and CAT5 jacks, ceiling speakers in every room, etc.  Most of those things I mentioned are not going into this house.  We haven’t gotten pricing on extra this or that yet so who knows.  Adams Homes is not a custom builder and therefore will shot down a lot of changes.  Our previous builder did anything we wanted.  So far, we can’t even get Adam’s Homes to delete the rounded corners!  We’ll live.

Right now, Jim and I are excited about this.  Tomorrow?  Who knows. 

Jim finished up the taxes for us.  TurboTax.  Nice.  He’s been using it for years.  Now it’s off to bed to think about other useless, expensive or anal-retentive changes.