House hunting: Money money options!

Mission: house hunt is well underway and this is all kinda freaking me out to be honest.  We want to make the BEST decision possible with this move because we don't want to move again. But trying to find out all the particulars and ins and outs of different neighborhoods and areas, well, while it's completely worth it, is also tiring and at times frustrating!  For house hunting trip number two we went to look at just new construction. {Last time we looked at (dirty) older re-sale homes and new construction and I blogged about it here.}  Right now we are focusing our search on new construction because if we decide to build, we'll have to get it started soon in the coming months so it's finished this summer. If we don't build, then we will look in earnest for our new (older and hopefully clean) house later in the spring.

Seasoned readers of A Couple More Hours will remember that back in 2008, we built a house. I blogged about the process quite a few times and shared a bunch of pictures. I loved that house so much. I could always, and still can, picture us living our long lives in that house. It was just big enough but not too big and was cozy enough yet roomy and very modern. There were features of that house that we adored, such as its big open two-story great room. I've never seen quite a great room!!  To illustrate my point:

Check out those windows! 

{Mike and Arlene are off to the left side of this shot - it looks like she's trying to escape him!}

I loved that railing.

We couldn't sell our house in time to be able to buy that house, so it was sold to someone else. Sad. It took me a while to get over it, and I don't think I'm completely over it yet.  The builder that built that house was taken over by another builder, and they're not offering that same exact plan anymore. Bummer! 

But, since then, we've gotten older and wiser about this whole process. 

Look at those BABIES!  This photo was taken the weekend that house was finished.  Flash forward three years. The girls are older, we're older, we actually sold our house so this is really happening, so let's move on. 

We're taking some lessons learned.  We know what we loved about that house, so we know what to look for with other builders. And, we learned a couple things about what type of location we'd want to be in. That house was built in a big sprawling neighborhood. Look at this, it's huuuuge! The red blob is where that house is:

The neighborhood goes on for EVER ... but, it's filling up slowly. We think there's a reason for everything, and we think that the reason why we didn't sell our house in '08 and move into that new house is because we wouldn't have ended up liking that huge neighborhood. It's just TOO BIG for our tastes. At the time maybe we had blinders on and we loved the house so much that we didn't fully consider its location. There are so many undeveloped areas of that neighborhood with plans to expand. There's a lot of unknown too - there are plans to open a retail center at the entrance of the neighborhood but no one knows what retailer could go in there. There's plans to expand the streets and open up new sections for more houses. It could literally be under construction for 15 or more years, and different builders have started there and pulled out - it's like a rotating door. The street that we built on has grown since '08, but there are still a lot of vacant lots.

We realize now that we want more space.  If our budget allows, we'd love to build a house that has some space. We don't want to be looking into the neighbors' windows.  We want a long driveway.  We want trees and a nice sized backyard. 

We've concentrated our house hunting on trying to find a builder we like and seeing if that builder can build us a house on a larger plot of land. We found a good builder and found two exceptional floor plans. 

Check it out - two story great room with windows and look at that fireplace!  Drooooool!   That particular floor plan is at the top of our "dream home" list - it has a lot of the same qualities as the house we had built, namely the two-story great room.

Another view of the great room and it's fireplace.

The other floor plan we liked had an open foyer:

It doesn't have a two-story great room, but it feels very open and lofty thanks to the foyer and the wide hallways/walkways.  It had unique angles which we liked a lot.  We don't like traditional in any way so give us something with a lofty feel and some angles and we're all for it. This particular plan also had an impressive finished basement:

And a bunch of little nooks, ledges and niches ...

 Well hello over sized light!  That particular ledge is in the foyer but the light wants to take all the attention.  Sorry light, we care more about the ledges. We love ledges and if we did build a house, we'd request that ledges be added all over, especially ledges with electricity so we can display our Halloween houses! 

Can you picture it?!  We can!

And while this is all well and good, we're finding homes that we can see ourselves in, it's all about the money, baby.  And when you build, options mean major MONEY.  The base prices of these models are completely doable but once you start adding options then the prices go up. And by "options" I'm not even talking anything that extravagant. The base prices include base stuff like the bottom of the line carpets, cabinetry, flooring and etc. Nevermind any structural upgrades like extensions or finished basements. Pricey, pricey.

That wonderful stone fireplace in that first plan?  We don't even know how much that would cost.  We don't even know how much ANY upgrades would cost at this point, and that's the slightly frustrating part.  We know the base prices of the two plans, but we won't know the prices of all of the options until we meet with the builder next weekend. We got a good deal on the house that we had built - we put in modest upgrades and the finishes that we wanted. We built that house in '08, before the market took its major crash.  We know how much we spent at that time and we keep telling ourselves that we'd be able to find something for LESS than that now. But we haven't been able to yet.  That's incredibly frustrating.  The builders took a big hit when the market crashed and there's some that are offering incentives and sales, but others can't afford to. But we're in this to save money because we lost a lot when we sold our house. If we can't find a good deal on new construction then we won't build.  

Our search continues and we're meeting with another builder on our next outing to price compare and contrast and to look at more floor plans. We think we've nailed down an area that we want to live, but we're not 100 percent sure. There is a mystery neighborhood that we stumbled upon that no one can seem to find any information about. It's like the Twilight Zone of neighborhoods, but we'd LOVE to be located there.  I searched the 'net extensively trying to find information on it and came up with zilch.  Well, I did find a Google Earth map of it:

The neighborhood has one paved road - the one that looks gray - and the other area is just dug out at this point. The little white box {I know, my photoshopping skills are impressive, right?!} at the top is where we'd love to plop a house - in a cul-de-sac?  Yes please!

This neighborhood is nestled in the middle of both of our work places and it's in a good school district.  But right now it's all vacant land apart from the three houses built there. We can't find any kind of plot map or anything associated with it. One builder told us the neighborhood was started right before the market went under and it's just been slow going. We've asked lots of questions and haven't gotten any answers so that's sort of added to its mystery and appeal. Is it built on a burial ground?  Does the soil smell like cheese?  Is it a sink hole?  What?  We haven't figured it out yet.  It looks nice.  The lots would be huge.  We'd love to have woods behind us.  But ... the unknown is too scary. Would we want to be the first house in a neighborhood and then have construction noise for years to come?  Not sure.

So, with a lot of not sures and possibilities and we like that and we hate that and oooo, that's lovely mark that into the dream house wish list ... our search continues ...