Buying A Home

My wife and I have been searching for our first home for over 5 years, and renting a house during that time. Initially, we toured a developing area North of town, and checked out a popular builder, KB Homes. We went so far as deciding on a "spec" home, and gaining financial approval. I decided that we should sleep on it, before signing away our life. After sleeping on it, it occurred to me that I should check out KB on the web for reviews, comments, etc. It didn't take long to discover that many people had problems with this company's product. While there may be plenty of decent homes built by them, we decided that we did not want to take the odds of being another unsatisfied customer. We canceled the deal. This was our first heartbreak.

Our real search began here. Over the next 4.5 years or so, we cruised communities around Dallas like Rockwall, Sachse, Murphy, Parker, McKinney, Anna, Prosper, Celina, Weston, Richardson, Plano, Cedar Hill, Arlington, HEB, Oak Point, Colony, and even Denton. The usual method would be to go one of two ways: sometimes, we would just drive there, and sometimes, we would find properties on the net and drive by them. We analyzed real state prices, neighborhood appearances, schools, roads and traffic, access to recreation, industry, parks, shopping, everything we could think of. We got with a realtor at one point and checked out a few homes, but didn't want to buy any of them. After realizing how undecided we were, we felt it best not to take up her time until we were more sure of where we wanted to be.

Eventually, we decided that our home was going to be in one of four towns: Colleyville, Grapevine, Flower Mound, or Highland Village. Of the four, Flower Mound was favored. All four share a similar environment, with brown to red dirt, hills, woods, and proximity to lakes. They also were not too far from town, with excellent schools, low crime, and rising property value.

We watched the market like hawks. Through websites like www.ebby.com , www.realtor.com , and www.cindyruppert.com , we found homes, drove by, and trimmed down the list. One candidate stood above the rest. This would be our second heartbreak.

The seller's agent was happy to meet us for a tour, and we checked out the home. It was spacious, laid out nicely, with plenty of opportunity for creativity, and a large backyard. The home was close to work, close to parks, with plenty of trees, in a nice neighborhood. There were some problems with the home, all of which appeared to be manageable. After a couple of tours, we got back with our realtor, and brought her in on the deal. It was at this point that the seller's agent changed tone, and we learned a real estate lesson - If you have an agent, use your own agent's time for tours.

Considering the condition of the home, we presented an offer at 15% less than asking price with closing costs paid by seller. They responded, and we haggled back and forth until agreeing on a 7.5% reduction with closing costs paid by seller. All parties signed the paperwork, earnest money and option fee checks were presented, and we entered our option period. We had the home inspected by a CODE CERTIFIED inspector, namely http://www.texasinspector.com/ or Aaron D. Miller of Aaron's Home Inspections. The inspection was very thorough, and uncovered several items of interest outside of what we already knew about. Specifically, the roof needed to be replaced, the entire AC system needed to be replaced (except for ductwork), the outside of the house had never been repainted in the 18 years it stood against the Texas heat (resulting in masonry boards warping), and there were termites exploiting an active roof leak.

The home was probably not going to be insured with a bad roof and bad AC, so the seller was going to have to get the repairs done. This was not a good scenario, as we had every reason to believe that he would go with the least expensive option, and that we might be left with a short lived roof and an inefficient AC. We presented a new offer. We upped our price within only 5.5% of the original asking price, on the condition that the seller run with contractors of our choosing. We submitted a list of contractors along with that offer, all of which were the least expensive option we could find that would install a high quality product. The seller balked, and replied with the original full price, and struck our choice of contractors. We replied that he must change his mind by that afternoon or we would walk. After a couple of hours, he lowered the price a hair, but did not accept our condition on choice of contractor. Not willing to pay extra for the seller's choice of budget builders, we walked.

(more later...)