First Timers

Ok guys, so I mentioned in a previous post that we’re building our first house which means we have yet another move ahead of us. Yap, we’re first time home owner and we’re excited.  

I thought it might be fun to share the experience as we go along.

We signed a contract on a lot which pretty much looked like a pile of sand and dirt at the time. Watching the building turn into our first home is quite interesting but one of my favorite part so far was going to the design center and being able to pick out options to personalized our home, from colors to cabinets, counter top, flooring, lighting even down to the knobs. Will talk more about this appointment in coming post.

I have to be honest, the day we signed a contract on the lot, I had no idea we were becoming lot owners that day. As in, I didn’t wake up thinking, today is the big day. Let me explain. After settling on the community we wanted, we had an appointment to pick a lot. I thought that was all we were doing that day, you know, pick a lot, go home and come back for next steps. Well, long story short, we signed papers that day that made the lot ours and even designed the first phase (structural part) of our house and got our new address. I walked in thinking this is something we can easily handle during a lunch break but boy was I wrong. Needless to say we spent the second half of our work day at the builder’s office.

So in the next few months I'll be sharing the process. This is an exciting experience for us as it is all new. Since the location is not too far from where we are now, we’ve been dropping by every now and then stalking the progress and hoping to get a chance to document(picture) each phase.

Today I'll like to talk a little bit about how we went about picking the community and why we decided to build as opposed to buying a finished or pre-owned house.

Picking a community was relatively easy for us. We knew what was important to us and that was what guided our process of elimination and decision making. First and foremost is good school system.  Eliana will start school in just a few years so we wanted a good school district so we wouldn't have to worry about sending her to a private school at least for now. Since she'll be starting out in an Elementary school, that was our primary focus.  We didn't worry so much about the middle or high school ratings since that is still years away and who knows where we'll by then.  But to start out with, she has great options for elementary schools and a decent middle and high school as a whole in the neighborhood.

The second important factor was commute to work for both of us. Right now we live 3 minutes away from my work and 45 minutes from hubby's. We wanted a middle ground keeping my commute to less than 30 minutes because by the time you add daycare drop off and pick up, my commute can easily extend to an hour or more which was what I was doing in NJ.

The third factor almost goes hand In hand with the first with that being a good and safe neighborhood.  It's not guarantee but you can almost say if you end up in a good school district you’re somewhat in a good neighborhood. 

With those three requirements, we narrowed our search down to two places just a few minutes from each other on opposite end of the road. We visited both communities, talked to people that currently live there, talked to the sale rep in the office and toured the model homes. The designated school for each community was what made the final decision for us. One has a slightly higher ranking than the other so you can guess which one we picked. 

We decided to build because there is a lot of new construction going on in the area we are now. After looking at a few homes and seeing what's out there, we decided why not build and have the opportunity to make it our own. The other factor is that we are still currently under a lease and I am tired of breaking leases and having the landlord take all our security deposit.  So since time is on our side, it just makes sense.