Thursday, July 27, 2006
Location for Vacation House
Buy a house in the mountains? Buy a house by a lake? Buy a house on a ranch? Buy a house by the coast? The winner is ... by the coast.
What sparked us to think about a house on the coast? Well, Scott mentioned his friend saw this advertisement on television for a new subdivision in Port Lavaca, TX. Scott asked me to call to ask for more details. The real estate developer was seeking qualified investors to view the property through an exclusive appointment. That appointment was a grand opening to view the lots before they went on the market to general public. It couldn't hurt to drive down there and see. Personally, I thought it was a scam because we were not given a heck of a whole lot of information about this property. We were basically given marketing material.
I am the type of person who does a lot of research even though our decision to do something may be split second decision. Scott says I have a talent of learning the fine details. Because of this, he trust my advice. I went to realtor.com and looked at houses and lots in our price range. I called several loan companies to get an idea of the type of loans available. I called our insurance company asking for the prices of windstorm and flood insurance. I calculated what it would cost us a month in gas to drive to the coast on a monthly basis.
After compiling this research, buying an existing house became the winning choice over buying a lot. The cost in gas did hurt, but we could manage it if we took the car rather than the truck. Also, compared to Galveston and Port Aransas real estate prices, the waterfront homes in Port Lavaca are cheaper . The drive from Port Lavaca to Port Aransas is about an hour and Galveston about an hour and a half. On long weekends or our week long stays we can visit these areas.
Well, we were stuck with the appointment for the new subdivision because we had a family friend and his wife who wanted to see the property, too. Why make two separate appointments? We did tell them if we saw a lot we liked we got first dibs. Hah!
We decided to drive to Port Lavaca a day before our appointment to drive around and see what types of houses were in our price range. I had made an appointment with a local real estate company. A real estate agent drove us around showing the houses in our price range on the waterfront -- which only added up to five selections. As we were driving back to the real estate office, she slowed down and pointed out a house which she admitted she didn't want to show us because it didn't meet our criteria of having a dock, a deck, and was small. She also admitted it was way below our price range of what we wanted to spend. Huh?! I don't have a problem with paying less than our maximum spending limit. We looked inside and saw that the whole house had been completely refurbished. New paint, carpet, and tile. It had a strange addition which could easily be fixed with a remodel. She said the house had been on the market for a while because it was right next to the highway. There was a lot of road noise (not much from the back of the house) and the house didn't have a fence around it to keep the children and pets from wandering. The view of the tiny bay wasn't great, but it still was nice. Most of all, I liked the price. That evening as we reviewed the digital pictures we were intrigued by this little house.
The next day was the land grab. What a circus! The company had potential buyers meet at a local community center close to the development. The company had all their representative's cars lined up to take the customers out to the property in one swoop. There must have been about fifty cars ready for the land grab. We waited nearly an hour in a large air conditioned tent along with our friends to get our name called. There was a huge selection of snack stations -- which our friend's kids spent most of their time. Finally our name was called. When we introduced our friends, the rep went to get another rep to take them out in a separate car. We then were corraled to the car until all potential buyers were safely situated in vehicles. As we waited for the flag to be dropped, the rep showed us the plat. This was the first time we had seen the plat with prices. Scott and I picked a few within our price range. Over the walkie talkie, the manager told the reps that the "caravan is starting". The cars proceeded in an orderly fashion to the subdivision. Once we were in the subdivision it was a mad dash drive to the lots we selected. The representatives wasted no time getting us to the lots nearly hitting other cars and customers. There were so many people! There were probably 5 perspective buyers looking at each lot. Immediately the sold stickers went on the lot signs and the walkie talkies blared "lot blah blah in section blah blah has been sold!" There were even people fighting over waterfront lots because their rep didn't get the sold sign put up fast enough. There were representatives who had no customers. Apparently they were given the go ahead by remote buyers to purchase sight unseen. I tell you it was crazy!
But Scott and I remained cool and collected. I am so glad we had looked at other properties in the area the day before because the lots and the bay views were not as good as some of the properties we previously saw. For the price of the lots, we could buy a waterfront house with a dock.
The views from the "land grab" property had two minor imperfections. The bay had two huge, rusting, ships which were sunk by hurricane Claudette in 2003. The bay isn't very deep, so the top part of the ships were still above water. The acreage next to the property had a huge steel fabrication factory spewing gray smoke. Lovely. The waterfront lots also had a lot of marsh grass which would require a very long dock which could easily push us over budget.
After we returned to the circus tent with a very dissappointed sales representative to wait for our friends, it took us five minutes to decide what we wanted to do. We called the real estate agent and said we wanted to make an offer on the little house.
NOTE: Austin isn't a stones throw from the coast. It is about a 3 hour drive to Port Lavaca. Not close, but still not a hardship drive. Wait until we get our little one. We will wonder what the heck we were thinking about while on the long drive in a confined space with a screaming inconsolable toddler! Ha!Ha!
What sparked us to think about a house on the coast? Well, Scott mentioned his friend saw this advertisement on television for a new subdivision in Port Lavaca, TX. Scott asked me to call to ask for more details. The real estate developer was seeking qualified investors to view the property through an exclusive appointment. That appointment was a grand opening to view the lots before they went on the market to general public. It couldn't hurt to drive down there and see. Personally, I thought it was a scam because we were not given a heck of a whole lot of information about this property. We were basically given marketing material.
I am the type of person who does a lot of research even though our decision to do something may be split second decision. Scott says I have a talent of learning the fine details. Because of this, he trust my advice. I went to realtor.com and looked at houses and lots in our price range. I called several loan companies to get an idea of the type of loans available. I called our insurance company asking for the prices of windstorm and flood insurance. I calculated what it would cost us a month in gas to drive to the coast on a monthly basis.
After compiling this research, buying an existing house became the winning choice over buying a lot. The cost in gas did hurt, but we could manage it if we took the car rather than the truck. Also, compared to Galveston and Port Aransas real estate prices, the waterfront homes in Port Lavaca are cheaper . The drive from Port Lavaca to Port Aransas is about an hour and Galveston about an hour and a half. On long weekends or our week long stays we can visit these areas.
Well, we were stuck with the appointment for the new subdivision because we had a family friend and his wife who wanted to see the property, too. Why make two separate appointments? We did tell them if we saw a lot we liked we got first dibs. Hah!
We decided to drive to Port Lavaca a day before our appointment to drive around and see what types of houses were in our price range. I had made an appointment with a local real estate company. A real estate agent drove us around showing the houses in our price range on the waterfront -- which only added up to five selections. As we were driving back to the real estate office, she slowed down and pointed out a house which she admitted she didn't want to show us because it didn't meet our criteria of having a dock, a deck, and was small. She also admitted it was way below our price range of what we wanted to spend. Huh?! I don't have a problem with paying less than our maximum spending limit. We looked inside and saw that the whole house had been completely refurbished. New paint, carpet, and tile. It had a strange addition which could easily be fixed with a remodel. She said the house had been on the market for a while because it was right next to the highway. There was a lot of road noise (not much from the back of the house) and the house didn't have a fence around it to keep the children and pets from wandering. The view of the tiny bay wasn't great, but it still was nice. Most of all, I liked the price. That evening as we reviewed the digital pictures we were intrigued by this little house.
The next day was the land grab. What a circus! The company had potential buyers meet at a local community center close to the development. The company had all their representative's cars lined up to take the customers out to the property in one swoop. There must have been about fifty cars ready for the land grab. We waited nearly an hour in a large air conditioned tent along with our friends to get our name called. There was a huge selection of snack stations -- which our friend's kids spent most of their time. Finally our name was called. When we introduced our friends, the rep went to get another rep to take them out in a separate car. We then were corraled to the car until all potential buyers were safely situated in vehicles. As we waited for the flag to be dropped, the rep showed us the plat. This was the first time we had seen the plat with prices. Scott and I picked a few within our price range. Over the walkie talkie, the manager told the reps that the "caravan is starting". The cars proceeded in an orderly fashion to the subdivision. Once we were in the subdivision it was a mad dash drive to the lots we selected. The representatives wasted no time getting us to the lots nearly hitting other cars and customers. There were so many people! There were probably 5 perspective buyers looking at each lot. Immediately the sold stickers went on the lot signs and the walkie talkies blared "lot blah blah in section blah blah has been sold!" There were even people fighting over waterfront lots because their rep didn't get the sold sign put up fast enough. There were representatives who had no customers. Apparently they were given the go ahead by remote buyers to purchase sight unseen. I tell you it was crazy!
But Scott and I remained cool and collected. I am so glad we had looked at other properties in the area the day before because the lots and the bay views were not as good as some of the properties we previously saw. For the price of the lots, we could buy a waterfront house with a dock.
The views from the "land grab" property had two minor imperfections. The bay had two huge, rusting, ships which were sunk by hurricane Claudette in 2003. The bay isn't very deep, so the top part of the ships were still above water. The acreage next to the property had a huge steel fabrication factory spewing gray smoke. Lovely. The waterfront lots also had a lot of marsh grass which would require a very long dock which could easily push us over budget.
After we returned to the circus tent with a very dissappointed sales representative to wait for our friends, it took us five minutes to decide what we wanted to do. We called the real estate agent and said we wanted to make an offer on the little house.
NOTE: Austin isn't a stones throw from the coast. It is about a 3 hour drive to Port Lavaca. Not close, but still not a hardship drive. Wait until we get our little one. We will wonder what the heck we were thinking about while on the long drive in a confined space with a screaming inconsolable toddler! Ha!Ha!
