Just signed the contract on a new house...

[George P Burdell]

:thumbsup:

 

[Descartes]

Originally posted by: BrokenVisage

Originally posted by: Naustica
Congrats! Looks beautiful! I love the openness of everything.

Don't all houses look "open" when theres no furniture in them?

Not really, no. Older floor plans were much, much more compartmentalized (sp?). New floor plans are open and flowing, so it has the appearance of being much more spacious with furniture or not. I believe that's what Naustica was saying.

I personally love open floor plans, and I'm glad that's the new style in building. It's great for entertainment, and hopefully won't look as dated as some older houses do now. I had a 1920s bungalow back in Tulsa that still looked great, and it was because the floor plan was very open and flowing.

Ok, I dragged that subject on too long....

 

[Descartes]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
Congratulations, looks very nice.

I decided to rent for another year and keep investing the difference, since prices are crazy here in the Seattle area -- $400K+ for a condo and $600K+ for a small house, unless you buy in the middle of nowhere.

Yeah, it's getting ridiculous. Atlanta is very similar in terms of price, and it doesn't appear to be getting any better. A newer house on an old lot in an established neighborhood runs ~$700k+ easy. Decent condos are $400k plus, and you really need to be higher to get anything with a decent amount of space. Surely it has to end somewhere?

 

[Descartes]

Originally posted by: Flyback
Sweet crib. Congrats.

Didn't you say (in other threads) you're mid-20s? You're doing quite well for your age

Turned 27 about a month ago. The past 3 or so years have flown by...

Compliment much appreciated!

 

[mrrman]

looks nice....I am glad that I am not buying in todays market...I couldnt afford it

 

[GMI]

looks awesome. I wish I can get my first home soon. But what's with the multiple height on the kitchen cabinets? I assume they look better in real life?

 

[Koing]

Looks very sweet!

£250k ~ $500k doesn't get much of a place where I live. Being 30mins from London by train or 60mins driving is a killer on house prices...

Koing

 

[Old Hippie]

Nice place. Congrats Descartes! :thumbsup:

PSS. When's the house warming?

 

[Descartes]

Originally posted by: GMI
looks awesome. I wish I can get my first home soon. But what's with the multiple height on the kitchen cabinets? I assume they look better in real life?

Hmm. I've looked at probably 50 properties or more in the past 6 months, and I never even noticed that

I just looked around at a few new properties online, and it looks like some cabinets are like that and some aren't. I'm really not sure. If you look at some other houses, typically the raised portions are over the range and microwave/oven areas, so it's either an architectural element or simply trying to maximize space. Maybe someone that knows more about houses can chime in here.

That said, it looks great to me in person and I wouldn't be bothered with it if you encounter a home that has it as well.

 

[Duddy]

Jacuzzi is usual?!

etc. is usual?!?!


I WISH my house had etc.!! That would rock!

 

[Ameesh]

congrats!

 

[Feneant2]

Looks enormous!!

 

[drum]

wow nice

 

[Muadib]

Very nice!! Congrats!

 

[Fritzo]

Open floor plan...those are popular on the coasts. Which coast are you on?

 

[PingSpike]

3500sqft is "not to big"? Ok then! Congratulations on your mansion though.

We just signed a contract last thursday on our first. I felt like mine was a good size for a (planned) family of 4 at 1700sqft! Its got everything I want...a place for a woodstove (chimney is already there), its own well, a two car garage, a dining room AND an eat in kitchen, and 4 acres of land with the house nestled behind a knoll and a good deal of trees for privacy.

The only thing that would have been nice is if it had a walk in closet in the master.

I'm really excited to move in! Now I have to hurry up and lock my interest rate since it seems to get crappier by the day! Yaaargh!

 

[Descartes]

Originally posted by: Fritzo
Open floor plan...those are popular on the coasts. Which coast are you on?

Atlanta. Almost all of the houses I saw in the past 6 months were building these open floor plans. It really makes a huge difference, imo.

 

[Descartes]

Thanks everyone for the kind words.

Originally posted by: PingSpike
3500sqft is "not to big"? Ok then! Congratulations on your mansion though.

We just signed a contract last thursday on our first. I felt like mine was a good size for a (planned) family of 4 at 1700sqft! Its got everything I want...a place for a woodstove (chimney is already there), its own well, a two car garage, a dining room AND an eat in kitchen, and 4 acres of land with the house nestled behind a knoll and a good deal of trees for privacy.

Congrats to you as well! Sounds like a great place. 4 acres is a nice size too. A lot of the lots they have around Atlanta are completely leveled before they put a house on it, so you have a 2 acre lot with a nice-sized house on it that has an unobstructed view of the neighbor :thumbsdown:

The only thing that would have been nice is if it had a walk in closet in the master.

Yeah, the closets and kitchen were my almost my wife's main priorities. I've always wanted to build out a closet, so I'm in the process of pricing some custom designs to help organize things. This is the first large walk-in I've had in the master.

I'm really excited to move in! Now I have to hurry up and lock my interest rate since it seems to get crappier by the day! Yaaargh!

Absolutely! When I started looking the rates were in the high 5s, then when I started the loan process it was 6.125 or so. The next say it was 6.2x and it was higher the next day. Definitely lock that in!

 

[ponyo]

Originally posted by: Descartes

Originally posted by: Fritzo
Open floor plan...those are popular on the coasts. Which coast are you on?

Atlanta. Almost all of the houses I saw in the past 6 months were building these open floor plans. It really makes a huge difference, imo.

My house is one of the older houses without the open design. It was built in 1986. Even though it's ~4000 sf, it feels smaller than my cousin's ~3200 sf open floor house.

 

[WingZero94]

Nice!

 

[Tommouse]

Nice digs!! I'm also a big fan of the open layout. Looks great, congrats :thumbsup:

 

[mercanucaribe]

Pics of the outside? Where is it?

 

[PingSpike]

Originally posted by: Descartes
Congrats to you as well! Sounds like a great place. 4 acres is a nice size too. A lot of the lots they have around Atlanta are completely leveled before they put a house on it, so you have a 2 acre lot with a nice-sized house on it that has an unobstructed view of the neighbor :thumbsdown:

The only thing that would have been nice is if it had a walk in closet in the master.

Yeah, the closets and kitchen were my almost my wife's main priorities. I've always wanted to build out a closet, so I'm in the process of pricing some custom designs to help organize things. This is the first large walk-in I've had in the master.

I'm really excited to move in! Now I have to hurry up and lock my interest rate since it seems to get crappier by the day! Yaaargh!

Absolutely! When I started looking the rates were in the high 5s, then when I started the loan process it was 6.125 or so. The next say it was 6.2x and it was higher the next day. Definitely lock that in!

Thats one of the good things about Vermont, its overall such a mountainous region that most houses out in the country have some kind of natural barriers. You can always plant hedges and trees but they take years to fill out. We were looking at a house with 22 acres before this, but it was all steep, heavily wooded mountain side! And a snow mobile trail ran right next to the house!

The kitchen is a big deal for my wife as well. She vetoed a lot of nice houses because they didn't have the kind of kitchen she wanted. Unfortunately, the only houses that would *really* have the kind of kitchen she wanted probably cost upwards of 350k. As it stands though, this one just needs more upscale countertops for her taste. I figure we can make that happen at some point in the near future.

I'll have to look into building a walk in closet for the master...the bedrooms aren't massive in the house but they're big enough. The trouble is I'd probably have to cover up one of the really nice windows.

What's the housing market been like down there? Around here things have pretty much just stagnated. It was never California in terms of prices, but in 2005 sellers had multiple bidders over asking price for their houses and it was pretty nice. Now houses sit on the market 60-90 days in our price range and there's a lot of modest price reductions going on. We saw a lot of houses above the top of our price range where the seller hadn't really taken very good care of the property but wanted top dollar for it. We even walked into a scary one or two.

 

[Descartes]

Originally posted by: PingSpike

Originally posted by: Descartes
Congrats to you as well! Sounds like a great place. 4 acres is a nice size too. A lot of the lots they have around Atlanta are completely leveled before they put a house on it, so you have a 2 acre lot with a nice-sized house on it that has an unobstructed view of the neighbor :thumbsdown:

The only thing that would have been nice is if it had a walk in closet in the master.

Yeah, the closets and kitchen were my almost my wife's main priorities. I've always wanted to build out a closet, so I'm in the process of pricing some custom designs to help organize things. This is the first large walk-in I've had in the master.

I'm really excited to move in! Now I have to hurry up and lock my interest rate since it seems to get crappier by the day! Yaaargh!

Absolutely! When I started looking the rates were in the high 5s, then when I started the loan process it was 6.125 or so. The next say it was 6.2x and it was higher the next day. Definitely lock that in!

Thats one of the good things about Vermont, its overall such a mountainous region that most houses out in the country have some kind of natural barriers. You can always plant hedges and trees but they take years to fill out. We were looking at a house with 22 acres before this, but it was all steep, heavily wooded mountain side! And a snow mobile trail ran right next to the house!

The kitchen is a big deal for my wife as well. She vetoed a lot of nice houses because they didn't have the kind of kitchen she wanted. Unfortunately, the only houses that would *really* have the kind of kitchen she wanted probably cost upwards of 350k. As it stands though, this one just needs more upscale countertops for her taste. I figure we can make that happen at some point in the near future.

I'm familiar with that

I'll have to look into building a walk in closet for the master...the bedrooms aren't massive in the house but they're big enough. The trouble is I'd probably have to cover up one of the really nice windows.

What's the housing market been like down there? Around here things have pretty much just stagnated. It was never California in terms of prices, but in 2005 sellers had multiple bidders over asking price for their houses and it was pretty nice. Now houses sit on the market 60-90 days in our price range and there's a lot of modest price reductions going on. We saw a lot of houses above the top of our price range where the seller hadn't really taken very good care of the property but wanted top dollar for it. We even walked into a scary one or two.

Definitely a buyer's market in Atlanta, imo. I was able to immediately knock 7% off the price, $6k in closing costs, and request some additional carpentry work.

I was seeing these types of concessions quite a lot in the past 6 months, especially on new property.

 

[TheSlamma]

Originally posted by: tfinch2

Originally posted by: Descartes
Just signed the contract on a new Mc Mansion...

FIXED

Congrats.

Fixed again