Thursday, January 24, 2008

Good-Bye Lot 49

Oh yea Lena, thanks for asking. I hope your chair is comfy, this is going to be a long one.

Sunday came and went without any word from either our realtor or our builder. I was feeling pretty alright with the situation. Giving myself the old, "everything happens for a reason". Or as my friend Alayne told me, "You just weren't meant to have that lot". Whatever, apparently there are a quite a few things I'm just not meant to have, things that I think I really, really want. Gah.

But anyway, Monday Vince got the call from our builder telling him that yes, the lot sold. And no, there wasn't anything we could do about it. She told him something about our request to hold the property being verbal, and the other people having an actual contract on paper before ours, blah, blah, blah. So yes, TTMW did act without integrity, honor, or any sense of decency, but no, there wasn't anything we could do about it legal or otherwise. Other than hide outside her office, rush her when we see her heading out to her car, and bitch slapping her. But that probably would lead to some other legal action, of which I want no part. Once I got the official news, I was so angry. Not sure at who to be angry, but angry anyway. Close to tears angry. My beautiful one-acre, outside corner, pie-shaped, heavily treed lot - gone.

So Vince called me around 3:00pm on Monday with the news. I started looking at the plat map we had trying to figure out what our options were. The lots I liked were too sloped and would takes a lot of money to backfill them to even get them ready to build on. I really liked lot 67 and lot 66, but they were very, very slopey. "Down in the holler", as Vince would say. Some other lots that looked great on paper were under these huge power lines. All I could think was EMF's and brain tumors. The others were already taken. I did not like what I was seeing.

Vince wanted to take immediate action and get out and look at lot 69, the other lot he was considering. To take advantage of the quickly waning daylight, I woke napping babies, ditched Sophia's residual school work, grabbed some juice, cocoa, graham crackers and two packs of whole-wheat saltines (those things are strangely popular around here), and packed up the kids for the one and one-half hour drive out to Azle to look at the other lot, the more expensive lot. The more expensive lot that we were offered for the same money, much to our builder’s surprise because she said the owner hasn't accepted a $0.01 less than asking price on anything else so far. I'm thinking he knows his realtor acted out of line and was trying to appease us. Oh, and we're dealing directly with him now. TTMW got cut out of the deal. I guess there is a little justice in the world.

So I begrudgingly took off to Fort Worth to meet Vince at work so we could go to Azle together. The whole time I’m thinking, “Fine, I’ll pretend I’m a reasonable person. I’ll go, and I’ll look, and I’ll even pretend I’m considering it, but I’m not going to like it. It’s long and skinny. And three other lots back up on it’s left. I don’t care if it’s bigger, I don’t care if we’re “getting a deal”. It’s not my lot, I’m not going to like it, I don’t want it." I was wondering how long I was going to have to walk around to make this look convincing.

We got to the development with about fifteen minutes of daylight left. I asked Vince if he would mind if I got out of the car and walked around the lot to get a feel for it. See, I’m good at pretending to be a reasonable person. It was cold, and had rained earlier that day, but I trudged on. I found a bit of a path on the left side of the lot, the side that three other people’s backyards will back up to, and I started walking. I walked, and walked, and lost sight of the car. I kept walking, and walking, and finally saw, way back there, a stake in the ground with pink ties on it marking the back property line of the lot. Wow, the lot was deep. And the back left corner met the back right corner of the lot we originally came to see that brought us to the Deer Creek Development in the first place. And I loved lot 73. Loved it! It was pie shaped even. But the house was just too small for us. Then I realized that on the three lots that back up to the side, you can’t even see the houses. The houses, or I should say house because only lot 70 has a structure on it so far, are built way in the front of the property. I mean who wants to pay for all that concrete for an extra long driveway? Concrete is expensive these days. So I started thinking, “Who cares about the three neighbors on one side, if the neighbors are way over there?. And wow this lot goes back forever, and the trees.” There were so many trees, more than on lot 49. I kept expecting a deer to step out in front of me or something. I kept hearing little scurrying noises, and a twig snap now and then. I know deer don’t scurry, but it was kind of unnerving and I’m not an outdoorsy kind of person, but I thought the kids would dig it.

Starting to feel my stubbornness ebb, I walked back to the front of the lot, to the only place where I could actually walk the width of the lot without going through forest, to see just how narrow the lot was. 125 feet was too narrow on paper. I didn't like the look of it. But in person, 125 feet didn’t seem too narrow. Not as narrow as I thought it would anyway. Especially with there not being a house directly on the left. Those backyards butting up to the left of the property turned out to be a good thing, space wise anyway. Then I started thinking about the placement of the lot in relation to the street. Lot 49 was at the end of the street where it turned to end in a cul-de-sac. So while there would not be many people driving past the house, those few who did would have their headlights shining straight into our house. Not good. Plus there was the fact that even though I liked the pie shape of the lot, it wasn't very deep and there was a house built just beyond the back property line that wasn't part of the Deer Ridge development, and was therefore older and let's just say, less attractive. Geez, when did I get so snobby? So maybe I was just trying to talk myself out of something I could no longer have, but I began to appreciate that lot 69 was so deep, it wouldn't matter what was behind our back property line, because I wouldn't be able to see it anyway. And since lot 69 is after the turn to a cul-de-sac and on the inside corner, that meant no bright headlines shining into our house.

So short story long, we're going with lot 69. And while it is narrower than I would like, I think it's going to work well for us. And if I had all the money in the world, I would have liked to have had lot 67. But I just can't see paying $24K for a lot, then putting another $30 into it, just to get it ready to build on. I mean, if we had money like that, I'd probably build my 6,000 sq. ft. home in the Rolins Hills Estates, just down the road, where a one acre lot goes for $100K. But, they have an equestrian center. So, don't you think it's worth it?

1 comment:

Over Coffee said...

Hopefully this really is the one and it will be smooth sailing from here on out. I can't wait for the pictures from beg. to end. ;-)