Let me give you a quick synopsis of how we arrived at this point. We bought our first home in 2006 right before the real estate bubble burst. Fortunately, we bought our home at auction and did not pay full market value for it. However, like so many other Americans, after the bubble burst, we were underwater on our mortgage. Our first home was a nice home in a nice neighborhood, and honestly, we would have been content to stay there and raise our family except for one thing; school district. We knew we wanted to move preferably before our kids started elementary school, but definitely before our kids started middle school. We knew there was only be one way out; pay down our mortgage and wait for home values to rise. We had some time as our first child was only a few months old. By late 2011 interest rates were at record lows and we knew if we could refinance to a lower rate we would be able to pay down our mortgage faster. Thus our primary goal would be to refinance!
Refinance? As previously mentioned, we were underwater. How much? We were not sure and the only way to find out was to pay for an appraisal. We didn’t want to waste money on an appraisal until we were actually ready to refinance. So we set about finishing little projects around our house and making it look the best that it could. We also began to prepare financially. I sold my truck and bought an old beater car. My truck was paid for and was still worth a fair amount allowing us to put that money back in the bank. We began saving every penny we could fully expecting to have to bring 20 to 30 thousand dollars to our refinance closing. We had met with a mortgage lender and were just about ready to order the appraisal when a funny thing happened. It was the 4th of July, 2012 and we went to a picnic at a friends house.
Why is that funny? It’s not, but what happened from there is so unlikely that it seems humorous. We were discussing our refinance attempt with our friends when one of them asked us if we would ever consider selling our house. The answer of course was yes, but we explained that we did not think it would be possible for several more years. As it turns out her father-in-law was looking for a house just like ours in our exact area. She convinced us that we should let him see it, after all, what did we have to lose. So to make a long story short, he liked it, but we still had to agree on a price. We had set our price at a point that would make it worth while for us to sell. He negotiated some but in end his offer was too good for us to refuse!
So now what? Who cares, we’re free! We moved in with Angie’s parents with our daughter, our two dogs and oh yeah, Angie’s pregnant! We began looking for our new home. Our forever home! That’s what we began calling it because we decided we didn’t want to move again. We wanted to settle in to a nice home in a nice setting in a good school district and we wanted to raise our family there, and we don’t want to move again until we’re too old to climb the steps. So we started looking. “It’s a great time to buy!” That’s what everyone was saying. Interest rates are low, home prices are low. Except it wasn’t a good time to buy, because the inventory of homes available was awful, and prices were rising before our eyes. There were so few homes available that met our admittedly strict criteria. However, Even when we thought outside the box and loosened our criteria, we still could not find a home that we were willing to call our forever home.
Our first task was to determine where we wanted to live. Somewhere in the Boonsboro school district was always our first choice but we were initially open to other areas as well. As time went on we focused more and more on the Boonsboro school district, but with possible redistricting in the future we knew we had to be safely in the Boonsboro school district. After all, school district was our primary motive for moving so it was the most important thing to get right. If we bought or built a house near the district lines we would always have to worry about redistricting. Having grown up down Route 67 in the Rhorersville area, it always felt like home when I would turn the car south from Alternate 40 onto Route 67. Interestingly, even though Angie grew up in Hagerstown, she said the Route 67 area felt like home to her as well. There was one problem with that area, it’s far from everything. So we tried to keep our search to the northern end of Route 67, as close to Boonsboro as possible. This obviously made our search area very small. We were careful not to box ourselves in however, we were not dead set on this area. It was just our preferred area, but we would continue to keep our options open.
As the search went on into the winter months when the real estate market slows to a crawl, we focused our efforts towards the possibility of building. It had always been a dream of ours to build a home but we suspected it would always be a dream. Nonetheless we were researching all of our options so we began looking at lots. One advantage to building is that we could be pickier about location. There were a few lots available in the northern Route 67 area, some on the open market, and one that some friends told us about that was not actually for sale. However, our friends had a hunch that the owners might be willing to sell it. It was the lot next to our friends house and the location was private and beautiful. Located high on a hill the views are incredible and thanks to a large part of it being a wildlife preserve, the views are mostly undisturbed. We contacted the current owners and sure enough, if we were willing to pay, they were willing to sell. That of course would be the decision we would have to make.
In order to make that decision we have to have an idea of what it would cost to build a home so we began meeting with local builders. We started out talking to Oliver Homes and may very well had gone with them except that we were not impressed with their standard floor plans. We then started down the path of custom home building. After a few separate recommendations we ended up talking with Mt Tabor Builders. I grew comfortable with them early on when it became evident that quality is their main focus. I am a very quality focused person and if I am going to spend the money to build a home, I have to know that it is done right. We had several preliminary meetings discussing numbers and naturally, we discovered that it would cost more up front to build than it would to buy. However, there is an offset over time do to savings in maintenance and repairs, energy bills, and updates/renovations that are often expenses associated with buying an existing home. We continued to watch the real estate market and mull our options.
The market was not improving, actually it was getting worse, the availability of homes that fit our needs was dwindling, there were a few that came close, but each of them had major deal breakers that kept us from committing or making an offer. We also noticed another trend in the market, prices were rising. Not closing the money gap between buying and building, but definitely narrowing it. At this point building became a more realistic option for us and we began investing some money in the building process knowing that if we chose to buy an existing home that money would be wasted, but calculating the risk that if we did decide to build we would be that much further ahead of the game. We had the lot we were interested surveyed and obtained a septic permit for it under the 2012 regulations (a decision that would end up saving us between 10-20 thousand dollars). We also paid the money to have plans drawn for our custom house. At this point it was early spring 2013 and we had all the information we needed and it was just a matter of making a decision.
We didn’t Rush. We knew this decision was too important to rush. God had given us a do over with regard to our housing situation. Wherever we end up, we want to be for a long time. Spring is when the real estate market usually heats back up, so we continued to watch. Nothing. Our decision was between building, and waiting for the right house to come along. We prayed over it. We stewed over it. Finally, in early April we made our decision to buy the lot and build a home. In mid April we signed the contract to buy the lot, and on May 2nd, 2013 at 9am, while Angie was in labor with our second child, we signed a contract with Mt Tabor Builders to build our home. That evening at 8:09 pm, our son was born.