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| Floor plan for our new townhouse in Apex. |
Once we felt that the house in Wyoming was going to sell for sure we began to casually browse Zillow.com looking at local houses. One thing was starting to become clear - prices are only headed in one direction here and as more people arrive in the Triangle daily (1 Million expected by 2020), prices are going to continue to rise. We needed to find a house to get into before we ended up priced out of the market.
After browsing some houses, we decided that it would be best for us to get a townhouse at this time. I don't want to spend all of my free time mowing a yard and gardening. In fact, I don't want to have to worry about exterior maintenance at all. We located a couple of new construction town home communities near my place of work. One was in an especially good location near Southpointe Mall in South Durham only five miles from work. By the time we drove over there they only had one unit left - the model. We walked through the model, but it wasn't our dream home, so we decided to keep looking.
We began looking at areas farther from work with good access to the highway. I-540 can really shorten my commute.
I found a new community in Apex right behind the Beaver Creek Crossings Shopping Center called Hempstead. This community is being developed by Ryan Homes. The floor plans are named after classical music composers, Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert, and Mendelssohn. There were two floor plans that looked affordable to us, but only one of them had a two-car garage - the Mozart. We studied this model extensively online and took the virtual tour.
One of the best things about this community is its location - easy access to I-540, US-64, and NC-55. Plus, there is lots of shopping and entertainment within walking distance of the front door.
On my way home from work last Tuesday, I passed my exit at Green Level West Rd and went two more miles down to US-64. Here I got off and drove to the Sales Center. Chris, the sales man took me right across the street to tour the Mozart model.
The first thing that surprised me was the second floor front entrance. Chris told me that only hillside units have the second floor entry. All of the others have the front door on the lower, garage level. Just three more buildings are going to be built on the hillside. I was pleased with the finishes in the model unit, but you have to remember that many of the features you see in the model are upgrades and these will end up costing more than the base price.
I stayed for about an hour and then left promising to return on Saturday with Bob so that he could take a walk through and so that we could investigate the house more thoroughly.
Saturday was a dreary and wet day with lots of rain showers. We went to the Sales Center and Chris promptly took us across the street to the Mozart model. We carefully went through the model house asking questions about which items were standard and which were options and how much the options would cost us. We very quickly decided which items were must-haves and walked back across the street to make a deposit on the lot.
After working out how much the house and options would cost us per month, we put $2500 down on
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| Bob points out our SOLD lot. |
the lot and agreed to initiate contact with the mortgage broker that the builder uses. Chris took out a red "SOLD" sign and we walked back across the street in the rain to stick the red placard on the sign that displays which lots are available. Our building is the next building they are going to start. There are four homes in each building and they need to sell three of them before they may go to City Of Apex Planning Department to get a building permit. We were the third home buyer in our building - 1034.
We went with the standard cabinets and granite counter tops. We elected to have a double stainless steel kitchen sink (no additional cost). The third floor, the basement rec room, and the stairs will all be carpeted.
If you purchase the side-by-side refrigerator-freezer from the builder it will cost $1810. We decided to procure that ourselves. We agreed to pay $400 to upgrade to a gas range. We decided to purchase our own washer and dryer (at a savings). We added a kitchen island for $2200. We asked to have a French door in place of the standard sliding glass door to the balcony - $1500. We asked to have the kitchen-dining hard flooring extended through the living room to cover the entire main floor - $4500. We elected to have the builder install a garage door opener for $565. We added an optional half-bath on the main floor - $4000.
With all of the options and with us placing 15% down, our monthly investment will be 20% less than our Cary, NC rent and our Clark, WY mortgage combined payments were. Because of the local economy and the unique situation this housing market is in, we both feel that this house will be a good investment.
We went back into the model home and I flipped every light switch to see which ones were three-way switches and which electric receptacles were switch-controlled. The switch-controlled outlets are installed upside-down. I also pulled down the attic stairs and climbed up to see the furnace and hot water heater.
The house comes with a gas furnace, central air, and a gas on-demand hot water heater. These are in the attic and there is a small floor about the size of the bathroom up there. The rest of the attic is covered with blown-in fiberglass insulation.
Construction will begin on our building in the next few weeks, and the builder expects to have the house finished in December. We will renew our lease through January.
We are very excited about this next step and the house is going to be beautiful!
