House Hunting

Hey guys,
Count myself in the same situation. My wife and I have been looking at houses for a while trying to figure out where to go next. We love where we are at (Knox/Henderson), but we've outgrown our condo. First, we were looking at M Streets, then Munger/Junius area, Lake Highlands, Hollywood/Santa Monica, Kessler, Briarwood, and now we're thinking maybe Southlake, Trophy Club type areas. It's just hard to find the right space within LBJ for a reasonable price. 1800sf and one car garage for $350k is not going to cut it. And I don't really see us moving to Frisco or that area.

It's a tough decision. We're currently working with a couple of realtors, but we do most of the research ourselves on realtor.com.

 

Guys,

I am selling my house beacuse I am getting, gulp, married. It is a large 4 bedroom on Bridlewood Golf Course in Flower Mound. It also has a VERY large movie theater room right by the bar. Perfect for F1 watching! :>

Call me with questions or you can PM or email me if you are interested and I can send you pics.

Nick

 

Sean, how about Valley Ranch, right by 635. I have lived 3 different locations in DFW area in the past 15 years, and this is the most convenient place. (yes, your area is convenient, too, but for different occasions)

You can get over 3,000 sq ft w/ 2-3 garages for below $350K. Just be careful which school district you are going to be in.

Before we decided for this house, we looked at about 50 houses (not counting internet & magazine search) in Grapevine, Southlake, & Coppell.

Southlake was our second choice, but just too far for topless bars....

Future328,
We bought our house from Renko Tomlinson, and she's based in Richardson, but did very good for us for the above 3 locations. Her e-mail address is <[email protected]> or 214-668-0247. You can consult her, and see what she can offer.

 

Hey Yoshi,
I had not thought of Valley Ranch, but it does make sense. We'll have to go check it out next week. I did find a place in Southlake with a 6 car garage, but I don't think my wife was too pleased with the rest of the house. But, with a 6 car garage, who cares what the rest of the house looks like?!?

 

Good luck to you both, Sean & future328,
Let me know if you need some input. I've been here since 2000 (when we moved last year, it was only 4-5 blocks away from the old house)

Canal area is very nice, but priced higher due to its location. The same house would be lower if it's not along the canal. But if you want some view (not fence nor neighbors), it's much cheaper than golf course view! Future328, you try to save some money there, and buy your F-car!! (that's what I did for 355 purchase)

There're new houses built in Valley Ranch for less that $350K by few builders, and you may want to check them out. They do give you discounts for houses that will be finished in 1-3 months, but has no buyers yet. I would considered Lennar homes or Soverign in 2003, but they were bit small for our need.

 

Rob, a similar scenario happened to us on the "pre-owned" house we just bought in Southlake. It was listed on a Friday... our realtor was watching new listings closely that matched our criteria. Bethany viewed it the following morning (Saturday) then called me and said, "Get over here quickly!"

We put an offer on it... and they had two more offers later that day at full list price! Needless to say, this took away our power to negotiate... but we ended up with a great house at a very reasonable price. We close later this month... move in mid-July. Always nice to know there are others who liked it too. Sounds like in both our cases, the early bird got the worm.

Our last house in Southlake sold in two weeks.

 

Hey Rob,
That's the one! We haven't seen any good pictures of the house, and we figure there is a reason for that. I think we are going to drive out that way Sunday to do some house hunting - see if we can hit some open houses and get a better feel for the area. Then maybe the next weekend, we'll try Valley Ranch.

 

And sometimes you just get lucky. When we bought our house, we just happened to notice a for sale sign leaning against the garage. The homeowner was working in the yard, and we pulled over and talked to them.

They had just decided to put the house on the market, and it wasn't listed yet. 15 minutes later we had a deal.

This neighborhood never has a house stay on the market more than a few days, and we were cruising the area every weekend for a year before we had the chance to get one in here.

Everyone in the neighborhood just received a letter from a couple who offered full appraised price to anyone who wanted to sell

Good luck Ken.

 

Damn, dem's double wides must be gittin hot!

 

It's the chili pepper porch lights that really set the house apart....

I was just suggesting it as a method for Ken. Find the house(s) you like, and send them a letter offering to pay for an appraisal with a binding offer to buy the house at the appraised value if you're both happy with the value.

 

[Plug On]

Ken, come check out my neighborhood. It's old, 30+years which means we have huge trees. It also means that we have yards. I'm in my 2nd house in this 'hood, and my current house is up in price about 50% in 5 years. The 3 elementary schools are all rated 'exemplary', and we're centrally located off of 75 and Campbell. I don't know what your price range is, but there are houses from ~$150k to over $1MM.

Send me a PM if you want to come out and look around. I know of a couple for sale at the moment.

[Plug Off]

Isn't it funny how everyone says 'Hey, come live where I live!'

Since we're telling storys of 'early bird gets house', I sold my last house in 4 hours and had 3 offers. I was the first person to see the house I'm in now, and put in a bid at full price. While I was there, another guy came walking into the driveway and asked MY agent if she could show him the house. He made an offer too, and got the first contract. Fortunately, he slept on it and chickened out.