Land Ho!

Finally!

If you will recall, Juice and I have been looking for/at land for quite some time. Actually, a lot longer than I've been telling ya'll about it.

We started looking at land right after we moved back to San Antonio from Chicago. At that point, it was just a pipe dream, that someday we'd have our own little corner of the world where we could build a house, and our (future) kids would have space to run and play and explore the natural world.

I distinctly remember going out north of Canyon Lake and looking at 5 acre lots that were just beautiful, and cost between $35,000 and $40,000. At the time, it was just too rich for our blood, and too far outside of town, not to mention in the part of town with the biggest traffic nightmares, so we decided to wait.

We looked out by Medina Lake, too and found land at about the same cost per acre (around $7K per) and again, it was just more than we could afford, what with having spent our savings on our new house, and preparing for a wedding.

After the wedding, we continued to look, but by then, we were preparing to have a baby, and all of the financial uncertainties that go along with it, so we waited.

Then it was a new house, and by the time we got the new house, the market for everything had gone through the roof, so instead of paying $7000 per acre, we were looking at more like $10,000 per acre, which is just plain stupid, if you ask me.

But then the market tanked, and housing prices went down. Unfortunately, the price of land hasn't followed suit. At least not around here. This past spring, we started looking south of town, thinking that it wouldn't be as expensive as in the Hill Country, and it certainly wouldn't cost as much to build as it would on a lot we'd have to completely clear of cedar and level limestone to boot.

We found some lots down in the southeast corner of the county and a couple in Wilson county that we'd looked at, and settled on a 10 acre lot just outside of loop 1604 that we really liked. Level, lots of tall burr oaks, a little sandy, but very buildable.

Then, it took almost 4 weeks to get our pre-approval letter from the bank, and the lot got sold while we were waiting. So it was back to the drawing board.

We'd seen another 10 acre lot down by Somerset that we really liked too, but it wasn't part of a platted subdivision, so we'd have to put 20% down on the lot, and we only had 10% plus our closing costs.

I stopped looking over the summer, resigned to the fact that we might not ever find what we wanted, and I even used a lot of the money we had saved to pay off a credit card.

Then, a few weeks ago, I was browsing again, like I do when I get bored, and came across an ad for 5 acre lots that were priced lower than anything we'd seen in the past 5 years. I looked into it to find out where they were, and when Peanut got sick, I took the opportunity to drive down near Poteet and look at the lots for myself. We're very picky about what we want...or rather, don't want, in a piece of land.

Anyway, after I took Juice out there, we decided to put in an offer on a 5 acre lot. We found out about 3 days later that the lot we wanted had already been sold, so we were, again, out of luck.

The lot we bid on was on the outside part of the subdivision with a farm behind it, which would have been great because that meant no one behind us, and only one person on each side. The land on that side of the neighborhood was listed at $4000 more than lots in the middle of the subdivision. We had walked a lot in the middle, and the one we walked was actually still available. The selling realtor asked our realtor if we'd be interested in one of the middle lots, and we decided that since they were lower priced, and had more people around, we'd put an offer on two lots together, 10 acres total, to get ourselves some space.

We really lowballed it, offering just over $40,000 for both lots (which were listed individually at almost $30,000). They counter offered just under $50,000 and we took the deal.

Let me emphasize here that we paid under $5000 per acre for 10 acres with water and electric on the lots, as well as restrictions so we won't end up living next to a shanty. That is unheard of around here. Usually with land that inexpensive you have to either drill a well, put up with mobile homes, or both.

I can't tell you how excited I am about this.

Our plan is to build in about 5 years, but Juice thinks I'll actually push to build before then. I'd like to get most of the land paid off before we try to build just so we have some equity to work with.

But you'd better believe that I'm going to be spending a lot of time out in the woods until that happens.