It's Instinct

  A few facts about our family's real estate history;

1. We've moved 10 times in 13 years
2. We've owned  8 houses and we're working on buying a 9th in addition to building one (its a rental)
3. We put an offer in on a house before we ever went inside
4. We may have  spent more time picking out our daughter's car seat than looking for property on which to build our new home.

  I say this to give you a little insight on how we picked our property.  A few of my friends have asked how we found it, and how long we looked for land. There wasn't a lot of searching, or crunching numbers, or considering other options.  It really was just instinct.  Well, that may be a  bit of an overstatement.  It was mostly instinct.
  Our main criteria in choosing our land was
  1.We wanted it to be in the Corning-Painted Post School district.
  2.It had to be affordable 
  3. We wanted over 2 acres
  4. It had to have high speed internet available  (this was actually our #1 criteria)
 
    The property we found met all of our must haves.  Some may be scratching their head at the high speed internet need, but if you live outside of a town or a city in upstate NY, having access to high speed internet can be very tricky.  Right now we live in a technological vortex.  We don't have reliable cell phone service, no high speed internet, and no cable.  While we have the option for satellite service, it is VERY expensive and not speedy at all. We can't upload photos, or download movies, or work from home because of the speed of our internet connection.  I thought I was a bit of a pioneer and could live without high speed internet, but I thought too highly of myself and have now accepted that I am a shallow internet loving girl and will embrace it with all of my heart.    The new property is also close to Dan's office and cuts his commute down to 10 minutes.  Woo hoo for lunches at home. 
    When we saw the property I new I wanted it right away, but Dan is not as sure of things as I am, so I had to do some research to prove to him that it was indeed the best option for us.  That involved looking at the MLS and comparing the price for the acreage, and looking at the prices of the surrounding houses.  We didn't want to get ourselves into a situation where we overbuilt for the area.  If there is one thing that motivates most of our decisions it is resale, even with our dream home we want to think about how other people will react to it and if they will be willing to pay X amount of dollars for what we value. 
   So in a nutshell, our land search was very anti-climatic. I've heard of people searching for land for over 5 years.  I wasn't really even looking for it.  I happened to see it online.  It perked my interest because of the location and lot size. 5 months later we put an offer on it and negotiated said offer in between spay painting and upholstering some yard sale chairs I found.  We're looking forward to breaking land in a month or so.  I'll be sure to keep you updated.

So This is Home....

Building a home.  It's everyone's dream, right?  Well, if you ask my husband it's his nightmare.  He has always been resolute about NOT building a house.  How we ended up with land, an architect, and a young Amish man to build our home is a long story and I look forward to sharing it.
    We are getting ready to build our "dream" house in order to shelter our three girls, one cat, one dog, one mother and one more dog.  Life sometimes throws curve balls and you end up being in a place you never knew existed, much less planned on occupying.  Well, that is where we are.  We are getting ready to set up a multi-generational household.  I am excited about this prospect and I feel this option is something our country will  be seeing a lot more of.
   Anyway....back to the real estate stuff.  We picked out property, an architect, and a builder.  I will be sharing our journey as we navigate through this process working as our own general contractors and picking up a hammer, paint brush, and broom when duty calls.