Keeping up
You’d think I would be able to keep up with posting updates here, since I am sitting in front of a computer all day. Oh wait, that’s right, I actually have work to be doing when I’m in front of the computer :) And then once I’m home, who wants to spend more time in the work position?
We visited six acres. Reasonable location. Woods. Hill. Stream. Sewer line smack down the middle of the long axis, with occasional sewery scents wafting out as you walk past the big raised concrete access ports. Next!
Today we met with a developer about some lots in a “restricted” neighborhood not too far away. He thinks our house ideas are probably too different from what’s already being built in there for the architectural review board to approve - the current houses are all in the tall, multi-faceted roof style. I wasn’t that keen on the other covenant restrictions either, many of them might cause us trouble (like secondary structures - e.g. the studio - have to be built behind the back line of the house, but we would have wanted to put the house as far off the road as possible, before the land gets super-steep).
But, he says. (Jeff had a fantasy that this would happen.) I have this 12 acres, adjacent to (and subject to the covenants and restrictions of) a development, but their restrictions are not as tight, and apparently they have a pool and other “amenities”. A bunch of it is flood plain, the rest is wooded. One corner is leased to a hunt club for another ten or twelve years. The price is in our range. We drove out to see it, briefly, just so we’d know where it was to go back ourselves. What we saw was not thrilling, but that was mostly the flat field flood plain part. Lovely view of the crammed-together gray-vinyl-siding houses in the development to which it is technically attached. I read through the covenants document in the car, it’s long but probably nothing that’s a big deal.
So we’ll have to go out and look at it when we have better shoes and when I’m not due at work. Better start driving back to town.
While driving, Jeff gets a call from the developer (in Pittsburgh!) who owns another few lots we found, and Jeff had to put on his detective hat to track them down. Yes, the lots are available, they’ll fax some info. 2.4 acres each, we could afford one but not both. So we had to drive out and look at them - despite the wrong shoes. Rather flat, but wooded. Looks like they’ve had perk tests done recently, with a backhoe. On a cul-de-sac off a side road off a country road that has some traffic but not a ton. The other houses are interesting-looking and varied.
While we’re out there, Jeff gets a message from a local realtor he’s also been talking to, and had asked about these lots - he says the two his realty company is involved in building on in the same area are already too far along, but that these other two (that we’re standing on) still could perhaps be saved from spec building, if we get on with it.
Finally I get to work. No faxes yet from the Pittsburg company. And, seeing as there is no work waiting for me, I go post in the blog!