My Own Home in America!

Yesterday, I signed the contract to get myself a new home, my first own home in America! Wow! It is a 2133-square-foot model they are calling Hawaii, sitting on a 60 X 110 ft plot of land. My home elevation will look pretty much similar to the picture here, except that the garage will be on the right side.

It all happened so suddenly and unexpectedly. I knew this would happen at some time. But, I never thought this would happen so soon, although a couple of friends suggested months ago that I should consider buying a home instead of staying in rental apartments.

A close friend and colleague has been actively looking to buy a home, and I accompanied him on his house hunts this past Saturday, and the Sunday before that. I was merely with him to see how his search goes and how the market is out there. However, on Saturday, I really liked three of the houses that he was looking at. I called him and spoke to him about them, and he said I should go ahead if I am really interested.

So, on Sunday, I took a couple of good friends to take a more critical view of the houses. On second look, only one of those three houses seemed worth considering. And then, one of the friends who was with me, suggested that we look at some model homes in a community that Richmond American Homes was developing close by. We took a look and found that a plan we liked was available as a "spec home", with a pretty good discount.

A "spec home" is something which somebody else had planned on buying, but then decided not to. The house is usually at a certain stage in the construction process (my house is at the "frame" stage), and hence the builder wants to sell it away as soon as they can. So, they offer discounts and incentives on those. In my case, the discount was good enough that it did not take long for me to make a decision. One day later, on Monday, I signed the contract on my new house!

There was a little bit of apprehension and cold feet just before I signed the contract. The real estate prices in this area have started to come down recently, and people are expecting them to go down further in the coming months. So, there is a risk that something similar to my house would be available for lesser cost in the future. I considered the discount I was getting on my house, the general location of the community, and decided to take a calculated risk.

As if to vindicate my decision, after I had signed the contract, we found another brand-new barely lived-in house in the same community, the same Hawaii model as mine, which was already put up for sale by the new owner at a price which is about $50000 more than the cost of my house. That house backs up to a green-belt area and probably has some great upgraded features. Nevertheless, I am confident that my decision is not wrong.

Only thing weird about the situation is that I am doing all this alone. I mean, I have my friends here, and the real estate agent accompanied me when signing the contract. But I am buying a house, a home, without a partner or a family with me. Feels weird. Even more weird will be to actually stay alone in a 4-bedroom house! We'll wait and see.