buy low, sell high (or: timing [and dumb luck] is everything)

Median home listing price in 78757 for three bedroom single-family detached homes

We were fortunate, in part by evil plan and in part by dumb luck, when we built our house. We purposefully bought a lot in the dark shadow of the banking crisis hoping to get a deal (and we did). And we built while we were still in the shadow, which meant hungrier contractors (and lower costs). This all worked brilliantly, but just barely. If we had delayed construction a mere six months, we would have been dealing with a much different market.

The plot above shows the median list price in the 78757 zip code, roughly Allandale, Brentwood, and Crestview in Austin. We bought our lot in October 2010, the leftmost part of that graph. We started building in September of 2012 (right when prices started to climb) and finished in July of 2013.

Talk about good timing! As we've stated before, if we had to build our house at the end of our construction, we wouldn't have been able to afford it. Yikes!

Zillow considers our market cold, but it sure doesn't seem that way, although, according to them, price increases are slowing (that's fine by us and our property tax bill).

Median list price per square foot

The 78757

Did we move into the wrong neighborhood?

Oh, my! What a difference a road makes!

Earlier this week I attended something of a debate of three folks, one from the Brentwood Neighborhood, one from Sustainable Neighborhoods, and one from our neighborhood, Allandale. Brentwood is east of Burnet Road; Allandale is west. The Brentwood Guy was an architect (I could tell right away by his glasses...) as well as a steering committee member of their neighborhood association. The Sustainable Neighborhoods Guy is a family-friendly neighborhood advocate (and the dude behind the Burnet Road tree plantings). The Allandale Guy is a longtime Allandale Neighborhood Association advocate and small business owner in the hood. The title of the discussion was "Three Visions for Burnet Road".

The Sustainable Neighborhoods Guy had some interesting stats, namely that there are fewer and fewer kids in the hood (the local schools are at 60 percent capacity with the remaining 40 percent brought in), telltale demographic signs of urbanization (i.e., fewer and fewer kids, although I wonder if this is skewed slightly by the aging-in-place-and-too-old-for-procreation-[but-not-too-old-for-Viagra-infused-recreational-attempts-at-procreation] crowd...). His primary point was that the city needs to treat the new MetroRapid bus stations as growth/support centers and that city resources (such as sidewalks, beautification, planning) need to be focused at these locations. He sees mixed use and apartment buildings radiating out from these transit centers.

The Brentwood Guy noted that they were pragmatists with respect to growth and change (it's coming whether we like it or not), so they embraced the neighborhood planning process the city offered to address growing urbanization. Along those lines, they used neighborhood planning to protect the residential core (protect = zoning) and allowed vertical mixed use along neighborhood edges, namely Burnet Road and Lamar Blvd.

The Allandale guy was essentially against everything. Against busses, against vertical mixed use, against apartment buildings, against redevelopment, against neighborhood planning. You name it. And he had a lot of support at the meeting: folks concerned about traffic, property taxes, noise, and crime.

I understand those concerns. They are legit. We all have those concerns. But here's the problem: Being against change doesn't prevent change. The only way we prevent change to the city, including our neighborhood, is to keep people from moving here. Good luck with that. By being against everything, the neighborhood is ironically creating a worse environment for the people that live here. We are pissing away our chance to influence outcomes and address the neighborhood's concerns.

Case in point. Around the corner from our house the auto dealership is building a four-story parking garage to store their excess inventory. Does the neighborhood support this construction? No. Am I happy with this construction? No. The neighborhood fought (and quickly failed) to prevent the parking garage from going in. But they missed an opportunity.

There's tension between what I (or you) think about what someone does on their property and what they are allowed to do on their property. I may not like it, but it's their property, and they have the right to do with it as they want as long as what they are doing fits within the messy little box called the city code (as well as certain deed restrictions, if any). Here's the thing: If someone is completely inside that box, there's nothing we can do as neighbors to forcefully influence what that landowner does.

I'm not overjoyed about it, but I'm OK with the dealership building a parking garage there. It's their right. What I don't like about the project is that there will be a parking garage facing Burnet and the neighborhood. Unfortunately, by fighting the project we missed an opportunity to improve the project.

The leverage a neighborhood association has with developers is on variances, permissible actions outside the gray lines of city code. If the neighborhood was reasonable, we could have gone to the developer and said "Hey, we understand you are building a parking garage on your property. We respect that you have the right to do this and that you can legally do this under the existing code. However, as neighbors, we have three concerns about your project: (1) Its appearance toward the neighborhood, (2) how it relates to Burnet Road, and (3) construction management. We'd be willing to support variances for your project to allow it to be closer to the neighborhood, closer to Burnet, and taller on the Burnet side if you would be willing to have (A) a solid wall with vines on the neighborhood side of the project, (B) some retail or offices on the ground floor facing Burnet, and (C) construction kept between 7 am and 7 pm. Would you be interested in that?"

That's how you start a discussion with a developer. That's Mediation 101: Recognize the interests of your "opponent", share your interests, and find a solution that's win-win. Instead, we fought the project on minor technicalities that were simply ignored by the city or only caused minor delays. Yay us! These actions feed the outside narrative that our neighborhood is unreasonable (see Walmart), so developers stay completely within the code, removing all ability for us to influence projects. We have no credibility; therefore, we have no influence.

As a radical moderate listening to the discussions, I found myself wishing we lived in forward-leaning Brentwood (east of Burnet Road) instead of backward-leaning Allandale (west of Burnet Road). This modern-day propensity for political purity works against your interests, not for them. However, there's hope. Brentwood is younger and hipper (and more reasonable) than Allandale. Demographics suggest Allandale is heading that way. It's only a matter of time...




Note that this post is more declarative than I normally like to be (for example, "...nothing we can do...", "The only way..."). I did this for clarity-of-writing purposes. There are always other options (lawsuits, nuclear war). Also note that we sported a "No to the Maund Garage" yard sign for a time. We did this in solidarity with our neighbors once the path had been set (one of the many reasons people dislike moderates...). 

week 32: cabs and touches

The big news this week is built-ins, cabinets, and some finishing touches on the outside.

built-ins

The carpenter stopped by over the past week to carpent. He put in rods and shelves in all the closets.

One side of the master closet:

The other side of the master closet:

We didn't do anything fancy (we're not fancy people...): Single pole for half of each side and double-pole for the other half.

We also requested a single pole/double-pole split for one of the upstairs closets:

With access needed to the ERV, couldn't do double-pole on both sides (and probably wouldn't have gone that way regardless).

We had single pole installed in the other upstairs closet:

Forgot to check the coat closet, so hopefully there a pole in there as well!

The other thing the carpenter installed were the built-in cabinets in the living room:

We spec'd 'em to be painted white, but they sure look good wood when paired with the cypress ceiling. They could probably still be sealed natural, but, as the carpenter noted, he chose less savory wood, especially for the back, since they're supposed to be painted. Nonetheless, we're thinking we'll leave the fronts of the drawers sealed as natural wood to add a wee bit o color on that wall and visually tie the wall in with the ceiling.

Speaking of the drawers, they soft close!

Whoop! Whoop!

One thing that we weren't able to do was have the shelves extend across the space without center support, something the plans called for:

This would have been ideal since the horizontal dimension would have been emphasized with the dimensions of the shelves echoing the dimensions of the windows above. However, the carpenter felt that wooden shelves that long would warp over time, especially since we plan to put books and antique electric fans on those shelves. I wasn't completely pleased with that, so I requested that the center supports extend the minimal possible distance out from the back to support the shelves. Unfortunately, that got lost in translation, since it didn't happen. And if anything, the completed product emphasizes the verticality of the support (it extends out farther than the shelves). At the end of the day, no big deal: They still look nice. But it does cause a problem other than not obliging my unhealthy fixation on the horizontals: LEDs are supposed to run across the entire length of the upper shelf.

That thar wire connects to LEDs that extend to this side of that center support...

Someone's gonna have to drill a fair-sized hole in the center supports to get 'em to work.

cabinets

The cabinets are here! The cabinets are here! The cab installer (no, not a bartender...) spent a chunk of Friday putting cabinets together (what needs to be put together) and arranging them in the appropriate parts of the house. They look nice!

Cabs in the buds-n-suds room:

Cabs in the kitchen:

There's a bunch more boxes in the master bedroom (not shown). I suspect they'll get all arranged and ready over the next week...

floors revealed

You may have noticed from several of the photos above that the floor protection is up. The floor is pretty dusty, but we're getting more of a sense what the final floors will look like. The sealant unexpectedly (for us, at least) darkened the floor more than we thought it would. But it's still pretty nice. There are a few cracks already in the slab (to be expected, sadly...), but they've interacted with the sealant in a weird way:

Where there's a crack, the concrete is light gray. Not sure what the final finish will look like, but this is what the floor looks like at the moment...

dat art wall

I don't think we highlighted it last week, but the art wall came out great clad in cypress.

Those black pillars will get silverized to match the anodized aluminum (if not covered with anodized aluminum).

a-door-able

The doors are back in. They will all be painted white...

cypress to impress

We are just loving the cypress on the house. It really makes the place pop! And we really dig how the inside and outside visually connect via the cypress. All those early machinations with those huge beams allowed this detail.

white walls

They finally painted the walls on the "front porch" white (been driving me crazy...). Looks nice-nice-nice!

last of the limestone

Earlier today (7:15 according to an angry neighbor...) the cladders finished the limestone around the corner. They had to chip off the base quickset and then directly quickset the lime directly to the mesh. Seems to have worked...

plucking eyebrows

The builder removed the scaffolding out front so we now have an unadulterated view of the front eyebrow:

Frida Kahlo would be proud!

The plans call for anodized aluminum to visually connect the windows to each other. Not sure if that's going to happen since the builder was concerned about sealing issues....

 it's green again

The trees have really greened up over the past few weeks, so it's neat to see how they impact sunlight on the house. This one back yonder by the master bedroom is already doing a nice job of shading that side of the house.

I took a few minutes to check out how much direct sun was shining through the southern windows. Some, but not much. It will be interesting to see how much comes in once summer is fully upon us. 

tile for awhile

The tile work, for whatever reason, has stopped. However, the floor tile has shown up. I played around with how we should arrange 'em. The tilers were playing with having them laid out like brick work, but I think a quarter offset will be better:

 can I see you pee?

 The square window in the powder room located over the toilet peers out onto the front entry area:

That has me wondering: How much of that window do we need to frost to keep peering eyes from seeing peeing (or pooping!)? Some of it? All of it? None of it?

Some pals that live around the corner engaged me in conversation on this matter, which prompted several bouts of simulated urination and attempted (accidental?) peeping tommage. In daylight, at least, it seems difficult to see in the window, although things might be different if a light was on inside. In darkness, I think, it will be easy to see right in when interior lights are on. Not sure you would be able to see a squatter (will need to test that...), but you would definitely see a stander.

View out the window if you were (ahem) taking care of bidness...

We'll wait until everything is in (pooper, lights) before making a decision, but I'm thinking a partial frosting (half) will be in order.

orphaned outlets and plugs

Spent some time today somewhat methodically looking for orphaned outlets and plugs. By orphaned, I mean they were drywalled over and not cut out. I reckon the electrician will do this once he re-enters the building-the-house picture (I hope he has a master plan...), but I've found three orphans so far: An orphaned can light in the kitchen, the doorbell chime box, and a plug in the laundry room. One of the things I haven't blogged about yet is documenting everything in the walls before insulation goes in. We did this with a video camera. Good thing, because I wondered if a plug was missing in the laundry room, and I was able to confirm it with the video.

Orphaned plugs are concerning because if no one notices one, once the power is turned on, there's a good chance of fire. That would really suck at this point!

coming up...

Fencing: Should get started. Several convos over the past week on design and materials and whatnot.

Cabinets: They should be getting done.

Countertops: Once the cabinets are in, the countertops will get measured.

Horno: Is done and should be arriving next week.

week 29: limestone, tape and float, cedar or cypress, Grumpy Cat

Progress continues: Limestone, taping and floating, cedar or cypress?, tile choices, curb shock, a gift, and Grumpy Cat.

limestoned

Whelp, the limestone is (nearly) finished on the front of the house, and it looks awesome.There's some fill-in work to do next to the window, and they still need to grout the panels. After a brief discussion, we're going to grout with grout that's the same color as the panels but leave it an inch back from the front plane to keep a nice strong shadow line. The setback of the grout line is called the "rake". We be getting a deep rake.

This photo shows the how they did the corner:

I was hoping that they would do a miter joint such that the line would be exactly on the corner, but it doesn't surprise me they didn't: Much less room for error both in cutting and in cutting correctly. However, this looks pretty good to me.

taping and floating

With the drywall in, the sub has started taping and floating: Taping to cover the drywall joints and floating (slapping down drywall goo and goo-smoothing) to cover the tape and the nail and screw holes. They've also been installing metal edging on corners (which then requires floating).

Looking up the stairwell.

An oddly cubist corner that covers ductwork into the pantry.

Looking toward the fridge inset.

Looking from the kitchen into the dining/living room.

Looking out the big-ole window at the top of the stairwell.

Looking toward the bookshelves.

Looking toward the media wall. Top part taped and floated; the bottom part not.

Looking toward the kitchen.

Metal edging on one of the corner windows.

Looking down the stairwell (gotta be careful: no guardrails!)

Guest bathroom.

Window above the bed in the master bedroom.

Another angle in the master bedroom.

cedar or cypress?

The architects spec'd the ceiling in the entry and living room and the soffits as cedar. It needs to be a wood that works both indoors and outdoors because the architects designed the ceiling to seamlessly extend from the inside of the house to the outside of the house (an important tenet of Modernism and the whole reason for all the engineering and framing acrobatics). 

We've been in love with cypress since we saw it on a house on the AIA tour last year, so we really wanted to investigate that as an option. The photos below show cypress on the left and cedar on the right. The lower bits are raw wood, and the upper bits are sealed with no dye. 

They'd both be fine, but the finer grain of the cypress is quieter and makes for a denser and perhaps more stable wood (the cedar sample is slightly cupped). We'd get the cypress without the v-notch up the middle.

Note grain difference and cupping in the cedar.

Cost, you say? Good question. Indeed, the cypress costs more than the cedar, but only 14 percent more.

Cypress it is.

final tile choices

We've (nearly) made final tile choices. One last thing we needed to choose was tile for the bathroom walls. What we would have loved is glossy-and-bright-as-a-librarian-in-the-morning-after-a-triple-shot-espresso marble, but it is darn expensive, especially on top of our backsplash choice. Two large format (12" by 24") tiles we looked at were white ceramic and marble:

Ceramic = $3 a square foot; marble = $15 a square foot. 

Ceramic it is.

One last choice we need to make is for the backsplash for the buds-n-suds (laundry-bar) room. Same as in the kitchen? Or something different (and less expensive)?

curb shock

If you recall, we had to tear out and replace the approach and curb at our driveway (the city made us do it). The good news is that replacing the curb made it all look better by not mixing two vintages of concrete. The bad news? That all cost all of 3,400 dollars that were not in the budget. Contingency funds...

a gift!

Our sweet green neighbors around the corner gave us a magazine from the Frank Lloyd Wright inspired (he consulted) Biltmore Hotel. Sweet!

We already had the cat, in case you are wondering...

new neighbors

Speaking of neighbors, the house two lots down is going up with amazing speed. Not as green as our house (and certainly not as modern!), there it is in the distance and from the street. 

It will prolly go for a mint since the housing market here is going great googly-eyed gangbusters. Our house is starting to look like a brilliant financial move...

we saw grumpy cat!

SXSW is going on now in Austin, which allows opportunities to partake in various shades of goofiness. For example, here's a photo we took of a bunnymobile rolling about town:

We're big fans of Grumpy Cat, a nearly one-year old kittycat named Tardar Sauce or Tard for short. Tard, truly a sweetheart, was born with a permanent frown on her face. She became an internet phenomenon (a meme in webspeak) last fall when people began captioning her photos with grumpy sayings. For example, here's one I made at memegenerator.net:

For the record, we're having a (mostly) good time!

Anyway, she's in town for SXSW! So we went down and waited (wait for it...) two and half hours to meet her in all her feline (dozing) glory:

Quite frankly, she looked a little grumpy from all the attention.

Afterwards we went to the Paul Qui curated trailer food court nearby. Yum!

The Qui is arguably a neighbor as he lives in the same building as us (and we see him from time to time).