The Masters House

I went on a walk this morning and decided to go through the new houses that they are building in the neighborhood near us. The houses are being built by DR Horton in what used to be farm land behind us. As I was walking through the new neighborhood there were a few things that stood out about these houses.

Some Things Stand Out

The first thing I notice is that they are building a lot of houses. My neighborhood is still under construction as well but they are only working on around 4-6 houses at a time. On the first street of this new neighborhood I counted 12 houses under construction. The next block had 3 more and the block after that is has another 3. That is almost 20 houses being built at the same time inthis little subdivision. On top of the houses that are under construction there are several houses that were recently completed. This section of the neighborhood is only about 6 months old. Read the rest of this entry »

OK, so in March I was amazed at how much similar houses to what I owned in the Horsethief Canyon Area in Corona, California were priced compared to where I had seen them in the beginning of 2007 (you can see my post here – A Reality Check to the Severity of the Housing Market Crash).

As a recap here is the price fluctuation up to March of 2008 for similar houses to the 1991 built, 1439sqft, 3bdrm, 2.5 bath house that I had.

• 5/2001 – bought house for $178,000
• 5/2003 – Sold house for $252,000
• 2/2007 – similar houses (same floor plan) peak at $440,000
• 3/2008 – Similar house selling for $249,000

Today I checked the same houses, same neighborhood and they are now at $199,000. Sadly if someone bought one of these houses 3 months ago it is has already lost $50,000 in equity.

Sad, very sad.

Technorati Tags: California Housing Market,Housing Market,Housing Market Crash,Mortage Bailout

WOW, that is all I can say – WOW.

Literally on the eve of getting ready to close on the new house that we are building here in Texas I get a reminder of what others are facing around the country.

I took a break this afternoon and started poking around realtor.com to see if we were indeed getting a good price for our new house compared to other previously owned houses around our area. The good news is that we are getting a great deal and that makes me happy .

At the end of poking around my current neighborhood (my new house is in the same neighborhood) I decided to look at the neighborhood that I lived in California when I lived there. The neighborhood was Horsethief Canyon in Corona, California which is in Riverside County. It is actually in an unincorporated region of Riverside County but still has a Corona address. It is actually the last neighborhood before you get to the city of Lake Elsinore.

Anyway, in 2001 I bought a 1450sqft 3 bedroom, 2 1/2 bath house that at the time was 10 years old (the same model/neighborhood as the one to the right). I bought it for $180K at the time. 2 years later I sold the house for $252K as the market was beginning to take off.

As time went on I would check to see how much similar houses were going for and would kick myself for selling so soon each time I saw the price go up. About a year ago that same model of house in the same neighborhood was going for $439k. I could not believe it. I mean that was over double what I had paid for it a little over 5 years before.

Well today instead of kicking myself I stood in amazement.

The same house today is going for $249K. In the last a year the value of that house has dropped almost $200K. Unbelievable. I can only imagine the person who bought the house a year ago for that much money and what they may be facing today. That same type of house is now selling for less then what I sold it for 5 years ago. Crazy.

To make matters worse there are at least 3 of the same exact houses for sale. The one that I have a picture of here is empty. I can only imagine why.

I really feel for everyone that is at the front of this ship as it sinks. I know how you feel, it happened to me 3 weeks after I bought that house in 2001. I got laid off from my job due to the tech bubble bursting.

Hang in there, things will get better eventually…

The Ceiling Fan

After almost a year I finally got around to putting up a ceiling fan in my son’s room. I had bought one at the same time as the rest of the ceiling fans for the house with the intent to paint it to match the theme for his room – NASCAR / the movie Cars.

My ambition melted away from doing this while painting the ceiling fan for my daughter’s room. While her ceiling fan came out alright I was not confident that I would be able to pull off a paint job that would be worthy of NASCAR .

To remedy this I decided that I would buy a new ceiling fan for him instead and use the one I originally bought for him in the garage since it can get pretty warm out there. After looking around I really did not find anything within the sub $100 range that I was willing to spend.

A couple of weeks ago the wife and I were at Lowes looking at ceiling fans and she found the one above that she felt was perfect. While I liked the look of the ceiling fan the price – $169 – was more then I wanted to spend. I told her that we should keep looking for something cheaper.

A week later I put it on order at Lowes.

The installation was easy (after 6 installs it should be). The only issue was that it used candelabra style bulbs as opposed to regular bulbs. I made a quick trip to Walmart to pick some up.

Read the rest of this entry »

I had completely forgotten that there was going to be a total eclipse of the moon this evening until I was driving home and say it starting to be uncovered.

This is the best pictures that I was able to take of it. You can click it to see a larger version.

Snow is a pretty rare thing here in Round Rock, TX so I had to grab the camera and capture it on video.

Here is the awesome footage of our “Snow Storm” .

Technorati: Round Rock TX, Texas, Austin, Snow, Weather

Well we are just getting over one of the biggest ice/snow storms that this area has had in a long time. I had seen several of the weather men on the various stations say that they had never seen a storm this bad in central Texas.

Basically what happened was that we had an arctic front that came down from the north as a lot of Pacific moisture came up from the south-west. The two together created a lot of freezing rain, ice, and even some snow which fell for a couple of hours on Tuesday.

We survived pretty well and did not venture out of the house for 3 days straight. we started getting a little cabin fever though and went out this evening for a little bit.

It was an interesting and kind of cool experience but I am glad that it only happens ever 5-10 years.

You can see the pictures of all the ice and some snow here.

Where do I start. Well lets start in Mikey’s room. If money were no object I would buy him a cool bunk bed with a small desk/tv center at the bottom. The theme is NASCAR. The color of the bed would be red and the linen “NASCAR”. The dressers would look like red metal (made out of wood) garage drawers with black handles. The ceiling fan is painted with checkers and there is a wood board around the room about mid way. The board is painted like a street and there are NASCAR miniature cars on it. In the middle of his room there is a race track on top of a toddler table which can be used for coloring or other crafts. The floor black and white tile.

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I love my stainless steel sink. I think it looks so nice with my brand new Kitchen. Sinks make a Kitchen always look nice. My sink is a stainless steel one but there are many other types of sinks. For example:

• Stainless Steel
• Copper
• Marble
• Glass

To name a few and under the above there are many styles and brands. Shapes and sizes also vary depending on type and style.

I am a strong believer that a new sink will increase the beauty and value of your home. Now, why buy them online? These are the reasons why:

1. Big selection without the store hopping, or driving every where to find a variety of the- since gas prices are so high, this a good alternative to going to a store and buying them
2. You can compare different prices without leaving your home
3. They are delivered to your door
4. You save Time
5. You save Money

One of the ones that I think look nice is the copper sinks. They are very different from the rest and look adorable.

But my favorite is still the stainless steel and this is why:

Read the rest of this entry »

In my search of room Designs, I have come across many different styles of home Decor and Ideas: I have seen Italian, Asian Home, Cabin, Log Homes, Adobe Homes, Brick Homes, Metal Homes, and some weird wood, plastic? homes?.

Anyways there are many ideas and styles, colors for decor. Money and time is the issue now. Having 3 little ones is not as easy as one would think. Between feeding times, nap times, play time, 2nd nap times, bath time; well there isn’t much time for other things.

But with patience I continue the search for room designs for our HOME.

The Masters House!

Technorati : Home Decor, Log Homes, Room Design