Well, I've held you in suspense long enough....but first I have to thank all of you, my dear friends, who have posted such kind thoughts and wishes here on this thread for making me realize once again what a great hobby this is, and what a wonderful group of people who make it so special for all of us. (I have to say that or Gerry Morlitz will sue me!) Seriously, I think we all know that as much as we love our trains, it is the camaraderie and friendship with kindred spirits that make it so gratifying to participate in the world's greatest pastime.
So, "the rest of the story"....so I left you all wondering what part of my best laid plans had blown up in my face and why I've been MIA from the Forum for about a year or so. It's the part about how I knew the slow down in new home construction would give me at least another 5-7 years to get my financial ducks in a row.
A year ago May, now nearly two years ago, I received a call from the sales staff at Del Webb that rocked my world (and some of you already know this part of the story) when they told me that there had been a little "change in plans" about those lots I had been waiting so long for. [builder's name redacted to protect me] had decided to "release the lots" in the near future, rather than in five or more years as previously expected, and if I was "still interested" there were many more parties that were also interested in the same lots than there were lots available. All of us prospective buyers were now officially notified that there would be a drawing to determine who would be allowed to buy the choice view lots and who would be out of luck.
So, 8:00 AM, Saturday morning, June 25, 2011 I nervously showed up for the drawing at the sales office. I had carefully surveyed the lots once the new street, named, appropriately enough, Quandary Loop was paved and had picked out the two best view lots. I really wasn't financially ready, but my strategy was that if I didn't draw high enough for either one of those two best lots, "it just wasn't meant to be", and I could get on with my life and continue looking for a house with a bigger basement for the dream layout few more years down the road. I showed up at the sales office, my heart in my throat and with very sweaty palms. I hadn't told Jophie about it because I knew it would scare her worse than it was scaring me, and since I probably wouldn't draw high enough for my preferred lots anyway, why get her excited for nothing, right? We all signed in on a roster in order of arrival and for the drawing, were given the line number on which we had signed in. Then, absurdly I thought, the sales staff had us all introduce ourselves and say a few words about why we wanted to live in Anthem Ranch. That just raised the level of anticipation to nearly unbearable heights.
There were even some wealthy couples who were not present at the drawing, but being represented by surrogates or Realtors at the drawing, representatives who were whispering to their clients in hushed tones on cell phones in various corners of the room as the drawing was being prepared. The numbers were painted on table tennis (ping pong?) balls and placed in one of Del Webb's old Fedora hats. I won't hold you in suspense any longer, the first number they pulled, 9, was mine! I almost passed out from shock! So I took my first choice of lot and received first choice of exterior colors and architectural features such as brick, stone, and stucco, etc. I wrote them a huge check for the earnest money deposit and then called my daughter in law and told her to buy me twenty lottery tickets since I figured I was on a serious roll at that point. (unfortunately my lottery numbers didn't hit or I would not have been absent from the Forum for the last year!)
That was an auspicious start to what became a stressful year and a half nightmare. The first thing that went wrong was that when I started hinting to Jophie that it might be a good time to start thinking about building a house in Anthem Ranch, she told me that she had no interest in moving. She loved it where we were, didn't want to leave the neighborhood, and probably would never want to move! Meanwhile the construction crews were starting to excavate the foundation!
When I became convinced that she was serious about not moving, I started to think that maybe I had made a big mistake. I called one of the couples who had lost out on the drawing and that I knew really wanted the lot I picked. They were still ticked off that when they tried to bribe the sales staff to keep the lot they wanted (my lot now) out of the lottery drawing, they were rebuffed. I asked them if they wanted to buy my contract, but they had already gone to their "plan B" and were talking to an architect about building a home for them elsewhere. (oops!)
Then I tried to wiggle out of the contract. I knew that the [redacted] sales staff had a fairly long list of people that were waiting in back-up position to buy my lot, so I figured they'd let me off the hook, give me back my substantial earnest money deposit and go our separate ways. This was not to be. They told me that they'd let me out of the contract, but that they would keep the earnest money (5 figures).
So, I thought about that for a few days, and the more I thought about it, the more steamed I got. I finally decided that I was still going to walk away from my earnest money deposit if I had to, but I was going to make a smug [redacted] sales organization pay for at least some of it too, you know, spread the pain around a little! Meanwhile, one more time, I dangled the bait about moving to a new house in front of Jophie's nose again, but no luck. It was clear that she was happy with where we lived and had no interest in moving to Anthem Ranch anytime soon. Gulp!
So, I decided to go to the builder's "design center" with malice in my heart. I was going to run up the price for all the best upgrades (Pat Marinari always says, "....never saw an upgrade we didn't like!") and then stick [builder's name redacted] with an even more expensive house to re-sell, hopefully costing them more than the many grand I was going to leave on the table in the form of unreimbursed earnest money!
I made an appointment with the design center and showed up right on time. Of course they had an attractive young lady there to help guide me through the many choices a buyer would need to make of window treatments, flooring, cabinetry, countertops, tile, plumbing fixtures, etc. The idea of dropping all my earnest money in the coffers of the builder was still stinging me in the backside very near the vicinity of my wallet as I sat down at her desk, but by then I was really starting to get into the role of "Daddy Warbucks". I was going to thoroughly enjoy this!
When she started to tell me what the basic plastic laminate countertop was, I interrupted her, saying, "Christy, there's one thing I want you to keep uppermost in your mind in this process, money is no object!" Her eyes got as big as silver dollars! Then I had a ball running up the bill with the best custom wood plantation shutters on every window in the house, solid 3/4" cherry planking and travertine floors, custom ceramic tiling in the baths, granite counters everywhere, etc., etc. Well you get the picture! I went nuts picking the most expensive stuff I could think of to stick [redacted] with.
To be continued....
I'm anxiously waiting to hear "the rest of the story" a la Paul Harvey. I'm going to miss the April York, but hope I will see you in October.
