A home at last!

The week of Dec14-21st was very disappointing. With redfin as our realtor, we had seen several houses each day of the week, and had come away disappointed and defeated. But in that week I learnt a few things.

1. A SFH was out of the question in our price point, at least one that was anywhere near decent.
2. We really wanted a modern turn-key home.
3. Andrew was not going to school for another 4 years. (Grade 1)

We dropped the school as a criterion, taking on the risk of potentially having to pay for private school till we sold this home. We also learnt that new communities require you to show up with your agent on day 1. Armed with this knowledge we started to look at another set of homes. And on the first day we came across what will hopefully, ( at the time of this writing, we are in escrow ) become our home on Feb 6th, 2015.

The overall trade off is nice home and community at the expense of commute and schools for Andrew. The second tradeoff was totally unexpected and we hope to make it right if the markets permit it in 4-5 years. As of today, the area around the community is fairly industrial, but a large tract of it is being developed into a residential and retail hub. There are some dense condos coming up around the back of our lot, which could affect the pricing of the area. The village oak mall will have a big impact on the desirability of the area. In our best case scenario, in a few years

• The condos end up housing professionals and not end up being really cheap rentals
• The Village oak complex gets some upscale tenants. 
• Some green belt is developed.
• And our community gets built as planned and continues to sell. 

The last is the one I am most worried about, the value of our house will depend strongly on continued demand for at least 2-3 years. 

The credit from Redfin and Lennar were unexpected when I first started planning all this and I would consider that a windfall. I am hoping to convince myself that I should use that to buy a car I want. I will make a call in March 2015 after things settle down a bit. 

Sending A to pre-school is priority.  Furnishing the house is also a priority. I want to start a 5-6 year span with new things. 

On the flip side, I don't want to be sitting on my HELOC and I project paying off all of it by mid 2017. This will then set me in a good position to start hacking away at the principal on my first lien. I may retain the first and build equity in other ways, because I will consider the primary at a tax adjusted rate of ~ 2.2%. Instead, I should build diversified equity, and if my ARM resets high, I should plan to put a dent in the  principal at that time. 

I plan to start tracking interest rates after I close, something in the ballpark of 3.125 / 3.25 would work for me, but I am not counting on this. If it does happen, It will make the short term better. 

A big chunk of my cash flow management this year will depend on my ability to adjust my W4 pretty aggressively.

==UPDATE==
We are still on track for the Feb 6th . We are hoping to set  the move out date to Feb9th. I am hoping there are no hiccups along the way.  We bought the first pieces of furniture. And I should start planning the packing and movers in a few weeks.