[speaker001:] there you go first question do you own your house
[speaker002:] yeah uh right well we try I mean it's a big mortgage in the sky and someday maybe we might even own it but um for all practical purposes I guess we hold the mortgage
[speaker001:] our name is on the bill so that implies ownership
[speaker002:] yeah right no one else has offered to pay for it
[speaker001:] that's right and I wouldn't object if anybody did
[speaker002:] yeah really they could move right into the spare room
[speaker001:] yeah well we've we had this one for five years now before that we lived in Garland uh probably about you know four blocks away liked the area chose to stay inside of Spring Park it's a uh
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] I don't know if you have been up here but it is a residential homeowners association so there's a lot of you know activities a lot of pluses and common land
[speaker002:] right yeah
[speaker001:] but uh we thought we were buying at the bottom of the market you know it could not possibly have gone any lower and so we were wrong
[speaker002:] oh five years ago yeah
[speaker001:] yeah I think what it bottom out about a year year later
[speaker002:] yeah it well I mean just recently I would say I would give it two years back when it was I think bottomed out
[speaker001:] oddly enough two years you know I I think that
[speaker002:] but maybe not in your area see it was just different areas
[speaker001:] not in in in this area because this is about like the
[speaker002:] that's a really nice area besides it's you know it's not it's not Richardson is it it's still considered Garland
[speaker001:] yeah no it's it's Richardson it's uh Richardson and hold on a second Paul I can hear you perfectly perfectly well I don't want to hear you you are being rude whatever you ask or scream when I'm on the phone the answer is no do you understand
[speaker002:] oh okay yeah
[speaker001:] how does that sound
[speaker002:] there you go write that one down it sounded good to me
[speaker001:] yeah there I go yeah yeah well I hate to say how long that will last too no this area up here is uh all custom homes and it's
[speaker002:] right
[speaker001:] I I don't think that many by the builder that we that built this house and we were not the first people the first owners I think we are the third owners it was built by the architect for himself
[speaker002:] uh okay
[speaker001:] who never moved into it who sold it to a couple who had no idea that homes ever needed upkeep
[speaker002:] oh no
[speaker001:] oh yeah caulking windows was a great mystery to them you know you know they just watched the water pour in on the carpet but it's a Sharif Myneer Homes if that means anything it did not really mean anything to me except I liked it
[speaker002:] oh gee I I I kept thinking of Omar Sharif every time I saw that name somewhere so
[speaker001:] he builds eight hundred thousand dollar houses now I think he got out of the lower end market and decided but the houses here in in this class of housing never dropped to below two hundred
[speaker002:] uh oh wow
[speaker001:] yeah well but still I know that this one was built for two ninety nine which is nowhere near what we paid for it and I think or somebody told me it's also on a creek side lot heavily wooded off the golf course
[speaker002:] right oh great
[speaker001:] yeah and the guy around the corner is being transferred so he said uh well he did comparable that it's about eighty dollars I think it was I don't remember if he said it was sixty dollars a square foot off the creek and eighty on the creek or if it was eighty and a hundred I think it was sixty eighty
[speaker002:] well yeah probably eighty sixty eighty
[speaker001:] I think
[speaker002:] well because I know our our little house over here stuck in the middle of you know the subdivision is I think fifty five so I think the high end is definitely you know somewhere around there
[speaker001:] well try and think if it was a hundred dollars a square foot no it could not be because this house is around thirty four hundred square feet and it would never sell for three hundred forty thousand dollars just never
[speaker002:] yeah well
[speaker001:] now maybe you know that's that's pretty close to what it would have sold for uh brand new or and that's pretty much what it was built for it's got an awful lot of nice things in it but you know I don't think I think it's going to be a long time if ever when nice things and really quality construction and all the other additional amenities are really uh desirable it's seems like people go for square footage only now and uh because have you been back to the Perry Homes back here
[speaker002:] yeah  um the ones that look like brick houses
[speaker001:] the one that looks like Monopoly apartments
[speaker002:] right yeah I think those are awful I'm sorry I just don't see the designer's I I just see him as trying to squish as much space you know as much house into the space as possible
[speaker001:] they are huge when you are inside them they're very spacious they're you know I was I was in one today it was forty two hundred square feet
[speaker002:] yeah ooh
[speaker001:] yeah uh-huh
[speaker002:] well see that's the house that we got is small enough so my husband and I because there's just the two of us and the two cats um can yell at each other from one end to the other and be heard and we thought that was important instead of getting swallowed up in something that you know
[speaker001:] see when you have kids you like to be able to send them some place where they can yell and you won't hear them but I have been watching these houses go up and I I
[speaker002:] yeah that's true
[speaker001:] don't well somebody was telling me I know somebody who lives back there I've always questioned the quality of construction and I I don't think they exceed more than twelve nails per house
[speaker002:] oh
[speaker001:] when you watch them go up you are just amazed that they do not fall over and it takes them something like thirty days to complete a house
[speaker002:] yeah oh that's amazing right now in fact even as we speak we are having a deck put on in back and these guys are phenomenal they just they they are doing such a terrific job back there I mean you know you you pay for it too but it's it's like really worth it they are putting in a deck a redwood deck and it's just
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] they are doing such a fine fine job and I'm really excited about it
[speaker001:] we've got three different levels of decking because this lot slopes way back down and and the house is built around the trees
[speaker002:] uh-huh great
[speaker001:] and with these decking decking that a corporation and a large area for the trees to come up so it's real real shady but that's one of the few things that really uh immediately pays back on return but what I was going to tell you these Perry Homes back there
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] when the people from MCI come down and they are you know they're used to the the Virginia area metropolitan DC my God they come down here and and those houses that that look like to them the colonial look what the
[speaker002:] oh looks like the George Town Brownstone yeah
[speaker001:] right and the idea of ever owning anything that has four thousand square feet in it for less than two hundred twenty thousand dollars which is probably about what their equity is that they got out of selling their house those things are selling like hot cakes
[speaker002:] must be a dream come true yeah
[speaker001:] but one of the people that was living back there was telling me that there is his air conditioning bill per month last summer was in excess of five hundred dollars a month and I thought
[speaker002:] I can't
[speaker001:] and he was talking he was talking about how you keep up with the utilities here and I was thinking well you know I know why your God damn bill is so high it's because there's not a there's no insulation insulation in those things
[speaker002:] he has no insulation probably oh my gosh what a trap
[speaker001:] yeah any yet you know they they show very well uh they show very well unless you have you know lived in a lot of houses around here or
[speaker002:] and you ask the right questions and can research yeah
[speaker001:] or looked at a lot of houses around here
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] and I think that makes a big difference but I like I like this area and everything that I've been saying says that it's
[speaker002:] oh I do too
[speaker001:] if I think if we had to sell now we could come close to breaking even
[speaker002:] but still um it's worth it for the area and for the school and things like that
[speaker001:] you're in you're in the