Regarding my poll....

You may have noticed I've inserted a poll at the top of my blog design, asking the question:

Should we move further south to Odessa if we can purchase the home we really want?

Let me provide some additional context so that whomever wishes to vote, can do so with a better understanding of what we are considering.

Currently, we live in Bear, Delaware. We've lived here since 1996 when we bought our starter home, a luxury townhome built by Blenheim Homes. It is a nice home, an end unit townhome complete with a side entrance, three bedrooms, two and one half baths, and a nearly finished basement, mostly done by yours truly with the help of family and friends over the last several years. Our current home has served and continues to serve our needs well.

I work in center city Philly and commute via the SEPTA R2 regional rail from the Newark, Delaware station into the city just about every day. On rare occasions I end up either changing rail stations to Claymont, which means I drive all the way up 495 north and take the last exit in Delaware to get to the Claymont regional rail station, or driving all the way into Philly for various reasons that are always work related. Stacy works as an English teacher about a half hour's commute from our current townhome, not too far away from where Route 7 and Kirkwood Highway intersect.

So, why are we considering moving to Odessa?

Here's the high level bullet points:

1. More space in the home - more bedrooms for the children, more leisure space for fun, bigger yard with a decent play area for the children.
2. More activities/options in the development itself. Walking paths, golfing, tennis, basketball courts, sports fields, club house, fitness center, etc.
3. Much nicer home appointments, the flooring we want, the kitchen we want, the basement and storage space we want, etc.
4. More space for the kids to ride bikes, more homes with more children to befriend.

Well, Stacy and I have been looking at existing homes in our area both online and via actual tours with a real estate agent for a few months now. Most of the existing homes we've looked at would require a fair amount of work on our part, including replacing aging major systems, as well as interior design updates, flooring replacements, and therefore a fair amount of our time and money as well, if we were to choose to purchase an existing home. Only one home that we looked at out of many, was actually in what we would consider "move in" condition with most major systems replaced (roof, HVAC, appliances, etc.). Most of the homes we've looked at are in the vicinity of where our children attend private school, to make Stacy's morning commutes somewhat manageable.

After looking at quite a few homes, we started to back off of the aggressive existing home searches and entered into a more passive mode of receiving the online notifications whenever a new home within a certain price range came on the market, and Stacy started looking at a few existing homes up closer to where she teaches as well.

Enter Mike, a former co-worker and friend of mine, who I had heard through the grapevine was moving through another friend of mine, Ted. After chatting with Mike, who's getting ready to break ground in the same development we're just starting to look at, he peaked my interest. So, Stacy and I drove down one weekend to have a look at the Odessa National golf course community. For anyone who's interested, here's a weblink to the builder's website for this community:

http://www.ryanhomes.com/community.aspx?CID=9457420020424

We are looking at the BainBridge model, mostly because it's the only model home that allows for a fifth bedroom (or what Ryan calls a bonus room) to be added over top of the garage that is a very large bedroom. Having this extra room gives us options for having a guest bedroom upstairs, an office, etc. , yet still gives us the flexibility of giving each of our three children their own bedroom. Our two younger children are both boys, and currently share a bedroom, which is starting to make for some overly-interesting boyhood conflicts that would be easily avoided if they both had their "own" space to occupy when bedtime comes around.

Because Odessa National is a genuine golf course community, we'd have access to the club house as part of living in the community, which costs a mandatory 1200 per year starting out. This buys us some free golf, and use of all club house facilities, including the swimming pool area, tennis and basketball courts, fitness gym, restaurant and bar.

I know it may seem like I'm going on and on here, but all of these things are important, because one of the biggest changes for us is that we'd be consciously deciding to become "house poor" by making this or any other move to a larger single family home given current real estate prices. The major advantage in considering Odessa National is that we've got good facilities to use to keep ourselves entertained on a regular basis, which most other communities and existing homes don't offer, all for about the same price we'd spend buying an older existing home in the Bear, Delaware area where we currently reside. Having the option of a guest bedroom gives us the flexibility to have visitors, something we don't have the ability to do currently. Most of the existing homes only have four bedrooms, so staying up in this area and purchasing an existing home, doesn't give us much more flexibility beyond having separate bedrooms for our children.

The biggest disadvantages are, that Odessa National is close to Salem, New Jersey, home to the Salem Nuclear plant, and the fact that we're adding time and distance to our morning and evening commutes, since this community is some 18 miles south of where we currently reside. This fact will add approximately 36 miles to each of our vehicles five days a week. That makes for an extra 9000 miles per year on my vehicle, and an extra 7200 miles a year for Stacy's vehicle. Figuring an average 20MPG aggregrate across both cars, with gas at 3.25 a gallon aggregate, that's an extra 2835 dollars a year in estimated fuel costs. Yes, we will consider moving to more fuel efficient vehicles, particularly me as my lease on my car is up in June 2008. which is more or less when we'd be moving into this development coincidentally.

Well, I think I've provided enough context for now. If you have comments or questions, please post them in the comments area of this post, and then vote accordingly if you so desire.

All the best,

HitchHiker