Coming down to the wire

Into overtime

By this point in the escrow process we should have released all of our contingencies and be a week away from closing. Unfortunately, there are still some large unknowns that we needed to resolve before continuing with the sale and so we have asked the seller for an extension.

Unlike buying an existing home, the contingency period for raw land works a little differently.  Instead of inspecting the foundation, roof, plumbing and wiring of a house, we spent our time understanding the county's requirements we would have to meet in order to build what we want on the property.

Fortunately, the land owner has made some significant improvements to the land when he subdivided it back in 1997, including running water lines and electrical conduits directly to the building envelopes. Unfortunately, since doing this the building requirements have changed in Marin County.  The Marin County Fire Department no longer allows water storage tanks to be used for fire suppression, but now requires that all parcels connected to municipal water supply to be within 350 feet of a fire hydrant capable of discharging 500 gallons-per-minute.

When we originally heard about this requirement I made some worst-case-scenario estimations for how much this would cost and factored that info our offer.  As it turns out, I was off by a factor of 10! The North Marin Water District quoted me $150/linear foot in construction costs for extending the existing hydrant. I used Google Maps Pro to do a rough measurement from the parcel to the existing water main and calculated the extension would have to travel 1,500-1,900 feet.

You do the math...

Does that come with the premium gold plating?

Going "Dutch"

Fortunately, we had already spoken with the neighbor who, herself, is in the process of designing a home to be built on the adjoining parcel. Since she is facing the same building requirements as we are, she was quite interested to find someone to share the costs of the hydrant and the extra electrical pole that would have to be installed.  However, even splitting the cost would be far more than we were prepared to pay, so we had to find another option.

I spoke with the Marin's Fire Marshal who is in charge of reviewing and approving all new development proposals for the fire department. I was hoping he would understand our situation and be able to suggest some less expensive alternatives. I found out that, as is the case with many officials who enforce building regulations, they are hesitant to suggest solutions and would rather react to your proposals instead.

Next I turned to other contractors for competitive bids.  Many contractors were not interested or able to do the work, but I did find one who gave me a much lower estimate than that of the North Marin Water District. Excitedly, I wrote to the neighbor to tell her of the good news.

Her response was completely unexpected and disappointing. After four years of working with her architect and the county to build her home, she was now considering abandoning her plans and selling the property. Not only might we lose a terrific neighbor, who we genuinely like and were looking forward to getting to know better, but we would also lose a partner in the shared cost of the hydrant.



One more wrinkle

To make matters more complicated, Blu Homes is in the process of updating many of their home designs. When this happens they discontinue the previous models. One of the reasons we became less interested in the Sidebreeze model was between 2013 and 2014 the design was changed to make it more affordable, but it also lost some character in the process.

While we do like many of the changes Blu made to the Breezehouse, as you might remember we recently added a second unit to the plan as an art studio. The Origin comes in three sizes: 461, 682, and 904 square feet, respectively. Since Marin has a 750 square foot limit on the size of a second unit, we are limited to the medium-sized model. Unfortunately, at the end of September Blu is retiring these designs; making them somewhat smaller and removing the kitchenette. This means that we need to lock in the design within the next week or will have to change our plans.

Old Origin design

New Origin design

We don't want to commit to the design until we own the land. We don't want to own the land until we know we won't get stuck with the total cost of the new hydrant. And now we no longer have a neighbor who is willing to share that cost with us.

These are the kind of issues people apparently face when developing vacant land.


The dramatic conclusion...

So what will happen next? Well, we aren't sure.

We are hoping the neighbor will return to her original plans and work with us on the shared utility costs. If she does still plan on selling, we would hope she decides to install the hydrant in the hopes she could recoup the costs in the sale. We will likely have to wait a few months to get her decision as she is out of the country until November.

In the case that neither of these scenarios happen, we will have to work out a deal with the seller or reconsider the sale. I'm sure it's not what he wants to hear, but I hope he understands since if we do complete the transaction he would be our neighbor and we rather like him.

I'm sure the next few weeks will be interesting.

Meeting our architect

Yesterday Lena and I took off from work and went up to the property to meet with Kevin, the architect from Blu Homes, to discuss what our project might look like. This meeting marks the beginning of Blu's Concept phase which includes a design consultation, conceptual plans, and a high-level project estimate and timeline.  The first step, however, was to select one of the two home models we have been considering.

Look how gender-coordinated their outfits are!

So, pretty quickly we settled on the Breezehouse because we think having slightly larger bedrooms all on one floor will suit us better now and in the future.  As much as we originally loved the Sidebreeze, the 2015 model was a step in a blander direction, and that made our decision a little easier.  The modifications we would have to make in order to fit within the county's height limitation would have vacuumed-off yet another interesting architectural element and also cost more to customize.

2015 Breezehouse... check!

Blu charges a premium for the design phase if you stray from their standard options because they have to spend time customizing the design to your requests.  The cost of the standard track of the design phase is $5,000 + consultant fees and it is estimated to take 6 or more weeks to complete.  If you find yourself on the premium track you will pay at least $13,000 more and it will take at least twice as long.

Similar to buying a car, the new Breezehouse has a number of standard options from which to choose including, floor plan layouts, window/door packages, appliance trim lines, and interior/exterior finishes. We are hoping to stay on the standard track by selecting from the menu of standard options. However, because all projects in Marin County are subject to "Design Review," we might be forced onto the premium track. This is because Blu may be required to prepare extra documentation for the county's permuting process.

And just to further complicate the matter, we are also planning a smaller building as an art studio on the second building envelope.  This will likely be a combination of a 37-foot (682 square foot) Origin Blu Home and a site-built garage. Ideally, we would be able to build both of these at the same time to avoid having to go through permitting twice, but the cost of the project may determine what we are able to do when.

Special thanks to Meredith (our Blu sales consultant) and Stephen (our faithful agent) for attending this meeting and helping us make some quick decisions!

Sidebreeze in Healdsburg and a trip to the beach

Sidebreeze, Revisited

On Sunday the family and I drove up to Healdsburg, CA where Blu Homes was having an open house for their newest prefab project, a Sidebreeze, on the edge of Healdsburg Ridge Open Space Reserve. It sits conveniently right next to two other Blu homes: a Breezehouse and a Balance – each were created for a real estate developer and then resold.

The Sidebreeze with garage and custom addition

Aside from being located in a subdivision, which from inside the house it's hard to tell, they did a fantastic job with this house. The finish was superior to any of the other homes that Blu has made available for public tours and there were many customizations that this customer had added that really gave us some interesting perspectives on what can be done with their base designs.

For those familiar with the Sidebreeze layouts, this is a 2013 model which still came with the cantilevered master balcony.  Blu Homes no longer has this feature which was a disappointment for us, but apparently removing it adds a few square feet to the interior space and brings the house cost down somewhat as well.

The rear of this Sidebreeze had a nice patio and water fountain

There is still a 4-foot cantilever in the front, however (or back for this home since the layout was flipped).  This is nice because it adds some more dynamic lines to what would otherwise be a very rectangular profile. Apparently the changes also allow the 2nd-storey module to be transported on a single truck instead of two as was required of the 2013 model, which, again brings the cost down a bit.

Inside, the kitchen has all premium appliances including: Sub-Zero, Wolf, and Electrolux. The other fixtures, cabinetry, and countertops were high-quality as well which made for a very elegant space.

An attractive and functional kitchen for the Sidebreeze

The living and dining area is my personal favorite with the high ceilings and "breezespace," created by wall-to-wall windows on either end of the room.  Unsurprisingly, (this is Sonoma County after all) the weather was perfect and the gentle breeze flowing through the house was just as advertised.

The Sidebreeze's "breezespace"

From the day this model was introduced, I was pretty sure I would love the Sidebreeze because of the smaller footprint and beautiful flow between the rooms, and my first time walking through the house made me fall in love with the two-level design all over again.  The tasteful staging and dreamy surroundings didn't hurt either. 

It felt very warm and inviting for a modern home. It has a nice separation between the public and private areas of the house since they are separated on different floors, and the open views from one space to another make the home feel far larger than it's 2,600 square feet (not including the custom space).

Look at this – stairs in a prefab house! How novel!

Going upstairs, the bedrooms are smallish but not too small.  The master bedroom is a nice size and had a very nice master bathroom to match. The 2013 model had the second upstairs bathroom down the hall from the two bedrooms that would be using it which might be a little inconvenient. In the 2014 model the architects at Blu changed the layout so that the bathroom is now located between the two bedrooms which I find a little nicer even with the "jack-and-jill" doors.

One of the Sidebreeze's bedrooms

As I mentioned, this house also came with a lot of extra customizations.  The owner added a one-bedroom, bathroom and mini-kitchen over a garage with a custom connector to the main house.  This in-law studio apartment fit with the prefab part of the house seamlessly.  

Oh, and by the way in case you're curious, this house is also for sale... $2.75 million.

I do have to deduct some points from Blu Homes, however, for neglecting the free food and beverages for this open house.  For past tours we were fed by complimentary food trucks and that was a very sweet perk.  It's just not the same experience without the crème brûlée and crepes.

Lena and Meredith both agree that crepes would have been nice

If you read my previous post, you will know that we recently verified with our county planner that 25 feet was the height limit and that there was no chance in going over. Since the Sidebreeze is 26 feet not including the foundation we quickly came to the realization that we were going to have to pick a different model or go with a custom stick-built home.

Well we discovered two interesting things today.  The first is that it is possible to alter the height of the Sidebreeze.  That little elevated part of the 2nd-storey module, we learned today is called the "cricket," can just be removed.  This might lower the height close to the 25-foot threshold as mandated by the county.

That part comes off?

Another interesting tidbit we heard is that another Blu customer is currently building a Sidebreeze in Mill Valley – also located in Marin County.  How did they get around the height limitation, you ask?  Well, we are finding out.  Perhaps we are just special.

The Beach

Okay, so after that we needed a break. We drove out to our new favorite and less populated Point Reyes destination, Limontour Beach. Apparently, there are 12 beaches in Point Reyes National Seashore so we still have many more to explore.

General Consultation with Marin County Planning

Yesterday we had a consultation with our assigned county planner. Larry, Stephen and I spent an hour discussing what would be required of us in order to get permits from the county.  This meeting is a more in-depth discussion where the planner spends a little time familiarizing themselves with your parcel and answers your questions in greater detail than would the over-the-counter planners.

In our meeting we discovered that one of the neighbors strongly opposed the land owner's 1997 proposal to originally subdivide his land.  As a result, there will be some extra hurdles we may encounter that were written into the subdivision approval. Also we learned about a resident in the neighboring town of  Inverness who tends to "become very involved" in any new development in the area. As a result we intend on both being thorough with studying, documenting, and mitigating the potential impact to the area and reaching out to groups and individuals who might object to our proposal. In fact, Marin County Planning Department strongly recommends talking with your future neighbors and local community groups about your project.

I should stop here and mention the Planning Application Guide that Marin County publishes that helps understand the process. I'm sure most counties will have a similar guide to help residents through the planning process.

Marin County Planning Application Guide

The good news is that many of the initial studies and surveys have been done already by the land owner in the process of subdividing the land. That's one of the things that made the land so attractive to us initially.

We will have to update the Biological Survey which involves contracting a biologist to visit the site and evaluate the local plant and animal species that might be impacted by development.  In our case, we know that the property is Spotted Owl habitat, and so the Douglas fir and live oak trees are off limits. We will probably also be restricted to performing any construction outside of the owl nesting season to further minimize any impact.

Who wouldn't love a face like this?

Because the land borders a stream there is a 100-foot setback that we must preserve, but this has already been factored into the predetermined building envelopes for the parcel, and unless there are some protected species discovered living in the ravine our build-able space should be unchanged.

There are a number of studies that thankfully will not be required for this project either because they are no deemed necessary or one is already on file with the county from the previous subdivision project. They include: photometric study (evaluating the impact of any emitted light from a residence), hydrologic report (I think this relates to storm water drainage, but I'm not entirely sure), constraints map (again, not sure), photo-simulations (I believe this is just a 3D photo-realistic rendering of the project), acoustical study (an evaluation of the noise impact of construction on neighbors and wildlife), an arborist report (impact on/removal of any "substantive" trees on the property), archaeological survey (a study of the indigenous communities that may have lived on the land and potential impact to any artifacts), and an initial study (I think this is a catch-all for CEQA which evaluates any possible impact to the community and environment).

We are going to need a coastal permit because the land is in the coastal zone.  I'm not familiar with what is involved there, but I think those requirements are reflected in what the planner told us. We will also need to erect storey poles which roughly identify the roof line of your proposed house so that neighbors can pre-visualize the visual impact and make comments before the permit is approved.  This is despite the building envelope not being visible from any public roadway.

Storey poles

Our project is subject to Design Review which means there's a person or commission of people who determine that the project is attractive and located in an appropriate place on the lot. There may be additional visual renderings that are required for this part of the process.

One of the significant problems we confirmed today was the height limit.  Marin county has a strict (we learned) 25-foot height limit.  The prefab model we were considering is about 26', and so we will have to reconsider since modifying the prefab's height is probably not worth the additional cost. Our planner confirmed that variances were only granted in very rare circumstances and ours did not qualify.

Blu Homes' Sidebreeze model

Another problem is coming from the office of the Marin County Fire Marshal. He requires, among other things, a supply of water for fire suppression of 500 gallons-per-minute for 2 hours within 350 feet of the house.  This seems fairly reasonable considering the risk of wildfire in the area, but the estimate to connect a private fire hydrant to the county main (about 1,000-1,500 feet) would cost between $75,000-$150,000. Ouch!

I also learned that while there is no square footage limit on a primary residence, a secondary building is strictly limited to 750 square feet.  This might be a problem for us since we had envisioned a separate artist studio with a gallery space, storage, one bedroom, and one bathroom. It might be difficult to fit that all into 750 square feet. We may have to downsize.

While we are exploring other options for satisfying these permitting requirements we will be meeting with an architect from Blu Homes next week and discuss what design options we have for the parcel.

Blu homes factory and model home

Blu Homes' Factory

The other day we went out to Mare Island near Vallejo to visit the Blu Homes factory and general offices.   The goal of the visit was to discuss the project costs and the lending options. We met with our sales representative and the guy who facilitates relationships with the lenders with which Blu commonly works. We discussed Blu's new 2015 line of home designs and some options for lender financing a prefab home. In future posts I plan to discuss both of these in greater detail.

Blu Homes factory and offices

The Blu Homes factory is located in a former Navy shipyard where submarines, among other things, have been built in the years since World War II. The home modules are built on a production line where each module moves from station to station on large dollies. They're a little touchy about taking photos of the factory floor, so I was shooed away before I could get a photograph of the prefab modules actually being built.

The factory floor

Blu Model Home

Just the phrase, "model home" inspires images of rows of identical suburban tract homes, but Blu has taken a slightly different approach with their Mare Island model.  We visited their newly opened Breezehouse model home (they call it a "design center") which was installed on a hillside nearby with an incredible view of the San Pablo Bay.

Breezehouse living room

Breezehouse kitchen

Breezehouse entryway

The Breezehouse is the largest home that Blu Homes makes. The standard Breezehouse layout is about 3,000 square feet with 3-4 bedrooms – all on one level. As a result, this model is a little sprawling for me, but it has a nice separation of the common space from the more private bedroom space. The real selling point for both the Breezehouse and Sidebreeze is the breezespace which has optional NanaWall doors and create that indoor/outdoor feeling.

Breezehouse breezespace

Breezehouse NanaWall

Standard Breezehouse floor plan

Now that it's September, we are coming to the end of our escrow period and so we have limited time to complete our due diligence on the land.

We are well aware that there's no way to get complete assurance that our project will be approved for this lot, but we will do what we can to mitigate as much of our risk by understanding what the county will let us build and how much it will cost. We have a meeting with a Marin County planner this week, so we should get a clearer sense of what will be required of us to get through the permitting process in the coming months. 

Considering alternatives

After the disappointing news from the delivery assessment the other day we have been exploring other possible options for building a house on this land.  Of course if Blu Homes is going to have difficulty delivering it's more than certain that the other prefab companies will have the same or an even harder time considering the others require wider roads and have similar weight constraints.  This leaves us with building a conventional or "stick-built" home on-site.

We are starting to talk with some architects and builders in West Marin to figure out how costs might vary with a custom home.  So far we have received building estimates from $300-$350 per square foot.  This figure is somewhat comparable to what we spent when we built our addition in San Francisco in 2006.  There are a few downsides to building a stick-built home:

The project will take longer

Building a home on site requires construction to happen in succession.  The foundation and other site work must be complete before the home framing can begin.  The prefab house manufacturer can save time by sequencing the site work and module building in parallel – largely independent from one another.

Project timeline (from Blu Homes' information booklet)

Construction loans will be carried longer

Construction loans are more risky for lenders and so their interest rates are higher.  While building conventionally might take months and be delayed by bad weather, prefab construction takes weeks and can be installed and ready for occupation in days.  This means that a higher-interest construction loan can be more quickly converted into a lower-interest conventional mortgage, thus saving money.

Costs are less predictable  

Assuming that you let Blu handle the site work, by the end of the detailed design phase the costs for a Blu home are fixed.  This is a pretty sizable advantage over working with a traditional builder where costs seems to shift around and there are almost always budget overruns.

Impact to the neighborhood is greater

When building on-site a construction crew will be traveling to and from the job site 5 days a week for however many months construction is occurring. This can add up to quite a neighborhood disturbance – not the way you'd typically like to introduce yourselves to your new neighbors, am I right?

The fewer days you are making construction noise and blocking road access the better, and installing a prefab home generally minimizes this disruption.

Delivery assessment

One of the unique factors to working with a prefabricated home builder is that the home is not constructed on site, but rather built in a factory and transported by truck to the land.  This, obviously, presents some challenges in "delivery," as they put it.  The entire road – from factory to foundation mush satisfy minimum height, width, radius/elevation and weight criteria.  Again, you have to imagine a semi truck carrying a 60-foot house module when finding a suitable piece of land way out in the country.

Normally delivery is all included in the price of the house (even across the country), but in certain circumstances Blu will ask for additional money if there are special delivery costs to be factored in.  Last week Blu Homes performed our delivery assessment and we found out we may have some problems with the bridge that crosses a small culvert on the driveway to the land.

The bridge in question

They've determined that the bridge is not crossable by the heavy trucks and they have proposed craning the modules over the bridge onto trailers on the opposite side of the 13-foot bridge.  Somehow this process adds up to a $41,000 surcharge.

Honestly, I can't imagine paying that much money to cross a bridge.  I would guess that the bridge, itself, is worth about that much.  Unless we can come up with an alternative to this plan it might put the whole prefab project in jeopardy.

Selecting a prefab manufacturer

What is modern prefab?

Prefabricated or manufactured houses have a history and connotation of being devoid of character, low-quality construction, and only one step up from a double-wide mobile home.

Traditional prefab home

Architects began to appreciate the benefits of prefab and a number of higher-end modern designs began to surface.  When Lena and I got married and discussed buying a home we were quite curious about prefab building and whether it would be possible in a dense urban environment like San Francisco.  A local architect named Michelle Kaufmann had just started to promote her "Glidehouse" as an ecologically-responsible alternative to site-built houses.  Lena and I loved the idea and even talked briefly with Michelle, but buying vacant land in San Francisco is, in reality, not easy.

And it was just as well because Michelle Kaufmann found it difficult to work with the manufacturers and ended up selling the rights to her prefab designs to Blu Homes in 2008.

We returned to the idea in 2012 after broaching the idea of a vacation home and contacted Blu along with a number of other manufacturers of prefabricated houses.  Here are some of the ones we considered:

1. LivingHomes
2. Weehouse
3. Stillwater Dwellings
4. Method Homes
5. Resolution: 4 Architecture

LivingHomes

Stillwater Dwellings

Weehomes

Resolution: 4 Architecture

Method Homes

Why Prefab?

Most companies will focus on four reasons to consider prefabricating a house instead of building it onsite:

1. Cost (companies claim that prefabs are 25-50% less expensive)
2. Environmental impact (less wasted material)
3. Quality (precision of construction is higher)
4. Speed (crews can build the house simultaneous to the foundation and other site work)

We haven't been able to verify any of these, but they sure make for good marketing.  In San Francisco construction roughly ranges from $500-$1,000 per square foot.  That could put our project around $2.6M if it were built conventionally on-site.

Once we do our financial plan I'll calculate how our project budget will compare to this figure.


Why we chose Bluhomes

Weehomes was really interesting and seemed the most affordable, but was located in Minnesota and did not manufacture their own modules.  Their designs were also a bit uninspired.

Overall I think I liked the Resolution: 4 Architecture designs the best because they were dynamic and breathtaking.  Unfortunately, they are on the East Coast and I don't think shipping the modules to California was cost-effective (or even possible at the time).

I don't even remember talking with Method Homes. They do have factories both on the East  and West Coasts (Pennsylvania and Washington), but I don't think their designs inspired me much.

Stillwater was the least interesting.  There was something about both the website and interaction I had with the sales person that turned me off.  I can't hardly remember the specifics, but it wasn't a hard choice to eliminate them.

Bluhomes is the only manufacturer at the time that was located in the San Francisco Bay Area.  They were also more established because they owned the design, engineering, and building of the homes they sell.  They pioneered a method of folding each module so that it will fit on a standard-sized semi truck trailer as opposed to an oversized "wide-load" truck that requires two-lane roads and an escort.

Blu Homes - Breezehouse

You can see a video below of one of their homes "unfolding" on site.  It's pretty spectacular!

They seemed the most capable to make it happen at the time and so we kept them at the top of the list.  From time to time we would attend one of their local events and talk with customers and employees about the process.  We toured a couple of completed homes, met one of their senior architects, even toured the factory in the former Mare Island Naval Shipyard, near Vallejo, CA.  It's impressive – if you ever have the opportunity you should visit.

Meeting with Marin County planners

Yesterday I met with Larry, from LAK Associates, and my agent, Stephen Pringle, at Marin's Civic Center where the Planning Division has its office.

Marin County Civic Center: Frank Lloyd Wright's last and only public commission

We met with a planner to research what record the county had on this parcel and what was required of us to do to receive building permits.

Marin Planning (Room 308)

The county is in the process of digitizing all of their paper records, but chances are that the records you are looking for are spread across multiple departments and they don't seem to cross-colaborate well.  I learned that you should never take "we don't have it" as an answer until you have gone to each department.

We did a cursory search on the parcel to see which ecological restrictions the land might be subject to.  In their database our planner noted that monarch butterflies were not breeding in the area, but spotted owl potentially were.  This she explained was due to the fir trees at one end of the property -- a favorite nesting habitat for the spotted owl.  Fortunately, building outside of the nesting season would mitigate any possible threat to the owls.

We decided to request a copy of all the records the county has for that parcel.  This is called a Planning Information Packet and it costs $128.  We also set up a consultation with one of the senior planners which is more than what we could accomplish over the counter.  The planner would spend time researching your case before the meeting in order to make it more productive.  This special 1-hour consult costs $290.  Also, bring cash or check -- they do not accept credit cards, as I found out and had to run down to the other end of the building to locate an ATM machine.

Our planner explaining the requirements for construction

Next we went down to the Department of Environmental Health (room 236) where a septic system would be approved, and requested all the records they had on file for this property.  They had nothing, and here's another lesson learned.  We asked for the records for the neighbors parcels and for the parcel number from which this one had originally been subdivided in 1998.

BINGO!  We found piles of records now and began to look through them in one of their conference rooms.  We found old biological reports that confirm no likely threat to native species and archeological reports stating that while the Miwok Indians settled on land close by, there had been no discoveries of native artifacts on the land.  Very good news!

Larry and Stephen review county records

While I was there we bumped into District 4 Supervisor, Steve Kinsey.   I guess it's good to know influential people, right?  That's why we are working with Larry and Stephen.

Finding land in Northern California

My wife, Lena, and I began this journey in December of 2012.  I set out to convince her that we should build a prefabricated vacation house in the country.  I had been researching and dreaming for years, but she was much slower to warm up to the idea.

We found a real estate agent pretty early in our search.  He was super-helpful in learning what went into building in Marin and Sonoma counties.  I highly recommend talking with Stephen Pringle if you are looking to buy in Marin.  More about Stephen in future posts.

Lena and I spent every spare weekend driving around the Bay Area and somewhat beyond looking for that perfect undeveloped parcel.  We searched from Mendocino County to Santa Cruz County and dragged our 4-year old son around for most of the road trips.  We were looking for a parcel with privacy -- lots of land or within a reasonable distance to open space for hiking.  We love the scrubby oaks of Northern California and found our first likely candidate in the Mayacamas Mountains in Cloverdale.  Lena was sold on the idea at that moment.

Perfectly quiet, perfect views, perfect size -- everything was perfect except the road getting to the parcel.  It was 25 minutes of treacherously windy and narrow, single-lane driving.  It was hard to imagine a semi-truck carrying a 60 foot house module making its way on that road, let alone one of us late at night.  We kept looking.

Our original search zone

In fact, we saw lots of nice properties but many of them were either out of our price range or geographic range.  We discovered after many 7-hour round trips that proximity to San Francisco was very important.  We made one other offer on a parcel in Lagunitas, but were not able to negotiate with the seller, so we kept looking.  Occasionally I would get discouraged and need to take a break from searching.  Sometimes Lena and I would disagree about a specific location and that was not always easy.

In the end we mostly shared a vision of what that ideal land would look like.  We settled on the Sonoma Valley and West Marin as targets for our search.  We loosened some criteria and tightened others and we kept looking.

Our refined search zone

The "One"

It had been a number of weeks since we had gone out looking.  Driving to "look at properties" had long lost its appeal to our son and so we would try to schedule other activities for him while we searched.  We drove out on our usual way across the Golden Gate Bridge with at least three possible destinations in mind.  The first time we looked for that 6-acre lot in Point Reyes we couldn't even find it.  Google maps led us to an empty field with no visible address nor for sale signs to be seen.  This was not unusual when searching for vacant lots, and so we looked around enough to know that the area was a possibility and moved on.

Stephen got the information from the listing agent and we went out shortly thereafter to meet her on the site.  She took us down a private drive and out to what was the prettiest little piece of land we have seen since we began looking more than a year and a half ago.  It has gently sloping land with a ravine on one side and a seasonal creek at the bottom.  It faces a partial view of the Nicasio Ridge and even a glimpse of the town of Point Reyes Station through the trees.  Best of all, much of it borders federal parkland.

Looking Northeast through the oaks and bay laurels

We had learned that there was much more to a parcel than the view, however.  Developing unincorporated land can be quite difficult.  There's soil composition for drainage and septic systems, there's connecting water and electric supply, there's building envelopes and zoning restrictions, and there's a whole variety of environmental restrictions.  Part of the reason we were originally drawn to the property was that the listing stated that much of the preparation and surveying had already been done by the owner.  There was municipal water on the site.  There was conduit already run underground for the electrical, and "perc" tests had already been performed to guarantee the quality of the soils for the septic system.  This was a pretty big selling point -- it's a bit surprising that this lot had been on the market for well over a year.

We made an offer knowing that we would still have time to do our due diligence within the escrow period and then waited for a response.  Our offer was below asking, but fair.  There was an adjoining lot that had sold four years prior and that gave us an excellent "apples-to-apples" comparison.  I had briefly met the owner during one of my visits to the land and so I made a personal appeal to him in a letter explaining how much I appreciated his experience and insight about the geology, plant and wildlife on the property; also what we loved about it.

Within a day we had our reply.  He had accepted our offer with a few (mostly administrative) clarifications.  We promptly paid a 1% deposit and we had ratified the contract and entered the escrow period.

At this point uncertainty takes over.  Holy shit, we're about to spend how much money?  Why was the seller so quick to accept our offer?  Is there something we don't know?  Are we going to regret this decision?  As much as I wanted to be excited about our pending purchase it's hard not to dwell on the fact that we will soon be depleting our savings and taking on more debt and risk on top of it.

Yesterday I returned to the parcel to meet some specialists and the excitement returned.  Everyone who sees it remarks on what a rare and beautiful find that piece of land is.  The gentle smells of coastal air and the peaceful sounds of dozens of bird varieties relax me the moment I step out of the car.

Over the coming months (and possibly years) I'll be updating this record of our house building experience.  I'll cover the closing process, what it's like to work with the home manufacturer, the permitting process in Marin, finding and working with contractors, and anything else that seems relevant.