new townhouse

yesterday i went to a lottery for Siena at Saratoga, some new townhouses near Westgate. We got one! I picked the Veneto, it has all the things that I like: 3 bedrooms, two car carage, fireplace, large bathtub, dual sinks, large walkin closet in the master bedroom, and it looks like it has a kitchen island! it's very expensive though, ugh. this is actually the only place we've been looking at, we have not been trying very hard to find a house. all the stories about bidding wars and how hard it is to find a decent home at a decent price has scared me. seriously, i think people in the bay area have waaaay too much money. i need to figure out a way to get some too!

this was actually the 3rd lottery i've been too for siena, the previous two we were not lucky enough to get one, 3rd times the charm i guess! when we first submitted our application, the veneto was at $660k. when we went to our first lottery, the price went up $30k to $690k!! the second lottery it went up to $700k. each lottery had about 30 people and they released 8 units. they usually have a release every month. after the 2nd release, we were pretty discouraged and were going to give up on siena, especially since the price keeps on increasing and the chances didn't seem so great! if we kept on trying, it would eventually get out of our price range. so this last lottery was going to be our last attempt. and as luck may have it, my name was the first one called!!!! so i got first choice out of all the units being released!

so some pros: it'll be completely new, it's walking distance to lots of things, it has a lot of nice features, don't have to get in bidding wars
some cons: it's not really in a neighborhood, won't be able to move in for a year since they are still building it, it's expensive!!

looks like i'll be staying in the bay for a while!! i don't know how likely it was that we would have actually moved to socal. yes the weather is nice, but i think i would not have enjoyed the traffic at all. i guess this will just be our starter home, and we'll find a single family house once we have kids so they can play in the yard and ride their bikes around the neighborhood and stuff. right now single family homes prices are INSANE, but i don't envision it getting any cheaper, but hopefully by then we'll have more money =P