Starting the home search

I met with the realtor last night to do the initial paperwork thing, which is quite different from how it was in CA where the realtor would work with you to find a house without making you sign anything. One would think that living in the Midwest that a handshake deal was good enough, but I guess it's not.

He seems like a good guy, and I laid out exactly what I'm expecting from him, which is a lot of input. This was something that I didn't get from my previous interactions with realtors but something that I really wanted. I told him that I'm expecting him to be more of a consultant than just someone that shows you houses. Tell me what to do, what he thinks the market will think of things, etc. I'll take his advice, or ignore it, but I want to be informed.

We talked for a while about what I'm looking for in a house (big garage, big basement, European style kitchen, network, etc.) and eventually decided that building it would probably be easiest/quickest to get the house I wanted. He's going to start searching for property in the Woodbury/Cottage Grove area and contact some builders. This weekend or next, probably next, we'll try to look at some models so that I can get an idea of house layout.

My biggest fear is that I'll build exactly the house I want, but something that none of the families in this area might want to buy. Being stuck with a house that I can't sell is a big fear for me (never know when you might loose your job, or something, and not be able to make those payments). The realtor's chief job in this arrangement is to make sure that I don't go too far into single man geek mode when building. To that end, he even mentioned that he knew a few women who would probably be happy to give input to make sure that I didn't get too geeky.

I have a good feeling about this process, and I'm sure I'll have lots to say about it in the coming months. Stay tuned...