Ron’s First Reflection

Ron Formby

Well, this reflection may be more of a rant.  With over 37 years in the building business, the one thing that really bugs me is the cities disregard for value/affordable housing.  It almost seems that the cities have forgotten that when we can house our people, business will show up and want to be in the city.  Residential rooftops bring in businesses which create jobs, and raise the tax base and increase the city’s revenue.  Over the last several years, cities have forgotten this and have imposed impact fees on new homes only to make the new developments and homes pay a very unfair tax.  Well here we go again.  The City of Fort Worth in its best wisdom is considering upping the Transportation Impact Fee again.  They just increased the fee to $2,000 for all NEW homes permitted, and now want to increase it again making the fee $3,000.00.  With all the other fees, building permit, Water Impact Fee, Sewer Impact Fee, etc. the fees for a New 2,000 square foot home permitted in Fort Worth before any construction is started, we have to write check to the City of Fort Worth for a total of $4,200.00 and now they want to raise that cost to $5,200.00!  What you need to know is you have to pay this fee in the cost of the new home you are buying.  This has gotten to be ridiculous.  There is no increase in new home starts and the city is losing money due to lack of new home starts.  Fees like these makes the consumer look to a more affordable price in a city that does not charge these high fees.  The same exact floor plan in another city other than Fort Worth (in a comparable community with the same lot costs) will be the same $4,200.00 or $5,200.00 cheaper.  And the City of Fort Worth which had a $70,000,000.00 budget deficit (just balanced by laying off hundreds of jobs and cutting services to city pools and libraries) can not see that these fees do nothing but drive the budget further in debt.  The City of Midlothian in 2010 waived over $5,400.00 in fees and has seen an increase in building starts which has brought in revenue and tax base dollars.  Cities in California have waived fees as well, trying to jump start a down housing industry.  Cities believe this tax, and it is a tax on New Homes only, works because they are taxing someone that does or may not live in the City currently, so they don’t make voters unhappy.  New homes pay their own way and contribute to the tax base and revenue stream.  Let’s start building New Homes encouraging people to live in our city instead of trying to run them out of it.

Dinner with Bryan and Nikole

So yesterday was my husband’s birthday, but he went fishing for the week with his Grandpa and Dad and Brother, so the huge dinner I made last night was for Bryan and Nikole!  I’ll post the recipes later (‘cause it was so yummy), but we had a wonderful appetizer of toasted French bread with baked brie and walnuts finished with a honey drizzle, pasta with a homemade red sauce that included Italian Sausage (my FAVORITE) and a beautiful salad.  YUM.  Oh yeah, and Key Lime Pie for dessert which was a fortunate impulse buy because it happened to be Bryan’s favorite.  We talked about dog training and being home owners, since we all have dogs under a year old and own homes.  I asked Nikole if people were often surprised to find out that she is a homeowner, she said absolutely.  She just started a new job and since she just turned 20 this summer her co-workers were a little shocked.  I wanted to find out why they had decided to purchase a home so young.  We all agreed on the benefits of such a choice, but how did the conversation come up?  As it turns out, Nikole’s mom was the one who suggested to Nikole that it might be a good idea to buy a home.  Nikole agreed since she was tired of being restricted by the rules in a rental property and she wanted a place of her own to make into her space.    It wasn’t necessarily a new home that her mom had in mind, but as Nikole and Bryan talked to friends and family they found a lot of good advice about buying new over re-sale.  Since the payments were about the same as their rent, buying a new home made a lot of sense.  Also, Bryan’s sister had just purchased an Antares Home and loved the energy efficiency.  Bryan and Nikole both view owning a home as a hobby and another full time job.  They have projects planned for their back yard and have even hosted a wedding!  Congratulations Bryan and Nikole on your new home at Ashford Park!

What is up with getting a loan?

I’ve heard it quoted all over the internets that Housing is what brought us out of The Great Depression and other Recessions, but why is it that Housing is so sluggish?  Well, it’s not housing that’s sluggish, it’s lending.  The potential buyers that walk through my model home doors today are facing the strictest lending laws I’ve seen since I got into home sales.  I see several people a week who desperately want to buy a home and take advantage of all the benefits available to home owners, but they can’t get approved.  Why can’t they you ask?  Well, it’s not all “Bad Credit” as you might think.  I hear one of our salespeople every week mention someone with 780 credit score, who makes 90,000 a year who can’t get a loan on a $120,000 home.  WHAT?  Yes.  Commissioned Salespeople and Self-Employed with good credit are pretty stuck.  FHA guidelines were written with a very specific box in mind.  And when they were written the lending market was very wary of self employed and 100% commissioned folks.  All of those people with potentially variable incomes are some of the people with good credit who can’t get a loan these days.  What’s ironic about all of this is that with the economic weirdness that has been happening, a lot of smart people who find themselves out of a job decide that they have a lot to offer and go into business for themselves.  Entrepreneurship always increases in times of economic instability and that gives rise to the next strong economy.  Well, we might not have that very soon until lending laws loosen up a bit.

UPDATE 12/13/10

I said it weeks ago and the Wall Street Journal is chiming in!

When is it a good time to make an investment in your future?

So, I have made an appointment to meet with Bryan and Nikole on Sunday evening.  Thankfully they aren’t picky eaters like my husband since I am cooking dinner for them.  I hope they like food with some spice in it!  I have been deprived of onions and garlic for the longest time (my husband hates even the smell of them) and I can’t wait to cook something with those ingredients in it.  Anyway, they live in our Ashford Park neighborhood which we just closed out a couple of months ago.  They just might be the youngest buyers we have ever had.  Both of them were under 21 when they went on contract in April of this year.  The burning question that makes them interesting as buyers to me is “when is it a good time to make an investment in your future?”  These two are waaaaayyyy ahead of the curve.  I told them this as they sat in my sales office.  I thought of myself and wondered how my life would be different today if I had bought a home earlier in my life.  I often meet people who have ridiculously low mortgage payments or have paid off their homes because they bought 15 years ago.  Since I am well over 15 years older than them, that secure home owner could be me…if I had just bought a home when I was their age.  So, I guess even though it is never too late to become a home owner, the reverse is also true:  It is never too early to become a home owner.

Ok, so I’m a Nerd.

Can I just say that I love construction?  I mean, I reaaaalllllly love construction.  You may not believe it, but it’s true.  My hubs and I love to walk through homes under construction just to find out what’s on the inside.  Needless to say I always want to know why we do what we do when it comes to construction.  A lot of my buyers consider me to be very well informed because I can answer about 90% of their construction questions and I get super excited when one of my buyers brings a friend or relative who actually builds or remodels homes for a living to check us out.  It’s like getting to be on Construction Jeopardy!  So, that makes me a big nerd.  But, it’s also good for you ‘cause I’m going to explore our construction on this blog.

When I first started thinking about this topic, I thought about my Gramma’s cooking.  She is an excellent cook and any one who’s ever eaten her food will tell you that.  (you know who you are, ahem, Cecil)  The secret to her cooking is that it’s a little different every time.  You can’t ever really re-create any of her dishes because there really isn’t a recipe she follows religiously; it’s just what she does in reaction to how it’s going at the time.  Well, building a home really isn’t like that.  Yes there are ingredients and every buyer has their specific color and carpet choices that are going into the home, but we warranty our structures and guarantee our kilowatt hours on our HVAC and we can’t just wing it every time.  A dash of insulation here or there won’t a guarantee make!  So is there a recipe for building a sound home?  Yes!  What is it?  Well, stick around and find out, ‘cause I’m gonna show you!

My Quest

Home Owner in Lasater Ranch

What makes an Antares Home Owner tick?  What makes them choose us?  As a company, we spend countless hours trying to figure out how to get better responses on our customer surveys, analyzing data, and attending meetings about this subject.  This is the question that keeps a salesperson up at night.  We ask ourselves, why this person did, or did not buy our home.  In the homebuilding industry the buyer is the celebrity, the hero.  They are the person we most want to know about.  A new home salesperson would jump at a tabloid that featured gossip and interesting info on all of our buyers as well as those that got away!  So, why not create that?  I am starting a quest to find out as much as I can about our buyers.  I am going to visit with them in their native habitat and study them.  I will have them fill out one of those little questionnaires that you see in the celebrity profiles of your favorite magazine and take pictures and dish it up!