We have a few Neighborhoods that are in close out this Fall. In fact we have many! So, if you have visited Garden Heights in Mansfield or Hidden Creek in Burleson and are thinking of buying in those neighborhoods, it’s time to get off the fence. We have one home site left in each of those neighborhoods and 3 move in ready homes between the two.
On the North Side of Fort Worth, Parkview Hills has only four home sites remaining and three of those are the coveted Meandering Creek Lane greenbelt sites.
Looking for a value in South Fort Worth? Matador Ranch has less than ten home sites remaining and those are going fast!
Do you want to move in before the end of the year? We can help! We have several homes available now ranging from 1430 to 3098 square feet, three bedrooms to five bedrooms with Media and Game Rooms!
Need a Lease Buyout? No Problem? Have a Realtor? Great! Credit Issues? We can help!
We have the Best Kept Secret In Fort Worth- An Exceptional First Time Home Buyer Program! Call us now to find out more 1-800-ANTARES 1800-268-2737
If you have never owned a home or have not owned a home in the last three years you’ve got to take advantage of this great First Time Home Buyer Program we are offering! Would you like help with Down Payment and Closing Costs? How about help that you don’t have to pay back? With interest rates so low and home prices on the verge of dramatic increases the time is now! Don’t miss out. Call one of our Fort Worth Neighborhoods for more details on how to qualify for this great program!
Have you been thinking about a new home for a long time? Have you watched interest rates and home prices drop? Have you noticed that home prices are now rising?
We are at the beginning of the upswing in pricing for Real Estate in our area. Guess what else is happening? Loan costs are on the rise too. That means both interest rates and mortgage insurance premiums will be higher on FHA loans. What does that mean to you? Move quickly! Claim your inventory home and lock in your rate and current MIP rates before they skyrocket at the end of this month. This could save you thousands of dollars over a 30 year loan.
Did you know that buying a new home is a very simple process? You have one major choice to make before you begin the process: do you want to build your new home from the ground up or do you want to move into your new home in the next 30 days or less?
If you want to move quickly, let’s say your home has sold or your lease is up, or you have just re-located, an inventory home is the best option for you. An inventory home is one that the builder chose to build knowing that it is a popular floor plan and anticipating that some people may need to move into their new home in 30 days or less. There are about five steps to buying a completed inventory home:
-Gathering Your Paperwork
Now this is the first step no matter what type of home you are buying. You will need to provide your lender with a copy of your last two year’s W2’s, the two most recent paycheck stubs, a copy of your driver’s license, a copy of your social security card and your most recent checking and savings account statements. Getting this paperwork together before you begin looking will streamline the process when you are ready to make your decision.
-Loan Application
Most Home Builders will have their list of preferred or in house lenders. At Antares we have a list of over six Lenders that we prefer to work with. These people have earned their place on our list by providing great customer service to our Home Buyers and to our Sales Consultants. They are Lenders we can depend on to answer our phone calls even on weekends and after hours and they take care of our Buyers. You can submit a loan application at any of our Model Homes any day of the week. You are also welcome to use your own Lender that has already pre-approved you. Getting this part out of the way early on in the process helps you to determine what price range you want to stay in. It can also help with planning a budget for after you close. Having a realistic plan for your lifestyle is very important. For example, if you love to travel, you may want to keep your mortgage payment way below the maximum you can qualify for.
-Choose Your Home
This is the fun part! Visiting our Model Homes, looking at our completed inventory and imagining where you’ll place your furniture! Not sure what exactly will be the best style home for you? No problem. Our Sales Consultants are very good listeners and they will ask you lots of questions to discover which home will best suit your needs.
Signing on the dotted line and getting the keys to your future! Congratulations!
Have you decided you would like to pick all of the colors for your new home? Need a few months to save up your down payment? Want a floor plan that we don’t have as a completed inventory home? In love with that over sized Cul-De-Sac Home Site? Build! After the first two steps above, the next step is:
-Choose Your Floor Plan and Home Site
It can be overwhelming when we have so many different plans and locations to build. But don’t worry we are here to help! With plans ranging from three bedrooms to six bedrooms, we will have the perfect plan for you!
-Visit the Selection Studio
This is my favorite part! Since we don’t limit our Buyers to pre-selected packages, every home can be customized in many different ways. We will help you choose options that are beautiful and within any budget!
-Watch Your Home Emerge!
The construction process is very interesting if you ask me! A lot of our buyers will visit their home weekly to take pictures and observe their dreams taking form. You will meet with the Construction Manager during this time to get an overview of the construction process. He will also be able to answer any questions you have about how your home is being built. All of the Construction Managers at Antares Homes are Graduate Master Builders! Where else can you find that?
-Save Your Down Payment Money
Most of our buyers are using FHA loans. These loans require 3.5% of the mortgage value of the home as a down payment. A lot of people don’t have that amount sitting around and have to budget to save it. Since it takes us four months to build your new home, most of our buyers are able to save down payment money in that time period. We also have various Zero Down loans available for qualified buyers. If you want more information on those programs, please contact one of our Sales Offices. Our Sales Consultants will be able to tell you very quickly if you qualify for one of those programs.
-Meet with the Construction Manager
You will meet with your Construction Manager at least three times during the building process. He is a great educational resource for our buyers. Every wonder why we do what we do? He’ll be able to tell you!
-Go to closing!
The same last step: Signing on the dotted line and getting the keys to your future! Congratulations!
We often have buyers who have a home to sell. The most common advice that their Realtors tell them to do to sell their homes quickly is to work on their curb appeal. Now to some people that might sound like a huge task, but it can be pretty easy and fairly inexpensive if you are willing to put a little elbow grease into it!
We have a home for sale at 7017 Meandering Creek in Parkview Hills that has an elevation that we don’t have any professional pictures of. We decided that we wanted to get some photographs of it, but the “curb appeal” was a little blah. We usually save our professional photos for our model homes and they usually have a little extra landscaping, so this was going to have to be a quick project. I thought it would be an excellent opportunity to demonstrate curb appeal!
So, of course I volunteered to be the landscaper for this one! Since it is a new home, there weren’t any dead trees to remove or major overhauling to do. I thought that a little black mulch would stand out against the white limestone accents on the home and pairing that dark mulch with vivid pink flowers might be the most eye catching combo. I was really excited to be able to buy beautiful sun loving flowers since my own personal garden is so limited. I was going to live vicariously through this East facing sunny garden!
My first stop was Mike’s Garden Center. I love Mike’s because they warranty their plants and they have early bird specials and sales all the time. If you catch a good special you can find flowers for sale at $0.73 per 4” pot. Amazing! Another reason I love my particular Mike’s on Crowley Road is because they are pet friendly. They have their own birdcage and their own shop kitty and three small dogs. One of them accompanied me as I selected my flowers. I loved it!
I bought Vinca and Moss Rose. I love Moss Rose because it is a creeper. It will fluff out and go everywhere. Also it drops seeds like nobody’s business and you will have Moss Rose coming back every year. And, it doesn’t need a whole lot of water. Don’t get me wrong, it needs to be watered, but it is very forgiving of this Texas heat and doesn’t mind drying out a bit. So I loaded up my three flats of Vincas (on sale!) and my one flat of Moss Rose and bought my black mulch.
Of course with all of these plants I needed help getting out of there. The folks who work at Mike’s are always so nice and one guy helped me load up my car. No, you don’t need a truck to haul plants and mulch. I have a two door hatch back and I can get anything in there! I laid down my seats and spread a blanket over the trunk and seats to keep it from getting soiled and me and my Mike’s buddy loaded up my car.
Filler Up!
There's room for more!
When I got to the home I quickly took a couple of “Before” pictures and got to work. I have found that it is easier for me if I lay the plants out where I want them to go first. So I unloaded all of my flats and got to work. I knew I wanted the Moss Rose to go along the walkway to the entry since it would look pretty there as it began to creep out of the flower bed once it became established. Vincas will get thick, so I also wanted to make sure I placed them far enough apart to not compete with each other for sunlight. I also wanted to make sure I planted thickly against the ugly white washout stub in the flowerbed. You know that thing that looks like a pipe with a lid on it? You have got to be careful when you are gardening not to completely cover it since you need to know where it is in case you have to snake your sewer line out to the street.
Ready for planting
Once I had my flowers laid out, I just had to get to work! I used a little gardening spade to dig in the earth.
Washout pipe
As I was digging I quickly noticed that the ground was very clay-ey. When I was at Mike’s I wondered to myself whether or not I should buy some potting soil, but I decided against it. Well, I regretted that decision! But, since I wasn’t removing the old mulch, just adding the new mulch on top, I figured it would be ok. In my opinion the best way to convert a clay based flower bed to better soil is to dump lots of mulch on it every Spring and Fall. That’s what I did at my home over the past six years and now I have this incredibly rich soil full of grody earth worms! They make for healthy plants and occasional frights while planting.
After hours of backbreaking digging and planting, the clouds parted (not really) and a ray of sunshine (it had been sunny and sweltering all day) fell on the pretty new flowerbed. I was pooped and the thought of adding the mulch made me have a heatstroke. So I popped on over to Mr. Bentley’s house next door to lounge on his deck and take a couple of pictures of his awesome view. He’s going to be the subject of the next Celebrity Gossip post.
Ruby says I need a pedicure...
The next morning I was at the home bright and early to spread the mulch. Sounds easy enough right? Right! Today I was wearing my heart rate monitor because I thought I needed to know exactly what my caloric commitment was to this project. It was a day late and the majority of it was done, but I figured I could do some math and guess. Mulching burned 640 calories! Yay! Ok, way off topic.
Anywhoo, I had four bags of black mulch and I laid them out near the places I thought they would be going. I opened each one and threw the mulch out and covered up all the old mulch. Occasionally I had to free some leaves or petals from under a little bit too much mulch, but it was pretty quick work. The only problem was that I forgot about the tree in the yard. That made me a bag short. So I spread it as best I could and it was a little thin at the end. I was regretting that I didn’t start at the entry and work my way out. So when I was running out of mulch, I was at the most important place! Oh well. Since I was sooooooooo tired after I finished, I decided I would finish the mulch the next time I was at Parkview Hills. By the time you read this, it will all be complete. But I did manage to take pictures with what I was able to cover and from the street, you can’t even tell I ran out!
By the end, I was pretty impressed with the effect that some flowers and mulch had on the appearance of the home. What do you think?
The Greater Fort Worth Spring Tour of New Homes is coming up in May and I am very excited! We love the Spring Tour because it introduces us to lots of people who have never heard of Antares Homes before. We really loved it last year because we won a lot of awards. Those awards made us feel really special.
What was so exciting about those awards last year is that our Model Home at 6836 Waterhill Lane was the Grand Award Runner Up! Now, I know a lot of folks who would say Runner Up is just second place, but it is second place over 51 other homes, many of which are in a much higher price range! That gives me warm fuzzies! The Grand Award winner was Sean Knight Custom Homes’ 4709 Santa Cova Court, valued at over $2 million! I’ll play second fiddle to that! 😉
This year the Tour has been completely re-vamped and there will be a lot of visitor interaction on the Tour website. It’s not complete yet; we builders have to enter all of our information on our entries! But, you will get to vote on your favorite homes and you will have access to customize your tour by choosing which homes you want to visit and printing out a map and route. There are a few more surprises in store for tour visitors that I am not at liberty to speak of, but I can say that I can’t hardly wait until it’s all completed!!!
