Promenade -- Whew! So the granite was installed, along with the sink, and some holes were drilled for all the little gadgets that a sink needs. Of course, I was pretty excited about having granite in my kitchen -- so excited in fact that I almost cracked a smile. In all the exitement, however, I didn't notice how close the holes were to the back of the counter. More importantly, I did not notice how close they were to the bar's overhanging granite. I went back the next day and performed some simple measurements and to my dismay discovered that the back edge of the bar did indeed overhang the holes by a small amount. I took some pictures showing the amount of overhang and asked them to install the faucet right away so we could find out if it would fit. They were pretty quick to respond and did get everything installed -- and it did fit! Now, there's not much clearance between the faucet and the granite, but I figure as long as I can run a rag between them, and the neck of the faucet does not rub against the granite, it will be fine.

Promenade -- Loans and Rates I have, which may come as a shock to some of you, pretty good credit. So getting approved for the loan was not a problem, and rates are still pretty good. Not as good as they once were (my last mortgage was 5.75%), but I expect to get a pretty good rate nonetheless. My original GFE's quoted a rate of 5.875% (with one point, as of 5/14/2007), but when I signed my first lock a month-and-a-half later, the rate had jumped to 6.25% (again, with 1 point), and 6.875% without. So I signed a rate-lock agreement in late June with 1 point (1 point = $3,500) which capped my interest at 6.5% with a "one time" 60-day float-down. On October 29th, I was within my 60-day one-time float, and was able to lock at 6.375% with no points, so I get my $3,500 back. Now, in talking to the loan agent, I asked what would happen if rates were lower still when it came time to close, and her reply was that I had already excersized my one-time float down option. Hmmmm... During my previous home buying experience, I had called the lender daily for rates and locked every time the rate was lower. The previous lender had the same terms as this lender (one-time float down), but I got several float downs during the 60 days before closing. In fact, once, my broker had failed to obtain the lock I had asked for, and the next day the rates went up. I called the bank directly and explained what my rate was supposed to be and they fixed it. This caused my broker some degree of consternation, as I was not supposed to talk to the bank directly. Ooops -- my bad. So I know rate locks can be negotiated almost daily. Yet this lender seems to be taking a pretty hard line. Her explanation was that it was a "buyers market", so the loan agents were extra accommodating. This was in 2001, when housing prices and demand had been skyrocketing for years. I thought that was a "sellers market", but what do I know. Nowadays, houses stay on the market for months, even after several price reductions. To my way of thinking, this is when the loan-agents need to be very nice to help close the sale. Again, I am just dumb, I guess. I explained to her that if the rates are lower when it comes time to draw up the documents, I would expect to get the better rate -- my lock or the current rate if it is lower. She indicated I would forfeit my point deposit if I did that, and I indicated she would lose the sale if she did that. As things now stand, I have a 0-point lock at 6.375% and a "finalization meeting" around November 29th. We'll see what happens, but either way, 6.375% is not too bad.

Promenade Update -- Options I am in the process of purchasing a nice, 1,420(ish) square foot condo in Kearny Mesa. I like the location -- not too far from work, the route does not include massive traffic problems and it is closer to the beach than I am now. For about two years after I sold the house in Escondido, I rented an apartment and watched prices come down. In the first year, I saw some condo-conversion projects drop around $100K, and in the second year I saw some drops in the $10K - $20K range, but then prices seemed to begin holding fairly steady, so I put my deposit down on this unit in May of this year. I continued to watch prices and as there were no more dramatic changes I continued with the options orders beginning a few months ago.

The first set of options I had to pick were counter tops and appliances. Of course, I upgraded the hell out of the kitchen, choosing granite (verde peacock) counters, a $1,200 sink, gooseneck faucet, convection oven, cooktop with a 15,000 BTU "power boil" burner and a "precise simmer" burner. I also requested that they use the leftover granite from my slabs to surface the "tech desk" option, which is next to the kitchen and in the same visual field as the kitchen. After speaking with my sister-in-law and mother, I also went with the more expensive front-loading washer/dryer units. If my whites aren't whiter, by God, they will pay.

Next came my low-voltage and other electrical options. For some reason, there are never any lights in the bedrooms, so I added recessed lighting to the living room and the third bedroom, which will be my den. I did not upgrade the 2nd "guest" bedroom as I don't want guest to get very comfortable and stay for any length of time. I had requested that they not roof the guest room, but the builder gave me some lines about "codes" and refused to do so. Oh well. I also added a few additional electrical outlets to the garage, including a 20-Amp dedicated circuit (for a refrigerator). For the low-voltage options, I added 6.1 ceiling speakers, cable and data to the garage, extra data ports to the office and upgraded the connection center so I could tuck all my network equipment inside it -- the default connection center would have been to small to do much with. Next came the flooring. Oh my. I wanted to get tile in all the "common" areas, and areas that would be heavily trafficked, such as the hallway leading to the bedrooms. For the stairs I chose a two-toned rattan carpet. I also chose a rattan carpet for the 2nd/3rd bedrooms. For the master bedroom, I chose a wonderfully plush, soft carpet that you could sleep on without a bed. Now, the initial quote came back at $18,152. After almost coughing up my skull, I began looking for ways to reduce that cost. One item that stuck out was the nearly $3,000 to carpet the master bedroom, which is not that large (11x12 or so). The led me to wonder if they were charging some huge amount per square yard for their carpet, and if I wouldn't be better off installing the flooring after close of escrow. However, in order to do that, I needed to know how much they were charging per square yard. Now, they could not (more likely: would not) give me square yardages for individual rooms, only square yardages for the flooring they would install. For example, since the two bedrooms and stairs were initially all to be carpeted in the same rattan carpet, they could tell me that would take 73 square yards, but the could (would) not tell me how many square yards were for the stairs, and each room. This led me on a cat-and-mouse game of asking for quotes with different carpeting in each area, so I could deduce how many square yards the charged for on a per-room basis. When I did get all the square yardages for each area, I subjected the numbers to exhaustive mathematical analysis (I multiplied the square yards by 9). I then began measuring the rooms in my unit and through an arcane process to complex to discuss here, I converted the linear measurements into square feet. This led me to a number of startling discoveries:

• The total square feet of carpet I was to be billed for was 1,863 sq. feet. The unit is only 1,420 sq. feet.
• The master bedroom was being charged as 48 sq. yards. That is 432 square feet. An 11'x12' room has 132 square feet in it. The little connecting hallway and closet area are not over twice as large as the master bedroom. Were they going to carpet the walls?
• Oddly, the discrepancy between the proposed square yardage (48) and the actual size of the area involved is damn close to what you would get if you multiplied square yards by three to get square feet. A more careless geometer than I may very well do a quick (and wrong) conversion that way, as the more common conversion of linear yards to linear feet is indeed accomplished with this multiple.

To make a long story short, after wrangling for about a month, they continued adjusting measurements until the final price was $13,775 -- $4,377 less than the original quote had been. The only difference between the original quote and the final quote was that I opted to have the "free" carpet installed in the master bedroom closed, an area that might be as much as 20 sq. feet.