How We Got Started

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It all started with our friend who mentioned that she might be in the market to sell her Eichler. My husband and I have always been interested in modern design and have looked into Eichlers in the past. But, now a 5 bedroom, 2.5 bath Eichler with an atrium may be available to us - we had to check it out.

So, we started researching Eichlers online and most importantly, the problems associated with Eichlers and their 1960s construction. We soon realized that energy costs may be very high in the summer and winters and updating the insulation throughout the house may be a priority. We started wishing we could buy a house with a modern design made with today's technology. Then, we remembered reading about the Glidehouse. A few clicks and we found Michelle's website and livemodern.com. We liked what we saw, and read (reading everything we could get our hands on) and decided to go forward with a land search.

Since we live in the San Francisco Bay Area, we knew land would be pricey - but, just how pricey was surprising. We started looking in the East Bay, around Walnut Creek, where we currently live. The first thing we realized was that if a lot is not advertisized as "level" - it isn't. In fact, many of the first properties I looked at - I couldn't see where the lot was - due to extreme upslopes and downslopes. Though a Glidehouse can be built where any traditional stick-built house can be built, we wanted a yard and that precluded an extremely sloped lot.

We also wanted to stay in the same quality or better neighborhood. Factoring in schools led us to consider Orinda, Lafayette, Alamo, Danville, and Walnut Creek. Looking at classifieds in the San Francisco Chronicle and the Contra Costa Times, we saw many lots in a short amount of time and soon got an idea of costs.

Although searching on our own this way was acceptable at first - since you can just go look at land, as opposed to needing to make an appointment to view a house, we wanted to find a real estate broker who specialized in land for construction (rather than existing homes), so that we could share their expertise and learn about land before it had been on the market for long. Marshall couldn't recommend anyone. We had found a lot in Alamo that seemed promising - it was the right price, in a good location, but it ended up being just too small (though over 1 acre, most of that acreage was up a steep slope and the buildable portion of the land was probably .2 acres). The agent for the property routinely returned our phone calls promptly and was very nice. Since he had experience representing sellers of lots in the area we were interested in and he was very responsive, we decided to ask him to represent us in finding another lot. This worked out great. He immediately got on it and started telling us all about the lots for sale and lots that he knew of that weren't on the market yet, but would soon be due to subdivision by the owners.

We found a nice level lot, a little over a half acre, in a great neighborhood, abutting a picturesque creek. As you can imagine, it was priced significantly higher than the small and steep lots we had been looking at - however, it was perfect in lots of ways. We decided to put an offer on the property.

While we had been searching for land, we had contacted the two lenders recommended by livemodern.com. Countrywide was very helpful and responsive right from the start. We never got called back by Washington Mutual despite 2 phone calls. We talked with a local branch of Washington Mutual, but they were unfamiliar with the land/construction loan we wanted and the rates they offered were not competitive. Also, it was disconcerting to have to educate a lender on the Glidehouse process when there was so much to be learned on our part. Countrywide totally understands the Glidehouse process and will put together a land, construction, and home loan that covers everything and best of all, requires NO OUT OF POCKET PAYMENTS during construction. Within 30 days of your Glidehouse's completion, you convert the loan into a traditional mortgage and begin payments when you move in. Perfect.

Darrin Worthington at Countrywide has been extremely helpful. He was able to put together a pre-qualification letter for us with short notice and worked with our real estate broker to draft it as we needed. Darrin asked us to ask for a 90 day escrow in our offer - but, due to market conditions out here, we decided that we could only ask for a 60 day escrow to be competitive. In the end, the seller forced us into a 45 day escrow, but we arranged to have an extra 15 days, provided we put up our deposit as "good faith money."

We got into contract with the seller on June 23rd and the clock started running. Although we asked for a 30 day investigation period, we were pushed to the typical 17 day investigation period. Given the short time frame, we immediately started investigating the lot by going to the county offices (the city of Alamo does not get involved with permitting). We asked for any soils reports, maps, conditions of subdivision, and anything else on file on the property. We were told no soils reports existed for the lot or the neighbors - but, were given the recorded map of the property and the conditions of subdivision that the seller had to fulfill before subdividing the property. An open issue was whether a street light would need to be installed and how much this would cost. We were directed to the Public Works department for further information on the street light. Concurrently, our real estate broker began working to uncover any utility and site costs that would be associated with building a home on the lot. We've also met with the seller to go over the property and anything he knows about it and its buildability.

Through Marshall, we were put into touch with Beth Muscat at Construction Resource Group. She drafted our design contract with Michelle because we are looking to build a 2 story Glidehouse - which can be termed either a 2 story, 2 bedroom open plan or 2 Glidehouse 2s. We would like 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms upstairs in the 2 modules and 2 living areas, a dining area, kitchen, 5th bedroom/office, and a half bath in the 2 modules downstairs. Since this is a completely customized Glidehouse, we were given the fees for our Phase I contract with CRG and Michelle (which ended up being very reasonable - about 2.5% of the projected cost for our house).

We met with Michelle the next week and were very impressed. She is friendly, personable, and has impeccable taste. Since we believe our landscaping will be an integral component of our home, we had met with our landscape designer prior to meeting with Michelle to get her initial ideas. She agreed to meet with us and Michelle to integrate her ideas with Michelle's for the home.

We're now 2 weeks into escrow and have nailed down MOST of our costs, but not all of them. We've just talked to Countrywide and realized that we will need to have ALL of our preliminary costs, along with schematics and pricing from CRG, by July 23 -- so that Countrywide will have 30 days to do what it needs to do to close escrow 30 days thereafter. So, now, we're in a mad dash to close in on all costs such as site costs and foundation costs - as well as our Glidehouse costs. For the Glidehouse, Michelle agreed to speed up her normal timeframe for producing our initial design schematics. Instead of the speedy 2 weeks she initially promised, she got us our initial design schematics in just under 1 week!

In fact, we just got them this evening and are excited pouring over them. More to follow . . .