North Carolina

We're back. Note the new masthead photo. No, it doesn't mean we bought something. This beautiful lot is what we have our eye on, though, and once we dot an "i" and cross a "t," we hope we can make an offer. We went to North Carolina hoping that both land and construction costs would be cheaper than what we found in Delaware. Land certainly fulfills that hope. To remind you: we paid $325,000 for the quarter-acre we had in Delaware. This 2.5-acre lot, waterfront, with a dock, and cleared and ready to build on, is priced in the low 100s. We are now in the process of contacting local builders to get a ballpark figure of what it would cost to build the house we designed in Delaware. If the price is low enough, we will bid on the land. (And if it isn't, we could well decide to "transition" right back here to Arlington, bag the idea of moving at all, and create another version of a new life.) So things are in process now and excitement is not yet called for, but the picture above is the fruit of our weekend search. We looked at many properties and nothing else combines price, size, and readiness to build like this one.

The picture places you in about the middle of the lot, between the road and the water. Behind the camera is a perfectly, selectively, cleared screen of tall young pines with no underbrush. It borders the road and would provide a tantalizing view of a house further in. A natural sort of threshold between the two trees in the picture ushers you to the house site itself. The dock is just beyond, a bit to the right. If you'd like to see just a few pictures (only 10) to get a better feel for the place, go here. The weedy trees and underbrush obliterating the waterview, while it is on protected wetland, can be removed as long as nothing is uprooted. If we buy, that will be one of the first things we do.

Folks, North Carolina is huge. Everything there seems to be bigger, the spaces more wide open, than anything I've known before. The rivers of northeastern North Carolina dwarf my Potomac; they are yawning courses whose opposing shores are barely visible. Suddenly I know why cars are an absolute necessity for so many Americans, and I may end up being one of them. We have lived most of our lives in places of highly concentrated populations: Arlington is simultaneously the smallest county in the U.S. and the most densely populated. (My commute to work in downtown DC was 10 minutes.) The entire state of Delaware is tiny to the point of oblivion, and our world there was concentrated in only one of its three counties. Since it takes me literally 5 minutes to get to the grocery store here in Arlington, I thought it was a big deal that the same trip took 20 minutes in Delaware. Well. This North Carolina lot is 12 miles off the main north-south highway, and the nearest grocery is another 7 or 8 on that road. So no more last-minute jogs to the store for that jar of mayonnaise. Shopping will require much more planning than I've been used to. The development this lot is part of is not yet fully populated, so I think some sense of isolation may be possible for us until we get used to the longer distances and more people move in. The more we did the trip from the main town of Edenton to the lot, the shorter it seemed, but still, it's out there.

The real estate agent we are working with gives a good name to all Realtors. She is incredibly industrious. She covered vast distances in preparation for our visit and collected several places for us to look at. She's made it clear that we are in this search together and understands all of our questions and hesitations, and she is enthusiastic and cheery. We could not have had a better introduction to the area and can see her and her family becoming good friends if we should end up living there.

So all in all it was a good trip and we learned a tremendous amount. There is some disappointment that we didn't resolve our future then and there, but we've been around a few blocks by now in this real estate game and have learned to temper enthusiasm with a dose of hard-won common sense. The market is molasses-slow there. If we bought a plot of land, for no matter how little money, and it turned out we couldn't use it, we would be saddled with the debt for a very long time. Better safe than sorry. We'll see what construction costs are like and take it from there.

Once again, stay tuned.