Finally, I have updated the price chart for the Harbor release (phase 27) a few weeks back, and the master plan too. I have also stretched the graph a little horizontally since we are getting quite a few entries now!

Thanks once again to Carl for the average price information for today’s two releases; both Harbor charts and master plan are updated.

There was a lot of (mostly) good discussion on the last thread about the less visible costs of buying a new home (and I don’t think that Warmington is much different here) that all potential buyers should take into account (whether it be upgrades or just the costs associated with purchasing a house).

One thing I think that Warmington is not doing as well as other builders on though is documenting the upgrades that are in the models and the cost of each one. Most other places I’ve been have a table on the wall in each model stating what had been upgraded, and how much each upgrade would cost. They also tend to have that information included in the marketing materials. Perhaps this is an area that Warmington could improve on, maybe adding a page or two to the Bayport Alameda website to capture this important information.

Thanks to Carl & JL for the average price information from last weekend’s two releases – we were down in Houston for the weekend (on the way back from a little trip to Cancun), so we couldn’t be there. The master plan has also been updated to reflect the newly sold phases.

I have finally updated the charts with the average prices that Carl kindly posted again. I’ve also rescaled the three charts to cope with the fact that plan 12 was over $1M (which was the upper limit on the y-axis previously).

I’ve also greyed out phase 19 in the master plan. Sorry it took so long this time. New charts for all the groups are below.

It seems as though the suggestion of issuing a ticket per lottery has been taken up. Unfortunately, they are not applying it to people who attended lotteries before phase 18, but at least they have acknowledged that the original scheme was unfair. Here’s the new text from the sales procedures that describes this new rule:

Commencing with phase 18 any prospective purchaser who participates in multiple sales selection events will be given an extra ticket for each event (after phase 18) in which they have participated and not had their name drawn. Once you have had an opportunity to be selected for a home at Bayport Alameda you will not be given multiple tickets for future sales selection events if your name is drawn and you pass or select a home and later cancel.

Thanks to “passing through” for mentioning that they had changed the rules.

Didn’t attend last week’s lottery, but Carl kindly posted the average prices on my blog so I have updated the graph for the Harbor prices. Notice that they were down very slightly this time from last – I assume that this is because of the larger lot sizes in the previous phase bumping those prices up rather than this phase’s actually going down.

I also updated the master plan to indicate that phase 18 has been sold now.

I noticed some comments on the previous entry including the new excuse for the lottery system (the limit on the number of permits that the city releases). This is as weak as the other excuses, but at least points the finger at an external body thereby deflecting the criticism. Why is it weak? Well, they could still maintain a list of people interested in each floorplan, then rather than the lottery they could simply call the next person on the list for each plan. If you don’t want it, you drop to the bottom of the list for that plan.

Very busy at the moment, but thank you for the updated average prices. I will get the charts and the master plan updated this week if at all possible. We were actually away this weekend, so we couldn’t be there on Saturday morning. For those who were there, what was the attendance like?

Another lottery, another waste of time. That’s it for us unless Warmington Homes scraps this ridiculous lottery scheme and starts to sell the more than 300 houses still to be sold in a fair way.

We have now wasted almost 6 months without our number even being drawn once in any of the six different lotteries we’ve attended. I would happily have waited a year for the house to be built had they just sold me one when we first started looking at them. Now we will be looking for houses elsewhere, and anybody using a lottery scheme to sell will be excluded immediately.

Good luck to everybody left hoping that they win the chance to buy a house. There is one more Harbor release from block B in early January, and then nothing for a little while (spring time was best estimate they could give). That will probably be from block D (behind the models – see the master plan).

I would love to be able to suggest that people boycott Warmington until they scrap the lottery scheme and just sell the houses in the normal way, but that would never work in the current market. Perhaps there would be more chance of getting Alameda City to force them to drop the lottery scheme, but probably not while city employees retain the privilege of being able to bypass the lottery.

Anyway, here are the updated graphs. I looked at putting the values on the data points, but it made the graphs very cluttered. The main reason for me creating them was to show the trends more than to provide the exact numbers, and I think they do that pretty well as they are.

Thanks to Peter for the average prices of the phase 15 (Pointe) release tomorrow I have updated the three price tracking graphs. I will update the master plan tomorrow too.

Remember that if you’ve looked at the graphs recently you might need to refresh the images in your browser’s cache (hold shift down and click the reload button does it in most browsers).

Update: Master plan now updated as well.

Another lottery at Bayport Alameda; another wasted morning 🙁

There were only four houses on offer this time (the fifth in phase 14 was pre-sold). Turnout seemed to be about the same as for the last couple; much higher than for the first few lotteries though. The process is also becoming much more streamlined now. Arriving at about 8:45am there were only a few people there, but coffee, cookies, cakes and doughnuts ready. Around 9am they open the doors, but only let small numbers of people in (taking names, contact numbers and plan numbers that you are interested in just in case one of the “winners” should drop out later on). Once everybody is processed, they do the lottery out in the main courtyard area now (the first couple were just outside the door of the sales office, on the models side – that area is now too small to hold everybody). The numbers are drawn, and the lucky person/people get to choose the lot that they want from those left in that day’s release, or pass if they do not want any of the remaining plans.

If any of the folks at Warmington Homes are reading, I have a suggestion for how to improve the fairness of the lottery process… Rather than giving everybody just one ticket, they should be given one for the new release plus one for every other release of the same collection that they’ve attended previously. That way those who have been turning up time and time again, but never been drawn, get some credit for their previous attempts. Of course, dropping the whole lottery thing and just selling the houses to people first come, first served would be even better 🙂

Since several people have commented on the master plan, I updated it with the last few releases. I changed the format slightly to make it easier for me to maintain too – the phases that have been sold are now grey, and the models are shaded red. For those not familiar with the master plan, Atlantic Avenue runs along the bottom of the map, with Alameda College on the right, and the former naval air station off to the left. Also, I don’t know the current state of the Landing phases; if anybody reading knows which they’ve sold already, let me know and I’ll update the plan. Click on the thumbnail above to get a larger version.

I’ve also created Bayport category here on my blog for all the Bayport-related posts, and moved all the old posts into that category too.

Finally for this week, I also created charts for the average price of each plan from one phase to the next for each of the collections (except Landing as I have no information for that one). Note that this is not necessarily a fair comparison as the mix of options has changed from one release to the next.

There is one Harbor phase missing, phase 10, as I cannot find the price sheet for that – if anybody could let me have those prices I will add them in as well.

Update: Thanks to Carl H. I have fixed the price for the plan 6 house in the phase 6 release of the Cove collection that was wrong in my original graph, and also added the prices for phase 10 to the Harbor graph.