Tell me about Lake Houses (Granbury)

[Capital City 1]

So the parents are buying on Lake Granbury... specifically the bluff on the northeast side of the Brazos near HEB (when it's open).

Once they're under contract are there any specific inspectors/inspections that specialize in looking over the dock? It's a pier & beam house with a tram from the back deck down to the water. I assume there's a specialty company that installs/services that type of equipment?

Any recs for a good traditional home inspector or structural engineer that works Hood County?

Also interested in any Granbury hot sports opinions.

[C-Man 27779]

I've never been to Lake Granbury -- and it's been a long time since I've been to Granbury -- but I think it's a quaint little town. The town square is pretty cool. One of my colleagues at work recently bought a place out on the lake and he loves it.

[luke duke 6449]

I lived in Granbury for close to 5 years. It sucked. I might have liked it if I was an old fart that never wanted to leave the house.

I’m not familiar with the area that you are referring to. Make sure that it is deed restricted so some hillbilly can’t just put a mobile home next door.

[Liquor and Poker 3659]

My parents just sold their place on Lake Granbury last year.  I think they'd tell your parents that it's a great place, but it's not the easiest place to live - especially if you're older.    They were on the other side of the lake from town.  I thought it was beautiful, almost like the Central Texas wilderness of my youth (which is mostly gone).  Quiet, dry, lots of wildlife, nice breeze.  The lake is a great little place to just boat around on, too.  On weekdays they had large chunks of it virtually to themselves.

But it was a bit of hassle to live there, and that was ultimately why they left.  Nothing major, just kind of day-to-day hassles, lots and lots of them.  I'm sure they could rattle off a list, but one I remember in particular was with getting stuff done at the house - painting, fixing things, etc.  Contractors and the like are a bit of a premium because they are a near-monopoly, and they weren't always the best at their jobs.  A couple of times when stuff broke (the oven once, the septic another time), the locals just weren't really equipped to deal with it.  To get quality people they ended up having to pay a premium for them to come from Fort Worth.  

They also had tanked gas for heat, and that refill every year was a killer.   Thousands of dollars.  And it took a few days for the guy to get out their way so they had to really keep track of it.

I'm not sure that these are the best examples, but they were the ones I remember.  My dad said he had expected to retire to a live of ease on the lake, but that his "got damn house was a full time job."

My parents also really hated the townfolk as far as that goes - they grew up in and generally love living in small towns,  But the attitudes there really bugged them.  My mom called it "angry, ignorant and proud of it."  But they weren't in town very much, so I don't think it was a factor in their decision to leave. 

One thing that did matter, but won't come up again I hope. They lived there through the big drought - if anything like that ever happens again, note that Lake Granbury has some kind of low priority in terms of lake volume.  So their boat was sitting in a dock on dry ground for 2 years plus.  It was so bad the boat slip place hired yard men to keep the weeds from growing too thick around the boats.  Kinda took a lot of the fun out of it for a while.

[Liquor and Poker 3659]

9 minutes ago, luke duke said:

 Make sure that it is deed restricted so some hillbilly can’t just put a mobile home next door.

Oh yeah - that was another one.  One of the neighbors sold their adjoining lot and the guy had an Airstream and a tent on it for about a year.  His buddies and their fake biker gang blasted bro-Country music all day and night on Saturdays.  Pissed my mom off, but the lot eventually sold again.  I lumped that into the "locals" thing.  

Another one that I remember now - other than Babe's chicken place there's not a lot there from a restaurant standpoint.  My parents have a thing where they go out one night a week and they ended up just going to Fort Worth for dinner after a while.

[crash_davis 23470]

Lake McQueeney has some deals on lake houses, which may soon be river houses.

[bschoolprof 6341]

1 hour ago, crash_davis said:

Lake McQueeney has some deals on lake houses, which may soon be river houses.

yeah - you get a huge backyard too!!

[Capital City 1]

Learned a bit more....

They're exclusively looking in "Bentwater". Bit of intergoogling suggests that the HOA (fees) will keep the riff-raff away. Don't know about the utilities, but it's unincorporated so technically not Granbury.

Apparently the house has was not (as) effected as others during the drought of 2014.

[Liquor and Poker 3659]

15 minutes ago, Capital City said:

Learned a bit more....

They're exclusively looking in "Bentwater". Bit of intergoogling suggests that the HOA (fees) will keep the riff-raff away. Don't know about the utilities, but it's unincorporated so technically not Granbury.

Apparently the house has was not (as) effected as others during the drought of 2014.

My parents looked at Bentwater  - it's on the same side of the lake as their place.  But they wanted more land - as I recall Bentwater's kind of like a subdivision near the water. 

I don't remember the places my parents looked at there having waterfrontage, but they do have a marina because my parents tried to use it during the drought but it was dried up too.

Being on that side of the lake, I bet they have tanked gas for heat and cooking so make sure they're prepared for a $4-5000 bill every October/November. 

And they probably have a greywater sprinkler system, which was another thing my parents complained about constantly. They get clogged up, and then you end up spraying nasty sewage water on your lawn - something about oxygen.

Edited September 3, 2019 by Liquor and Poker

[UTPhil2006 3930]

PM sent.

[El Diablo 4232]

Was already mentioned but my experience in living in a lakeside community was that anything that needs to be done comes at a premium and there's usually only a couple of folks that live nearby and perform most of those types of things from septic to electrical etc... And they can get kinda backed up at certain times of the year and you just have to wait for them to be free to take care of whatever you need done. Or you pay someone to come from the big city. 

Edited September 4, 2019 by El Diablo

[Spur08 384]

Terrible recreational lake so I'm told. Friend had a lake house out there that they're just about to sell. They complain that there are trees submerged all over the lake so it's dangerous to ski and whatnot

[TwiceHorn 32076]

It's a really nice-looking lake/river around Granbury.

[horn4life 3838]

Apparently the views are amazing and it's a great place to fuck around!https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Texas-Game-Warden-notes-Copulating-couple-busted-14413911.php?cmpid=trend

[NotActuallyALonghorn 4999]

It doesn't take long before living on the lake just becomes like living anywhere else. The lake is better as a place where you can get away from the every day life and appreciate the beauty. And I say this as someone who has lived on a lake for most of the past decade. Of course, if i had to choose between living on the lake and living in town without the option of having the lake as a getaway, the lake wins. But know it loses its luster over time.