House Hunt Part II

Well we went and looked at Bridgetowne today and absolutely loved it, The sales agent was extremely nice and showed us a few different plans and called their mortgage broker to get an idea of what we might be looking at payment wise. The floor plan that we liked (4 bedrooms, 2.5 baths) was base priced around 205,000 and when the ran the payments we found it was something we probably could get into. They have an option called a 2/1 buydown which keeps your payment lower the first year, and then a little more the second year, and then you get your locked in payment in the third year. Its a nice way of easing you into getting used to a house payment as opposed to rent and its not an ARM which we don't want. We looked at other floor plans but just kept coming back to this one called the Ridgewood (to check out the floor plan click herehttp://www.atreushomes.com/floorplans/bridgetowne/ridgewood.pdf) the time frame we are looking at we would get it custom built for us which is a big plus. The only problem is that our lease on the apartment isn't up until October, and we were looking at more of a July move in date if we have it built and to get it locked in now. After we spent some time at Bridgetowne we drove down the street aways to try and look at other houses in the area, the first community we ran into was much more expensive (starting at 270,00) and the floorplans didn't seem nearly as attractive there was no agent on site so we didn't get much information but it didn't seem like something we were interested in anyway. The other ones we looked at were at the same price range as Bridgetowne but not nearly as convenient. Bridgetowne is very close to the main highway to get to our respective workplaces as well as downtown. This community was way back of the main road. We started by just going to look at the models, as we looked at them they really didn't blow us away like Bridgetowne did as we came out of the first model the agent came over to great us, she showed us the second model and talked a little with us, When she found out we were comparison shopping she quickly mentioned how the best value for our money would be here. After sitting down with her and going over a few things we set off to look at some of the other floor plans that she had open where they were building them. The first thing we noticed was that the floorplans were not nearly as nicely laid out. One that was priced around the same as the Ridgewood was really set up strange with the master and 2 bedrooms on the main level and the a staircase that went up to just a bedroom and bath. I thought that was really weird, it would at least make some sense if it was the master suite up there but it was just a secondary bedroom, not a good use of space at all if you ask me. So as we drove back home went out to dinner we talked about what we liked and didn't like and I really think that this may be our perfect first home. We are meeting with a Realtor this week so I emailed her to let her know that we had looked at this one and to see if working with them to maybe get a better deal was something she could offer, and also to have her pull some similar resale homes in the area so we could compare what we would get for the money. We need to talk with the apartments to see if its possible to get out of our lease early and Sam is going to talk with a co-workers Mom who works in the Mortgage industry to see what she might be able to do for us. So all in all a very productive day, that gave us a lot to think about. I am really excited but also very nervous at the same time, its such a huge step but I think we are ready and I really think we can pull this off and be very happy to have a real place to call home.