Looking for a House

Mike and I were extremely surprised with how quickly our home sold in Manchester - it was on the market for less than 2 weeks! We had originally anticipated looking for a new home after we moved out but we couldn't wait to start looking. We were both scouring online daily - looking for at least a 3 bedroom home, 2000 square feet or more, with an updated kitchen, and hopefully a couple of acres for Mike to hunt on. We looked at a couple of great houses (and one total dump) but none of them were for us. As we realized we were looking at the same houses every day we both started to broaden our searches and I ended up finding a model home in a community in Canandaigua called Old Brookside.  On Sunday, May 4th we went to take a look.

We met with Nadia, the sales rep, in Farmington and she was fantastic.  We had originally inquired about the Venice model which I liked because it had 4 bedrooms with a nice master suite, an open floor plan on the first floor, and was around 2,200 square feet. The model we were visiting was the Milan and Nadia told us she wasn't sure we would like it as much as the Venice because the living area was a bit more separated. After lots of questions from her we finally got up to look at the house.  And fell in love.  Mike hated himself for how much he liked it.  Of course the model home has all of the upgrades - morning room, granite, upgraded cabinets, fireplace, hard wood floors, etc... but really, even in a basic form this house is beautiful. After walking around for a bit we ended up going back downstairs to discuss options with Nadia. We did find a lot that we liked, it was a corner, so we liked that it was a little bigger than the others that would leave us more space between houses and a slightly larger backyard. We left with a "quote" and lots of thinking to do.  We had to do a bit of running around with the kids and then we drove to Henrietta to see the Venice model located there.  As soon as we walked into the kitchen we both agreed that we like the Milan better.  It's not as open, but we liked that it has an additional bar counter in between the kitchen and family room which will not only be great for entertaining but will provide more seating. The layout for the Milan is below:

And here is the layout for the Venice - you can see it's ALL open:


So, after we saw the Venice we decided to drive back and see the Milan again to ensure that we liked it better, which we definitely did.

There was LOTS of thinking over the next couple of days.  Can we handle living in a cul de sac community? Do we want to build a new house? Would we even qualify for a mortgage right now? Can we come up with the cash upfront that they are asking for? Do we like the lots available? Would we be ok with the new construction happening so close to our house?  Lots of thinking, lots of talking... So much so that I was consumed by it - looking online at blogs during work (shh, don't tell), stressing myself out, getting behind on my work.  I decided on Wednesday to take a personal day to at least get mentally caught up.  I slept in a little (6:00) and got up to exercise, took Declan out to the babysitter, and then we headed to Lyons National Bank to a pre-qualification appointment that I'd made for us. When I arrived Mike was already there, and greeted me telling me that LNB doesn't do FHA loans :( Bummer.  The guy we met with, Joe Arbogast, was great.  He still looked at our numbers and gave us some advise, along with recommending us to Trish Mastrodonato at Cole Taylor in Pittsford.  Mike had to head off to Buffalo for work so I went to Pittsford to meet with Trish.  She was also great, she looked at our numbers, compared them to the quote we'd gotten from Nadia, and gave me a Good Faith Estimate. I felt very positive coming out of our meeting and called Mike to see if he wanted to put down a deposit on our corner lot.  He said yes :)