We Chose a Builder!

Our dream home progress continued....

After we signed our contract to purchase the land (with an inspection contingency, of course), we thought we should go down to Florida to see what we were about to buy! This is the VRBO we rented, it was incredible!

The first thing we did when we got into town was go see the lot. It was even more beautiful in person and I can't even try to explain how thrilled and excited we were! We walked around the neighborhood, talked with our new neighbor across the street, and just stood on the lot for over an hour. talking about what our life could be like. We couldn't believe it was going to be ours.

I researched builders before leaving Chicago and Michelle (our realtor and first friend in Florida) was also working on finding builders that met our criteria. We narrowed it down to four builders but very quickly eliminated two of them. The next several days were spent going back and forth between the two builders getting our questions answered regarding timing, our custom plans, costs, various details, and expectations. Both builder’s also visited our lot during that time to be sure our dream home could be built on it. Here's a good water view!

Did I tell you we had guests? My son came down for the week and my sister and her husband from Georgia visited for a few days too. They were troopers running around with us but trust me, they had fun too! We rented a boat for a couple days so we could explore the canals, the Caloosahatchee River, and even see our lot from a water view. During the day we lounged in the sun and at night watched stunning sunsets through the palm trees.

While sitting on the lanai and sipping margaritas, Bob and I went over our notes from the meetings and talked about the concerns we had for each builder. FYI, just in case you're considering building a home, I'll be writing a post soon about the top 10 things we considered when choosing our builder. It was an extremely difficult decision, but we chose the builder that we felt could deliver the home and service we wanted. Two days before we left for home, we had made a decision... and the builder we chose was, Beattie Development!!

Before hitting the road for home, we met with our builder rep again, walked through different homes they'd already built or were under construction, visited their design center and spent a lot of time on the phone texting back and forth with the builder rep and Michelle. Although there were many things we needed to work out with the builder before we'd sign a contract, we were so very excited and talked about the house the entire way home.

After a few weeks of going back and forth regarding the building plans and specs, we signed a contract to build our "southern white house" and closed on our land! Guys, this is really happening!

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