House Hunting

Man.. It's hard to hunt for a house when you are thousands of miles away from it. It's a matter of trusting the pictures and the info on the pages instead of being able to take half a day to drive around and actually look at the houses. But we have found a few that have really peeked our interest. :)

First Stop : Rockland
We looked at this builder before moving here when we were thinking about moving, so we have seen the village, the model house, the street, etc.
These are the models we have been looking at :
The Bellerive
Charlemagne
Bromont

Looks beautiful.. Plus - it's close to a major highway, it's in a small city (so all the amenities are close by), schools are really close by.
The problem - the building of these houses will not be completed until November '08!! Man. So these houses are pretty much out of the running.
BUT :
a find on mls.ca
- gee looks awfully familiar doesn't it? It's the first floor plan seen above. So almost brand new house now for sale. *If* it's still available in April, then Steph will go check it out. (and unfortunately it's a big If).

Next City : Limoges

This is a much smaller area. Small town.. big community maybe. But it has it's advantages. One of which is we would be close to the community that seems to be adopting several Northerners. So some of Steph's friends will be very close by, which means a much more social life, and if these friends ever have kids, our kids will have babies to babysit. LOL

One that caught our eye.. LeClair Homes: Majestie Model
Unfortunately, as you can see.. even though it's a beautiful house, and fits all our criteria - it is slightly out of our price range. So even before we can research this house further, it's already out.

Next set of new houses that we have been looking at is SACA Investments.
Especially this model (hopefully this link works - it's a link from a pop up window, so maybe opening it in a new window would help)
It's a beautiful house, and it's in our price range. Plus we have heard from the builders and if we put our deposit down in April (when Steph is in Ottawa), then it will be built by the end of August. :) So right now, in *new* houses, this is our prime pick. We like the fact that we won't have to change anything. we will be moving into a house that we picked the elements for - rather than someone elses elements that may or may not work, and that we would be changing at some point. Of course with our budget, we won't be able to get every upgrade we want - plus some upgrades are ridiculously priced, but we should be able to get enough to make it uniquely ours.


And now.. Just for the fun of it.. Let's look at other areas..

West End Ottawa
Criteria : 3+ Bedrooms, 2+ bathroom (preferably 3 - master ensuite, kids bathroom, and powder room on main floor), big kitchen, garage, would be nice to have an unfinished basement, and of course, nice floor plan that is good for a family of 5. Oh, and no fixer-uppers. We have done enough renos. ;) Preferably not in the middle of nowhere - we want the kids to have access to friends without walking a mile to the closest house, but we don't want to live on a really busy street either. (is that enough criteria? ;) This is going to be our long term house. Hopefully we will be there until the girls graduate from highschool - so.. 16 years or so.

These houses are *just* out of our price range, but they would work for what we are looking for - except they aren't ideal location being so far off any major road.
house #1
house #2
house #3

And for the fun of it.. A little more specific in location : Huntley Ward S-E 9104 (ie, just off highway 417, and really close to my parents). For our criteria (see above), there are 4 houses for sale..
List here
Can i just say Yikes?!?!


And why not venture a bit further out of our reality...

Houses in St. John's

Keeping it fair - same criteria, and have put in the range being the top that we can afford.. Just to see what we could afford if we were staying here.

House #1
House #2
House #3 (new house being built - i saw 3 other models too)

And Houses in Halifax area

There was a slim chance of us moving to Halifax, so thought i would add some from there..

House #1
House #2
House #3


So that's the gist of our hunt.. for now at least. :)