When we last left off in our house hunting adventure, hubby and I couldn’t decide whether we should choose a home in Midtown or Stapleton. We finally discovered the deal-breaker was that we didn’t want a house with a tiny backyard and a tiny shared front yard / courtyard, which is what Stapleton had.

We rushed back to Midtown, somewhat still nervous about committing, but ready to pull the trigger, only to find out that the lot we had been eying the weekend prior was sold! That particular lot had been up for grabs for a really long time, as it was one of the last few lots available in that phase of construction, and yet, in the short week we took to make a decision, it had been nabbed!

Worried now that the universe was giving a sign that maybe we shouldn’t buy a home in Midtown, we hesitated yet again.

We were given a whole new map with the lots they would start to build on in the next phase. Not only was the spacious corner lot gone, but gone was also the opportunity to get a house built and completed within a few months from that point, which would have been right around the time our apartment lease was up. If we chose a house in the next phase, we might not have a home until 10 months or even over a year later. All these new details were making our decision harder to confirm.

The available Brookfield homes at Midtown.

The hardest part of our decision to buy a brand new home was the uncertainty of what it would cost in the end. We were given the base price of the house and lot, which included a bunch of standard options/features, as well as a [seemingly] large “incentive” that could be used towards upgraded options of our choice.

The Midtown entrance sign on a snowy day. Notice how the sign says “From the 300s” on the upper left. Ha! What a joke.

But we weren’t dumb. We knew that picking options and upgrades would quickly add up to more than the “incentive” they gave us. We just didn’t know how much. And while the sales person could give us the average cost of what other people were spending on their options and upgrades, they were very ambiguous about whether that price was before or after the incentive was applied.

Furthermore, we had no idea if the options and upgrades we hoped to pick would be “average” or not. It’s dangerously easy to fall in love with the model homes and all the beautiful, upgraded options that are added. The model homes are decked out to the max! Even after we did two walk-throughs with the sales person showing us exactly what was standard on the model homes and what would be an upgrade, we still had no idea what the upgrades we personally liked would cost us in the end.

With no rush to jump on this decision this time, we carefully thought about our decision to get a new home. Did we want to take a chance on this “desolate” neighborhood? Would we be able to afford a new home after choosing all the options and upgrades? Would our apartment lease be flexible enough for us to wait around for a new home to be built? Did we want to wait a year to move into a new home? Would we be okay living in a neighborhood that didn’t have a route to work that was as bike-friendly as our current neighborhood?

We decided, yes! Midtown it was!

Helllloooo Midtown! Welcome your new neighbors!

Our house hunting adventure, although seemingly long and arduous, took no more than two months and was actually quite a fun and privileged experience for hubby and me to go through together.

But we weren’t done yet! Although we had finally picked a new community to buy a home in, we still had to actually pick a home and all the fun stuff inside!