A Guide to Moving to Fort Myers
Are you considering relocating with your family? There can be so many unknowns in the process of searching, designing, and building a new home—let alone all the considerations when it comes to choosing the right location!
As a home builder who truly cares about treating you the way you want to be treated, we do as much as possible to provide seamless transitions for our homebuyers. Read the Hedge family’s experience!
My name is Shana Hedge and my little family is me, my husband, and my mom. We were living in Connecticut for about 7 years when we decided to look for a new place to call home. We started by looking at cities with great job markets, reasonable housing prices, and most importantly, a fun culture with lots to do. We settled on Austin, Texas because it had something for everyone—great music for my husband, an active lifestyle for my mom, and many nature preserves and parks for me.
Searching for the Perfect Home and Community
We were working with our fabulous realtor, Amy Pacozsa, when she found the White Oak Preserve community in Buda, Texas. It was the last stop on a long tour of other neighborhoods, but from the moment we drove in we loved it! The homes were beautiful and more diverse than other planned communities we’d seen. The neighborhood was clean and quiet and didn’t feel like one of those massive planned communities; instead it had beautiful white oaks lining all the streets. Downtown Buda also had a quaint “small hometown” feel that we were looking forward to in Texas.
The house we chose was called a Paramount, which is perfect for us. We wanted most of the living/sleeping to be done on the first floor (4 out of 5 of the bedrooms are downstairs!) and to have a music room for my husband upstairs. We also loved the light, airy feel of the ground floor which is an open floorplan. Most importantly, my mom has her own little private suite with a living room so she could have her own space, too.
Our Sales Consultant, Stephanie, was so wonderful and talked us through the process so we knew exactly what to expect by going with M/I Homes and building a home from across the country—which was one of our main concerns as we wouldn’t get to physically check on the house at any point.
The M/I Homes Design Center
Our experience at the Design Center was fun and easy. Flying in from the East Coast, we were intimidated by the 5 hour session with our designer Jessie, because we wanted everything to be perfect. Jessie helped us pull it together, guiding us to a cohesive, stylish design that matched our vision while also helping us keep our budget in mind.
Regular Construction Updates
Managing the construction of the house from Connecticut was SO easy thanks to the team at M/I. We were only able to attend two of the meetings in person, the pre-dry wall walk-through, and the final walk-through before closing. However, our construction manager, Joe Dwyer, Skyped us weekly to give us updates and talk through what was going on with the house. We also got new pictures added to a photo gallery each week, which got us so excited to see the house evolve from a patch of dirt to our beautiful home.
Advice for Future Relocating Homeowners
My best advice for building a house from across the country is all about communication! Joe and Stephanie corresponded with us consistently and Joe seemed to be responsive at all times if we ever had a question. When speaking with builders I think it’s important to ask about their project timeline, the meetings that are necessary to attend in person, and also ask them if they have technology and tools to communicate regularly, preferably video calls.
Living in White Oak Preserve has been great for us. The community is so friendly, and you know your neighbors by name, which was something we had missed on the East Coast. We’re constantly hiking, trying new restaurants, and listening to live music; my only small regret is that I have to leave our beautiful house!
My family and I have to thank M/I Homes for helping us realize this dream to live in Austin. They made it easy for us to basically just show up with our stuff and move right into a house we now call home.
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Ready to join the Hedges and many other families who have found their dream home with M/I Homes in the Greater Austin area? We can't wait to show you a better new home construction experience. Contact me today!
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