Determining the neighborhood...

Lauren and I made the decision in the summer of 2011 to find our "forever" home. We were outgrowing our current home, which had just over 1500 square feet and required the girls to share a room. We also knew that the girls, then heading into fourth grade, were zoned for a not-so-desirable middle school (to put it mildly) in the future. So, we knew that even though selling our current home would be a challenge, we had to take the plunge in the next year (to make sure we could get the girls in a better school by the fall of 2013).

We wanted a home in a great school district, located in a neighborhood with great amenities that wasn't a great distance (more than 30 miles) from uptown Charlotte. We started at the end of June last summer looking at homes, giving us plenty of time to research neighborhoods, determine the right price, and also figure out exactly what we wanted in our next home.

So, we spent the next several months visiting more than 50 neighborhoods and walking through 30 model homes (yes, we counted them up). We thought we would stay within the Charlotte city limits, but then I found a neighborhood listed in Davidson that caught my eye. It had a great amenities center, and also had some of the best schools in the Charlotte metropolitan area. The neighborhood was also eligible for USDA financing, which means no down payment and no PMI. (more on that later). That would be a big bonus for us, since we were facing a large payoff on our current home.

By September, we knew we wanted to live at The Farm at Riverpointe. (see the pool and amenity center below):

Then, we just had to determine the right floorplan, and get our current house ready to sell.