Homeowner Highlight with Jim & Melissa (Out-of-State Edition)

Eastbrook Homes is dedicated to walking each prospective homeowner through the building process with the care and attention needed to ensure every home reflects the personality and charm of the family that lives there. Our Homeowner Highlight series delves into personal stories from real Eastbrook homeowners to hear tips and insights into how to personalize the home-buying process to suit your unique needs.

In this edition, we hear from Jim and Melissa, a couple that designed and built their home with help from the Eastbrook team without ever leaving their home state of Utah! From weekly check-in calls to virtual home tours, the combination of Eastbrook’s home-building expertise and digital home-buying tools helped Jim and Melissa create their Michigan dream home from afar!

Tell us about how you first heard about Eastbrook Homes.

We were looking on Realtors.com for a home to purchase. We saw homes we really liked that were listed by Eastbrook Homes. I sent an email to Eastbrook and was contacted shortly thereafter by Susan who set up a time for us to meet with Matt Morrison.

What community did you choose to build in? 

Lincoln Pines in Grand Haven

Tell us about your experience building your home while living out of state. 

We live in Utah and made all the final choices, from the lot to all of the exterior and interior choices, via virtual meetings. We did not travel to Michigan to see the neighborhood and home until about three months into the building of our home. All of our meetings were set up virtually and the process was so streamlined and simple. 

How did technology play a role in your home-building journey?  

Eastbrook’s website is absolutely phenomenal!  We cannot say enough wonderful things about how technology (Eastbrook’s website!) allowed us to pick the neighborhood, lot, home plan, and design of our home while living in Utah. We were able to tour several homes through virtual tours of the home plans. We fell in love with the Maxwell home instantly by viewing the virtual tours of the home. The resources section of the website provided us with great ideas and allowed us to visualize the interior and exterior of our home. We watched the videos about “Envision” which helped explain so much about the design process. It was fun to be able to sign into Envision and look at the various choices and colors of siding, flooring, tile, cabinets, doors, etc. We could never have built a home in Michigan, while living in Utah, and had it all turn out so beautifully without the technology and resources that Eastbrook has set up.

Describe designing your home from afar; what was that like? 

Eastbrook’s website has a model townhome for sale and we instantly knew that was what we wanted for the design of our home. When I was scheduling the design meetings, I let them know that I wanted our home to look just like the townhome and they scheduled us with Amanda, as she was the designer of the townhome. Amanda was absolutely amazing and so helpful in guiding us through the final design of our home. Amanda had all of the samples ready to show us “virtually.” If she needed to show us something within the design studio, she would walk over with her laptop and show us the sample of tile or flooring, light fixture, bathroom fixture, siding, etc. She really made us feel like we were in the Home Creation Studio with her in person. She was very patient and helped guide us through each design choice and provided great feedback for any of our ideas and choices.

How has communication been with your Eastbrook Team during your home build? 

The communication with the Eastbrook team has been flawless from the beginning. We always received a prompt response from the Eastbrook team. Matt has been available from day one, taking time to meet and answer all of our questions, and has been so helpful in more ways than we could ever list! We always looked forward to our weekly video so we could see the progress of our home. What a special treat that was to look forward to each week! Amanda was available to help answer any of our additional design questions after our design meetings. Luke has always been available to help provide information during the building of our home. We could call or text at any time, with a very prompt response. He has been so helpful for our entire build process.

What advice do you have for other people who are considering an out-of-state home build? 

We highly recommend Eastbrook Homes to anyone who is looking to build a home with a quality builder and experience a stress-free process. Eastbrook Homes has perfected the process for building a home, either from in-state or out-of-state! A positive experience from the excellent communication, the resources on the website, Envision, and of course all of the people we were able to work with to build our home. Even though we were out of state, Eastbrook made the entire building process enjoyable. It was as if we were not 1500 miles away in another state, but right there in Michigan!

What does “home” mean to you? 

“Home” means family, comfort, and love. We built this home in Michigan to be closer to our family, including our parents, siblings, children, and grandchildren. We wanted to have a home where we could invite our friends and family and create wonderful memories together.

We can’t even begin to say thank you enough to Eastbrook and the entire team we have worked with for building our beautiful home! Thank you!

Ready to start your own home-building journey? Whether you’re located in Michigan, Utah, or beyond, the Eastbrook website can help you get started building your next dream home! Get started by exploring one of Eastbrook’s many unique home designs or by visiting one of our move-in-ready homes virtually or in person. You can read through our blog for resources for personalizing your next Eastbrook home, browse our feature gallery, schedule a virtual model home tour, and connect with us to get started building!