Hi, I’m afraid I am the one who snatched the home you too coveted. Funny, I wasn’t aware that I was offered 4k to change my mind… the one thing that did happened is, this very nice couple came to us at the end to congratulate us and to apologize for having made a comment they thought might have been perceieved as inappropriate (which truly wasn’t). Anyway, nice folks I’ll be glad to have as neighbors.

I don’t know if interest in Madeira is dwindling or not, but we did noticed a few people dropped off the priority ahead of us. I was expecting to be the 12th person called that day but I counted 9th (hence my hesitation before witing my name down, as I was wondering if I might after all have a reasonable shot at a plan 4 in later phases, something I had pretty much ruled out before the release). Bottom line, I figured out I’d rather stick with the italianate plan 3 on a nice corner lot I really liked, rather than waiting for an hypothetical plan 4 along the main road or a small park lot (41′ wide) with elevations I wasn’t thrilled about (the two 3s facing the park only come in the cottage style). It’s primarily about personel references, and you seem to have already given this a lot of thoughts.
That said, best of luck in your search!