Couple of house questions regarding new house builds in Edmonton

[jadeddog]

I am from Regina, but we are considering moving to Edmonton/St.Albert/Sherwood Park in the next year or so. I have been poking around at houses online to see what we can get for how much, find areas I think I will like, etc. I have noticed a few things that are rather strange, and was hoping for some help.

Just for reference, I've been looking primarily at house in the $500-600k range, and concentrating on newer builds (say 2008+).

1. All the houses seem to have siding, rather than stucco. In Regina, stucco on houses above $450 or so is pretty standard. I've increased my upper range to $700k to see if it was just a price-point thing, that I have been noticing the same thing with those more expensive houses as well. Does anybody know why stucco seems to be so rare in the Edmonton region?

2. Most houses seem to have "window wells" (not sure of the exact name) for the basement window. This is where there is some corrugated metal that create a hole around a basement window, where the window wouldn't have enough ground clearance on its own. Again, this is really rare for new builds in Regina, usually the basement is built high enough that the windows have lots of clearance. Same question as above really, is this just a price point thing? I haven't been able to tell if this exists on the more expensive houses.

Thanks for any input.