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Sunday 23 December 2012

Contract Signed- Finally

So the last few months have been full of ups and downs when its come to getting to build our house. Bottom line is we found a bank that gave us the minimum evaluation needed to allow us to build. We have to have a ridiculously large deposit to make up the gap but its worth it to start soon.

We signed the contract and have pre start set for the 22nd of January. They offered us three earlier dates to begin with and an hour later took them all back and offered early February. Jake fought hard and they decided it would be okay to do three pre-starts in one week.

I don't like the way they did the contract. Any errors we found in the contract (of which there were many) they wrote a PCV (post contract variation) for so we don't get to see plans with the correction and have to trust that the written word is what we want.... So I recommend not paying your initial deposit till you have everything right, we didn't have this choice because we wanted a soil test done on the block.

We went over it with a fine tooth comb many times to make sure we had everything exactly the way we wanted it.

Despite having told them many times we did not want awning windows, they still placed them along the front of our house and when they finally took them out we were credited over $800!

Now on to colour selection!

Tuesday 16 October 2012

Block

Well as of last Wednesday the block is ours. Well technically it's the banks but anyway....

It was kind of a bitter sweet affair as it was great for the land to be ours, but reinforced the disappointment of not being able to build on that land yet.


Our families joined us on a rainy Sunday to put up a mesh fence at the front of the property so the dogs can roam free when we are there. We also burnt off some of the fallen branches before fire ban hits.
We didn't realise it was going to rain until we were all committed and excited about going out. The fire still burnt strongly despite the rain.

.
We also put up a hammock so we can spend some relaxing time out there imagining our future house and land.


Friday 28 September 2012

A Big Disappointment

So imagine this,
After a long battle over the building cost of the house, we received the contract and were all set to make our deadline of having both loans settle at the same time. All our dreams were coming true. Then...

The evaluation on the house came back at 150,000 less than the building cost, 200,000 less than what it would have cost us to build if we hadn't played hard ball with our builder. Basically we were capped due to no houses having sold in the area in the last 3 months at the price range we were looking at.

This simply put means we cannot build. We were beyond disappointed.
We have since got a second evaluation which wasn't much better and are now looking at finance through our builder.  I highly doubt we will be building any time soon.

But the block will still settle next weekend and we will work on landscaping for a while.

Monday 27 August 2012

Playing Hard Ball

Okay time for an update.

We had kinda stalled on progress for a while because while we thought we knew which builder we were going with we were still getting a quote from another builder. It took a while because the first time we got it done, the plans weren't identical. So builder B came back to us a couple of weeks ago with an almost identical quote for $50,000 less. We took this to Builder A (after they got back from their company retreat) asking them to bring their quote down.

Builder A came back with $27,500 off. This didn't seem enough given that there are only slight difference in the quote. I basically told Jake they hadn't met the bench mark I had set (As Builder A is my favourite and we are further along the line with them) and that I would go with Builder B. Jake thought it was weird that I had suddenly switched so he kept bugging me about it (he wanted me to be 100% happy with the decision).

So I went  back to Builder A saying we wanted more and that it was their last chance. Low and behold they come back with another $10,000 off and an option of a further $10,000 off if we bought back the floor plan.
That extra $10,000 was all we needed to met the requirements for the home loan without taking anything else off the plan.

We are also now eligible for the First Home Buyers Grant which means we will be a further $14,000 better off. This means we can afford to floor and paint our home as soon as it is built.

This is where I give my husband a lot of praise as it was he who sought another detailed quote (I didn't really want to go to all the work, nor waste another builders time). If he hadn't we would be in the process of cutting things out of our dream home to be able to afford it by settlement. Thank you Jake!

So, where to from here, the quote is getting neatened up and re sent to us. Once we have proofed it they will continue to finished the contract (which they started ages ago) which will include the modification we have made since signing the initial quotation. I'm really glad it will all be in one and on the official plans etc.

From there we get the bank to evaluate the house and apply for the FHBG and that should all be ready by settlement of the block.It means that we wont be ready to build by settlement as we have to get shire approval. But ohwell, who can complain about a getting your dream home for cheaper!

Tuesday 31 July 2012

The Epic Staircase

While we still haven't officially picked a builder yet, we are progressing with Ventura homes. They are currently doing up a building contract for us but we are still getting a more accurate quote from Lifestyle Homes. 
Ventura has provided me with some 3D images of my staircase as I have pointed out many times that I am concerned about if what is in my mind is what they are planning to build. I am pretty happy with the images they gave me. They have just put on a random balustrade for now. 
Front view, its about 1.5 meters wide and its biggest point

We chose to make it a hanging staircase. At a much later date we are planning to glass it in to create an inside garden and 2 draws that pull out from either side at the small part of the under-stair.

 It also gives the kitchen/dining room feel much larger.

 Here are the plans again so you can see where it sits in the house.
In a perfect world this is the type of balustrade we would have. Obviously is depends on what can be made and cost.
I am so excited about my staircase!!!
If you have any knowledge or tips on staircases or balustrade let me know.


Tuesday 17 July 2012

The Bank

So before we really got into to looking at blocks we booked an appointment with the bank to find out what we could lend. We weren't sure how accurate the online calculators were. The lady was very good and explained how it all worked, some we knew from our own research and some we didn't. Lots of jargon.
They were willing to give us what we wanted provided we had a 10% deposit- which would still require $16,000 of lenders mortgage insurance.

So then we got the block and went back in to get offical pre-approval. Chatted for almost 2 hours. We had our rough estimates for the house back by then and had found out we would be over the cap for the first home buyers grant. She tried to talk us into cutting back to get it. We said we would look into it. She also was wary about how much we wanted to borrow as before they okay a home loan for building they have to value your house. If your house will sell for less then you want to borrow then you have problems.

We are very unsure as to where our house will value. She wanted to give us pre approval for  a home loan and a block but in the end as we couldn't agree on a price I asked for just the pre-approval on block only. We are still hoping to have a building contract by settlement so the loan is all done in one though.

So some things I've learnt:
The bank pays the builder in stages and you only pay interest on what they've paid out.
Your house is valued by the bank to make sure if you go belly up, they can make their money back.
If your loan is substantial you might be able to negotiate the initial interest rate.
The banks are often happy to meet outside business hours and are happy to answer all your questions.



Sunday 15 July 2012

Builders Plans

So here is the Builder's version of our plan. Sorry if they look a bit warpy, they are a photo of a print out of the plans.Their are still some minor things wrong.
This is the top floor. Not much really changed from the original deign expect sizes of things and a balcony on 2 sides of the staircase void.

Our house will be made out of 2course brick (double the height of your ordinary brick). We added rendered columns to each side in an attempt to make it look less like a big brick wall. We are still not happy with the windows as every time we look at it we see a face with a hat. That's all you'll see now too.

This is the bottom floor. The main changes were a swap with the guest bedroom and study (something we had played around with many times before. After some visits to display homes in Perth we fell in love with the idea of having the laundry behind the kitchen and it solved our problem of the dining/kitchen area being massive. Thus decreasing the floor size and cost.

I'm still worried about the kitchen layout as I think their is not enough space for two people to comfortable work around the cook top. Jake is happy that he got his 3 meter bench. Still not sure where the dog door will go...

 Our entertainment room will be very different to any other. It will have a balcony that will allow us to have the dogs in the room but not on Jake's (planned) plush carpet. It will also have a sunken mattress into the floor. We are calling it a day bed. It is a 6m square room to allow for our 4.3m couch and 2 entries off of the balcony
The bathroom with Jake's walk in shower and my enough hob around the bath.

View from the back. 
Hope you enjoyed.


Thursday 5 July 2012

Original Designs


I thought I would put up our original designs. They have changed a fair bit and I will put up the new ones soon.


Friday 29 June 2012

Picking a Block

Jake wanted a really big block but I managed to talk him down to 1 acre (for budget and locality reasons). This would be big enough for our house, privacy, a pool, lawn and bush. We knew we wanted to move closer to Jake's work and decided on a budget of $ 300 000 maximum.
Most blocks seemed to be an average of 280, but there were some cheaper ones. Of course when a block is cheaper you have to ask why and it was usually because of the shape of the block and how flat it is. One block we considered was a triangle with a 127m frontage and on a slope. At first we thought we could deal with a block this shape, but upon learning about the 20m set back we are glad we decided against this one. We would have had no backyard.

When we showed up to the first proper meeting with one of our prospective builders he straight away told us about this perfect block for us that had just come on the market.
It already had an area cleared, fenced all the way around with established neighbours on both sides. Jake at first didn't really like the 'bush' as there was a fair bit of scrubby tea-tree but eventually came around.

As we were custom designing our house, the block had to suit the house. We didn't want to change the house to suit a block, so we got the prospective builder out to take a look. They said it would be fine. A couple weeks later we were meeting with a real estate agent to discuss putting in an offer.

Now the land was originally advertised as 270, but later changed to offers over 250. As we weren't in a rush and there were other blocks available, we were willing to negotiate hard. The real estate agent wasn't very helpful in giving advice on what to offer etc.
We went in with 240 knowing they wouldn't accept it but it would start the negotiations off with a lot of room to move. They came back at 260. We tried 249, 253 and 258 but they said they wouldn't take lower than 260 (why not just advertise it that way from the start right?).

We knew that as we didn't have a building contract and didn't want to rush into signing one, we wanted the longest settlement date possible (30 days being average). We initially went in with 90 days, but they never seemed to knock that back. So when they wouldn't budge from 260 we thought we would try a 120 day settlement. To our surprise they took it. So from 2 weeks ago, we have 120 days to work out a building contract and maybe even get approval to build from shire before we have to start paying a mortgage.  If all goes smoothly we could be ready to build by settlement (October).

Thursday 21 June 2012

Designing Our Own Home

So when you want to custom design your own home you have two options- go talk to a builder/architect  and get them to draw something up based a conversation you have with them, or draw up something yourself. We thought for us, the later would be easier.

So where do you start? Especially when there is two people involved who's ideas don't always mesh.
We started by listing what we both really wanted in a house and these made the initial layout.
For example; We wanted a symmetrical house. Access from the garage into the kitchen. Access to the alfresco from both the kitchen and dining room. A double story house (Jake) which I decided to go along with as long as I had a grand staircase in the entry. No hallways (me) and an activity room that links the kids rooms and their bathroom. The en suite joint to the bedroom via a walk through robe.  etc
All of these things left us with only a few options for layout.  Then you start adding on all the rooms you want (endless conversations about whether he really needs his own study, do we need a guest bedroom and if so why cant they both be combined).

After many designs, trial and error and compromise we came up with our design. This would have been impossible without a computer home design software. We used Punch (a little hard to get used to, but it's great when you get to know it). This is better than the free ones you can get online as it does 3D generations of the front and inside, which is in invaluable to see if the design works.

We found the best approach was to draw something up quick together that included the important requirements and then work off of this design in trying to get the little things right. Going off and drawing your own designs continuously gets you no where. We then went through and worked out the proper sizes for each room.

We submitted this design to three builders for rough quotes and they came back at prices between 400-500 depending on spec and builder.
From there we started working out the kinks with the builders and managed to perfect the design further. But the design still remains 95% our own design.

Wednesday 20 June 2012

An introduction

Hi, 
I'm Amy, I'm in my 20s, recently married (to Jake) and have two puppies (Halo and Shiloh). 
Jake always knew he wanted to build and over the last 7 years that we have been together he has managed to convince me to. Although he didn't plan on building until much later in life. 


A fair few years ago I bought Jake a house building computer program for him to start designing the home of his dreams. Every now and again, over the last few years, we would get it out and have a play. 
Sometime in March I convinced Jake we should start investigating the building process. From playing with the program and the grand ideas we had we knew it would have to be a custom build. So on our first trip to a display village ever we talked to a couple of builders and all of a sudden Jake was wanting to get our plans finalised and submitted for a rough quote. He also started looking for suitable blocks in the area we wanted.