Settlement - 9 September 2009

We settled? You're kidding. Thanks for the bottle of wine. No we're not celebrating, we're going to get drunk cos we now own a mortgage.

Building is no drama ...unless you are impatient

Buying off the plan has its drawbacks when your developers decide to scuffle with council. There were a few games of chicken when council made some demands that the developers decided to overlook. After we heard "Titles should be through next week..." over the next eight weeks from the developers, we rang the council directly. Once we gave the developer our polite but firm "If you ever give us the runaround again..." talk, they played nice and actually started giving us real updates.

All the waiting with no end in sight was demoralising. Firstly, I was excited picking colours & tiles & carpets but that wore off after 5 weeks of no change. Couldn't even muster enthusiasm with the end in sight, a mere six months later. Decided that I'm sure the house will eventually get built before we have kid 2 ... or is that kid 3?

Oh and you might be wondering who won? The council of course.

Tristan 216 - House plan

Our house plans were finalised today. We are building the Tristan 216 which is basically our own plan suited to our needs and our block. We extended the patio out a metre so the house is nearly 225m (216m under roof). We are also positioning the block very close to the retaining wall to give ourselves a decent sized yard.

Building contract signed - 9 April 2009

We are building with Chris Allen from Coastal Homes having seen a few of their spec homes & really liking the quality of work. http://www.coastalhomesgladstone.com.au/

Fortunately for us, new builds were drying up in the area as global credit crisis hit the building industry hard so we got a very good price for our build due to the lack of demand at the time.

We signed our contract within a week of my sister & her husband signing their contract with the same builder. It was supposed to be a race but due to settlement issues, my sister was living in their new house before our slab had even been laid!

Our land - contract signed 16 March 2009

Our block is 747m. We bought off the plan.

As a young family we liked that we were at the end of a quiet street.

Massive stepped concrete block retaining wall on both sides. It means no need for a fence on this side (and both our neighbours will be either 4 feet higher or lower than us so great for privacy)

We will also get mountains views from our (future) patio :)