Back to the drawing board

So we've decided to build, and we of course have a block of land. We'd picked the house we wanted to build - the Cottesloe, by Porter Davis and the wheels were in motion.

I guess the first warning sign should've been when our Porter Davis sales guy, forgot to turn up to his own office, for our very first variations meeting, then when I called in a week later, clearly didn't know who I was.

That's what you get right? They're big, they process home builders like cattle through their process - that's why people on our budget can afford it.

Well it turns out, that the house Porter Davis have on display in the Quay Estate, Torquay, cannot be built on our block. Not sure which block in that estate you could build it on, as ours was one of the largest available.

Despite what the Australand guidelines in relation to the Quay Estate acutally say, you cannot have a 3 or even 4.5 metre setback, (distance from front of block to front of house) even when facing a reserve or on a corner block. (We are both!) Nope, hidden in the contract is an overriding clause that says, all setbacks, 6 metres. (Thanks Australand).

This pushes the 24 metre long, Cottesloe 29, so far back on the block we can't even make room for a garden shed behind it. (We were told we have just a 3 metre setback during sales meetings, but of course, we can only blame ourselves, it's undoubtedly written somewhere in the 200 odd page, land contract which we signed.)

So we almost found a way to lay the house out on our block, when we noticed that our initial Sales Quoation, a mere $40K over the the advertised Cottesloe price, didn't contain prices for the slim lines water thanks, also required by the regulations for the Quay Estate, Torquay! Naturally I questioned this. Turns out, "he forgot to include them" - add another 5 or 6 grand to the price.

But it gets better - there is also no room at the back of the house for these tanks. Lose 0.7m from the back of the house - undoubtedly at extra cost!

But wait, that's not all - the same email that explained the problem with the water tanks that were missing from the Sales Quote, but are required in the Quay Estate, told us that despite several conversations regarding our tiled roof, and just how many houses in the estate have one, it turns out that Porter Davis houses will need to have a colour-bond roof, (add another $6K) because they only build at a 18 degree pitch, and you can only tile at 20 degrees (it may be the other way around I was a bit over it by this stage). So when I asked why we can't just change the pitch, the answer was, "No Porter Davis don't do that!"

Ah well - that house will not go on our block, so it's back to the drawing board, this week with a builder in the Hotondo Franchise. We deal with the Hotondo franchise regularly at work (Constructor) and I know the Torquay Hotondo builder, who is a Constructor user and I've dealt with the guy before. He's a straight up bloke, and they have some really nice plans. Their sales person also really knows her stuff. I also really like the idea of dealing with a builder, not a Volume Building company managing sub-contractors from behind a desk. Not to mention he's a local guy who will know the estate better than this large Melbourne based company.

So, as nice a house as the Porter Davis Cottesloe 29 is, we aren't going to see a lot of them in the Quay Estate in Torquay. Be careful what you commit to (pay for) before finding out all the facts.

We haven't even got to the point about how close to the boundary fence they had our laundry door yet...

We've been "toing and froing" lately regarding the "buy vs build" question. I think we've been secretly hoping for the perfect house to land in our laps, and given our budget it would probably have to be about $20K or $30K under priced. In fact we did find one almost perfect house, and

as expected, our offer was about $20K too low.

So last Sunday, after trolling through the display village a the Quay

estate in Torquay and pouring over the land releases therein, we took the plunge and put down a holding fee on one of the blocks there. The rest of the deposit will be paid later in the week and come the end of November, we ought to be land owners...then the fun begins as we start the building process. This probably won't happen until next March.

We also have our eye on one of the display homes in the estate which we would like to build

so now, discussions begin with Porter Davis, as we try to get our heads around "extras", "as displayed" and any other traps for new players that threaten to turn the whole exercise to custard.

Here's a couple of pics, for prosterity...

Kieren and Toby "playing in the park" opposite our place - across Anchor Lane

Our block: corner of Anchor Lane and Offshore Drive

Toby and Kieren in front of the new block.

Unconditional

Just for the record - the sale went unconditional today!

The couple and "her" mother came for a quick look through this afternoon. Sounds like they are really excited about moving in which is great! A young couple, ready to start a family, and they're really excited about moving into "our" (well "their") house. Cool.

House under contract

So the we accepted an offer which was really the first serious one and right in the middle of the acceptable price range and the house is now under contact. We're just waiting on the purchases finance to come through, supposedly this week and it will go "unconditional".

We currently change our mind two or three times a day about how much we should spend on an established home, or whether should should consider building.

View Larger Map

Today it's down to Torquay to check out house and land packages in the Quay Estate. A decent block that won't cost us a fortune in landscaping might just be the "ticket". We'll see what happens. Still in no great hurry which is unusual for me.

Moving House

We've been toying with the idea of moving house on and off for years. The time has now come! The house has been on the market for a couple of weeks now and yesterday we had our first serious offer. Still a little too low, right at the bottom end of the expected price range. Being only our first weekend of open homes, and considering 26 parties looked through our home in two half our sessions, we feel it would be a bit hasty to jump at the first low offer. We're still well within the "top of the price range" period just yet.

Anyway, the plan is to sell first, maybe rent for awhile with the longer term goal being to find a newer place, in an area like Torquay, hoepfully in walking distance to the beach but definetly within a short walk to a park of sports ground - for the kids who have now certainly outgrown our modest back yard (too modest to contain footballs and cricket balls at least).

We'll also consider building a place of coarse. Torquay has plenty of land available and right now, it's a buyer's market down there. Here's hoping our timing is good with talk of recessions ending in coming months.

It's here if anyone is interested...