Plans and progress!

Woohoo-we have our preliminary plans! There are only a couple of minor changes and then they can be submitted to council-fingers crossed!~

We have also found out that more blocks have been sold-one to a physiotherapist.

After much thought about what to do with water requirements, we are nearly sure that we will sink a bore for the garden and toilets and have one 10,000 gallon tank for the fresh water.

Fencing will be done on Monday-so I will be able to start the vegie area!

The Princess and the tree....

OK, not much has happened in the last 4 weeks due to the Christmas break that the building industry takes. However the excitement is beginning to build! Our block of land settles in 2 days and we sign the contracts for thebuilding next week.

We meet with the vendor of the block early next week to arrange for the fencing and driveway crossover which were included in the price. Then we will look at getting the garden shed erected so that we can begin the process of setting out the vegie garden prior to moving in!

This photo is Chloe in our tree the first time that she actually walked on our block.

We are ready to select our colours for the house-the appointment at Colour World in Melbourne will be made when we sign the contracts next week-woohoo!

We have a couple of sets of friends who are also about to commence building-one couple with Metricon on a town block and the other couple are building with National Builders down the road from us. It will be interesting to see how the process goes for us all!

Here we go......!

OK, it's been over 3 weeks since my last post-and what a lot has happened!

We've managed to move into our rental(despite the husband going fishing for a week-luckily he brought home fresh schnapper!), had settlement on our old house, applied for our bank loan for the new house, accepted a final quotation from National Builders Group and now all systems are go!

The valuation from the Bank came back just what we hoped for, so we will be able to build what we want (and still have an indecently large mortgage). We did delete the verandah off the front of the house-couldn't justify the $11,900 cost! Maybe when we win Tattslotto.... :-)

Oh the pain......

Well, we received our quote from National Builders-and i think that I'm still quivering-$262,000! Because of the soil test as "H", they want to add $5500 to the cost of the slab!

The cost of the water tanks is also $5000 more than what the builder indicated it should be (I'll be contacting local suppliers and getting other prices)...other than that quoted items were actually reasonable. We had got NBG to quote on a verandah across the front of the house, which came in at $11,500.If the loan is approved I think that we will delete the verandah as a luxury, not a necessity (the house will front South West).

In regards to the soil test and slab, we have had another company peruse the Intrax report and give their opinion as to whether we should have another test done in order to get a different recommendation. The reply was that their company would rate the slab as requiring "m"with 600m footings-so we are waiting to see whether or not that is a cheaper option.

We have submitted the quote and land contract to the Bank for our loan application and are now waiting upon valuation-which can take up to a week. Our issue will be that although we have paid $90,000 for our acre, our land can immediately be sold off as two half acre lots (at $75,000 each)due to the two titles. We need the at completion valuation to reflect this so that we can avoid mortgage insurance.......

Questions & Quote

Tomorrow Cristian and I will be heading to Ballarat to have the building quote presented to us-should be an interesting exercise! We haven't heard anymore about the soil test debacle and what ramifications will follow from that-all will be revealed tomorrow!

In the mean time, we are in the process of moving into the rental. Luckily, number 1 son (actually, only son!) has a ute-so has been ferrying furniture from one address to another for us......saving a small fortune on removalist fees! His fuel costs are a fraction of what we would have had to pay the professionals-mind you, when we move out to the new house next year we will pay for the experts!

I'm not sure whether or not I'm looking forward to tomorrow..after we receive the quote we will submit our loan application to the Bank (Which bank?) and wait for their response. The loan will depend on the valuation upon completion of the property and what equity we would have at that point in time. Winslow and Mailors Flat are both areas of growth due to the fact that they are within 15mins of Warrnambool and are offering lifestyle blocks (1acre plus) from $90k. Our block is on two titles with dual access, so the valuation should reflect that fact-fingers crossed!

Suspicious soil?

Yesterday, I received a phone call from National Builders Group to say that the results of our soil test were in.......

The company involved with performing the test have listed our block as "P"class-problem block! This is despite the fact that every other block (including the one next door)in the area meets the standard for "M"classification-or a standard slab.

The reason given is that there are"trees on this and adjacent blocks"! Yep, the fact that our block has a mature gum tree at the very front boundary is cause for concern.......the city centric twit who has performed the soil test believes that the fact that our house will be set 20m away from the 7m high tree is still cause for concern!

The funniest quote from the report is that the block is "subjected to unusual moisture conditions"-because we actually get rain here-unlike Melbourne!

The actual readings taken from the report are well within the range for a normal slab-so I have spoken to the local builder who will be actually building the house and he's perusing the report and will talk to the company involved. I have also submitted a soil report from the block across the road (thanks to the builder whom we bought the block from) which shows nearly identical readings and recommends a standard slab.

It will be interesting to see what the outcome is-if it will only cost a couple of thousand for a slab upgrade, then it may be worth it. If it is thousands then we will get another soil report done by a local company who know more about rural areas and go from there!

Freaking out the "city folk"!

Yesterday I received a couple of calls from the engineering firm which will be conducting the soil test on our block-which is quick work I must say!

The gentleman was a bit perturbed at the fact that Google maps shows very little in the way of development at Winslow....and was also a bit nonplussed when I told him that one of the local farmers has placed a couple of head of cattle on the block with a temporary electric wire! Apparently that's not done in the City!!! :-)

He was relieved (somewhat) when I explained that the image on Google is slightly outdated and that we actually have a sealed road all the way to our block!

I discovered last week that Winslow is actually classified in the "hamlet"catergory-how cute!