Registration!

After almost 5 months of waiting, we received the call today to say our land was registered and settlement will happen this Friday. Bring it on:)
Next step is to organise tree lopping, then reassessment of BAL (initially rated BAL 40- ouch$$$$) and then lodge plans with CDC.

Still no settlement:(

We are still waiting on land registration- originally supposed to be 21st January and no word yet. It is now 4 months since we paid our deposit and we are still waiting.
Now to the good news- yesterday we selected our external colours so the builder can prepare documents for council. As soon as settlement happens we will be ready to go to council.
We also went on a spending spree and bought our feature lights. Beacon Lights had a good special on:)
Next on the shopping list is our Fireplace and ride on mower. Fireplace will happen first then the mower.

Settlement delayed

Well, since my last post things have changed. We had expected to settle on the land by the end of January but there has been a delay in registration of the land and it looks like it's still a couple of weeks off. During this delay we have explored a custom build as an option and found it compares favourably with our other quotes so are heading in that direction. The inclusions are fantastic and although we are at early stages we are thrilled with the communication so far.
We are selecting external colours next week and so should be ready to go to council as soon as settlement happens. One of the appealing aspects of this builder is that we can do all our selections on weekends which means no days off work.
We have done some shopping while we wait and took delivery of our new, very flash fridge this week. At least we'll be able to have the kitchen built to fit around the fridge!!
Currently looking at buying feature lights... This is fun:)

House sold-first move done

We've moved out of our home and are now bunked in with my parents. Settlement on the land is due next week so fingers crossed that all goes well. While we've been waiting for settlement we've been looking at other builders and are very interested in Firstyle's Braeside design. We have a meeting on Sunday to ask a few more questions and hopefully organise soil test. Looks like we have a big decision to make between Rawson Benham and the Firstyle. Will update my spreadsheet to help with the comparison.

The journey begins...

I've decided to create this blog to document our upcoming building journey. 

The story so far...
After searching for established houses for nearly a year, we found this 1/2 acre riverfront block and decided to build our dream home. The block has about 1000 square metre building envelope, with the rest sloping down to the river.

We paid the deposit on 11.11.13 with settlement due at the end of January, 2014. 

Our current house went on the market and sold the same day (within 2 hours in fact!!) We were thrilled to have that done and dusted so quickly. We are lucky enough to be able to live with my parents while we build. They have a big place and we will have our own space. This will allow us to save for all the 'extras' we want... (triple garage for the husband and fireplaces for me).

We have our eye on Rawson (Benham 30 but expanded to 36 squares). We are at the very early stages with them but are very happy with the initial impression. We'll still have a look around at other builders while we wait for settlement. 

We have to be out of our place by January 10th, so lots of packing to do. We have been very happy here for 14 years and it is quite emotional to be leaving our beautiful friends and neighbours.