The Search Ends

After almost 3 months, I think I can finally breathe a sigh of relief. We've found it - our next home.







Actually to be more accurate, we've found the land and we're gonna be building a new home on it! No, it's not this one above. But hopefully something similar.



Despite what I've previously said in my previous post about building, it turned out that this might be a better option for us. Although buying an established house often has more value, finding one that meets all our criteria turned out not as easy as I thought. Ok, I admit, we're not easy to please as we've got lots of requirements.



After living in 2 rented properties and so many viewings of houses, we gradually formed a clearer picture of where and what we wanted our home to be. We have been dilligently looking at every house on the market for the last couple of months and still hasn't successfully found anything yet.



We were quite close 3 times but each attempt failed. I believed that was God's intervention, telling us it wasn't the right one. The first one failed as someone else made a better offer. On hindsight, I'm glad we didn't get it as we later felt the suburb is overpriced from too many investors. The 2nd offer was kind of impulsive. We liked the suburb and the interior of the house a lot and we made the offer after 1 viewing on the same night. But after cooling off, we pulled out after we felt that the offer we made was really stretching our budget. Naturally, the agent wasn't too happy. But again, I'm glad we didn't go through. As for the 3rd offer, that house is actually pretty bare and there are several improvements and repairs that has to be done before we can live in it. However, that house has potential to be nice, we liked the location and the north-facing of the living area is fantastic. The only problem is agreeing on the price. The vendor felt the price was too low but we refused to up our price. If the vendor cannot find a better offer, he might lower his expectation with time. However in the meantime, we found this piece of land, in a location that we really liked, for a reasonable price on the market.



I went down to see the agent on Tuesday, without much expectations, as I initially thought the land orientation was wrong. However I realised I had looked at the wrong plot of land on Google map and in fact, it had a Southeast facing, which means if we choose the correct floorplan, the living and backyard area will be facing North/Northwest. This is a good orientation for maximum daylight exposure and offers maximum potential for energy efficiency. I strongly believe that sustainable and energy efficient homes is the way to go for the future. Also, this land is a highly sought after area of the suburb, with potential for capital gains, it is near a good secondary school and has easy freeway access. The land size of 610msq is also big enough to build a house that has lots of room for the boys. It is a regular shape and has a 16.5m width, which means it can fit majority of the house designs. Most importantly, the price is reasonable. I knew immediately that such a plot of land does not come by too often.





Building your own home is a long process and the house probably won't be ready until middle of next year. During the process, we will have to make lots of decisions starting from the floor plan to the colour of the carpets and tiles. There will be plenty of interactions with the builders/subcontractors on site to make sure that everything is in order. But the good think about starting from scratch, you have a blank canvas and you are free to choose a house design that fits your needs. This probably is the best way for us as many of the older houses we've inspected do not meet our requirements for a modern energy efficient home.



The only catch is, I have no choice when it comes to the builder. This plot of land is for sale under a "House & Land" package. Which means I buy the house together and am tied to the builder that sells it. This practice where land developers 'reserve' and give builders the exclusive rights to sell blocks of land for them is pretty common in Melbourne and if you ask me, it's BAD for the consumers! Consumers should be free to choose the builder they want. Instead, these big guys, through their connections and whatever means, are hoarding up land and forcing you to build with them. Smaller builders are disadvantaged and consumers rights are compromised. It's ANTI-COMPETITION and it's not fair but the situation is as such.





I don't like it but there is no choice if I really like the land. We can only comfort ourseleves that this is a reputable builder and so far, we have not heard anyone we know who had a bad experience with them. We also managed to find a floor plan we like and were quite happy with what we saw when we visited their display house. Click here to go to the builder's website.



Wish us luck and I'll keep posting about the developments as it goes along!