After reading some other "long timers" intro's I thought I'd better do one myself.
I'm Ray - real name is Rachel. I'm 25, married to Matt (sometimes known as May - as in May and Ray) and we have a daughter who is 2.
We are building in the west of Melbourne with that builder that starts with M and ends in N.
We first found our land way back in August 06 - which was quite by accident. After some rough calculations and a big leap of faith we bought the block and then set about finding a plan that would fit.
It is a small block (451m2) which isn't helped by the fact that it is also an odd shape. The closest we could find was the Connolly plan and we started to get close to putting a deposit down before Christmas 06. It was at one visit to a display home that the sales lady at the desk said that they were discontinuing that plan in 07. After some further investigations we found out that yes, it was being discontinued (thanks for the warning) and we would have had to pay a deposit there and then to go ahead with that plan. We decided that we didn't want to jump in and do something we'd regret - and we were in no hurry for a house to be built. They said that the Linden and the Aspen were the plans that would replace the Connolly.
After some further consideration we decided that we would prefer the Aspen to the original Connolly, as it had inside access from the garage, and a better layout for our needs. We also had to delete the outdoor room (aka alfresco) as this would have ended up too close to the fence line - and with the $6k we were credited with, we added a spa in the ensuite instead.
And so, in Feb 07 we paid our initial deposit to get the ball rolling. We required drawings to submit to the council to apply for a closer setback (because of the odd shape of the block, we could only fit a house length of about 19m on the block, and for any longer, we would have to come closer to the footpath than the minimum 4m). We applied and were successful in getting the front of the house at 3.5m from the footpath, with the portico at the front only 2.5m from the footpath (the portico was exempt from the setback as long as the height didn't exceed 3.6m).
We then got booked into the selection centre, and added nearly everything under the sun - or so my hubby kept complaining... j/k. We then had our contract meeting where we paid our final deposit and signed our lives away so to speak.
Our site start date was the 14th September, and in the last 2 weeks we have had the site scraped, pipes laid, levelled, boxing done and concrete laid.
As we are first timers at the property game we are keen to avoid any serious mistakes and try to get it right first time. If all else fails we'll sell!
Ray.