Hi all
Thought I would start up one of these to keep track of everything that is going on with our very new building plans. Me and my husband got our acceptance on our land yesterday and we had our initial meeting with the builder. Today I have all these colour charts and selection book strewn across my floor and I have to admit I am scratching my head a bit. For us everything needs to move quickly as we want our final contracts signed by Dec 31 (for first home buyers) ...
So far keystart have been a total PITA but our builder is being great
Our block is 567m2 in the new Oyster Harbour Estate in Albany and we are building with WA Country Builders - a pre-design called The Blackwood. The beauty of the estate is that the average site fees are between 3 and 4k. Retaining walls are already done and we get free colour bond fencing and $5k for front landscaping and retic. Its a telstra velocity estate so we are researching as much as we can on that because the developer who introduced us to the block told us approx what we *should* pay and what has actually been charged for conduits.
Hiccups so far have been:
If we make ANY alterations to plans it is a $1500 redraft fee (apparently we dont have drafters down here and they are sent to Perth) and it will take 4 weeks for the plans to be re-drawn and returned. Time we can't really afford.
We are going through the Aboriginal Home Loans part of keystart, we paid our $175 for valuation and yesterday they hit us up for another $195 because we didn't buy a house and land package (???) we are fighting this because people going through regular keystart have not had to pay this. Their reason being the valuers will have to go out to site three times.
And finally we have to have a pre- pre-start because EVERYTHING we want including extras and upgrades has to be in our preliminary contract because once we send that to Keystart we are locked in. We weren't able to allocate a pre-start allowance either so our builder has very graciously bent over backwards organising meetings with electricians and plumbers and getting us all the information pronto so that we can have our contract signed sealed and delivered to keystart ASAP
What a mouth full LOL
So far its been very exciting but a huge headache all at once. I look forward to getting to know everybody
Cheers
Tanya