Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Feb 20, 2011 7:26 pm Hi Everyone, Well, we are about to join the realms of the mortgaged first home builders. Contract signed last week. Right now we're trying to decide where to live while the place is being built -am being transferred for work close to where the block is - so it's coming down to either a house for 6 months or renting both a caravan and a shipping container and living on the block with our stuff. Budget-wise (which is the most important consideration for our single income very-little-savings-which-are-going-on-the-house-deposit family!) the caravan option works out slightly better/week: renting a house circa $200-220/wk vs caravan 155wk (incl annex etc) and shipping container 17/wk (shipping container 20' 17/wk plus $70 each way for delivery paid up front). Just wondering if anyone else has actually done this? Throw in to the mix that we have 4 young ones and you risk cabin fever, but on the up side there's the whole 1 acre block to run around on, as opposed to risking only being able to get a rental house that has no fence and in possibly on a busy street. I'm also a shift worker so it'll take some working out re sleeping during building but there's always ear plugs. In the end, it's only 4 months of actual building, and 5 months of actually having to live in the van, so it's not like we're gearing up to spend years in it. For those that have done the caravan thing, how do you organise with builder/whoever to get water and power connected to the caravan? Would love to hear some thoughts from those more experienced than us before we make the final decision in 3-4 weeks time. Thanks - will post again another time re where our block is/house etc. All in all an adventure so far. Cheers! Ben. Re: Living on the Block During the Build... with children! 2Feb 20, 2011 7:39 pm Most councils do not allow live on site. Re: Living on the Block During the Build... with children! 3Feb 20, 2011 9:10 pm If you could do this I think you will need to have temp fencing surrounding the direct building sote and that stuff isn't cheap. I just got a qoute for 6 monthand 20mt = $400. You'd need at least 100mt of fence. As mentioned above, most councils won't let you live on site. as the whole block is declared as a building site. Re: Living on the Block During the Build... with children! 4Feb 21, 2011 9:59 am Thanks for the replies, guys. Yes, had heard murmurings re the council not letting you live on the block, but hadn't even thought about the 'classified as a building site' thing. I'm waiting to hear back from someone in council today for confirmation of this. Will let you know what they say. Looks like maybe a house is the way to go - although I'm not keen on having (in eight weeks time) to have $1000 plus ready to pay bond and first two weeks rent though - first bank changed their LVR allowance right before we applied for pre-approval - now second bank will lend us the money but won't capitalise the LM insurance circa $3K + land loan refinance costs. Hmmm... how do you get $4K together in 6 weeks time without robbing a bank? Let's find out... Chat soon. B. Re: Living on the Block During the Build... with children! 5Nov 30, 2011 3:08 pm How's it all going? Did you start? Moved in yet? Can you give advice on how to get missing certificates needed for a form 21? Our bank requires us to provide one but we are missing 4 building certificates from our first… 3 56828 i would suggest nothing is unreasonable for PCI. we did all sorts, including checking the hot water, checking all the GPO's had power, testing that the showers were… 9 79468 Just to makea point about this, an approach that some people have found sucessful in negotiating these rises down, Is to provide some workings to the builder, specifying… 4 64856 |