Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Feb 23, 2013 3:39 pm Hi All, Have been keeping an eye on you all since we purchased land at Pine Mountain in April 2012. My story so far (apologies in advance for the lengthy post : - March 2012 Met with our bank to find out about buying land while we still had a house to sell & to see how much we could borrow to build a new house. Everything seemed manageable...scarily too easy!??! - Purchased 2 acres at Pine Mtn in April 2012. - Put our 1st home on the market in April 2012. - Started shopping around builders in March/April2012. - April 2012 Decided on Newstart Homes & paid $3500 initial deposit for contracts to be drawn up so we would qualify for the $10000 QLD home building boost grant as long as we started building by October/November 2012. Very happy with the results here so signed the contracts & now just had to wait for our house to sell so we could move to the next step. - Our house did not sell until mid October 2012 (after 6, yes that's correct....6, failed contracts) so we missed out on the building grant & Newstart emailed us with a price increase of approx. $7000 & a price increase to the contract of another $7000 because of bushfire requirements that were originally overlooked! As this all meant we were close to $30000 over budget we had to forfeit our $3500 deposit & look for another builder - October 2012 moved in with my parents (DH, DD, DS & me) to save us some $$$ while doing the whole building thing! - October 2012 we went to Coral homes again but this time at Underwood instead of Augustine Heights & we found a new plan, the Norfolk, that we absolutely loved . - October 2012 went back to the bank to sort out finances with the house now sold & got pre-approval for a loan to build a new house on our new land! - November 2012 got initial tender letter from Coral & were SUPER happy with the price & inclusions etc. Just some minor changes to be made. I think we may have paid them the initial deposit of approx. $2000 at this stage for them to get soil report, contour survey & HSTP survey done. - Late January 2013 got our contracts back to sign & submit to the bank. Variation to contract had to be done & submitted to bank so they could get a total cost of build for their valuations, etc. - February 2013 got contract variation through & submitted to bank. CURRENTLY: Waiting for bank to do their stuff but am pretty sure this takes a few weeks, meanwhile Coral are hassling us for the remainder of the deposit so they can submit to Council as they are all ready to go. PROBLEM... I definitely asked the bank about when they pay the builders deposit as we do not have any money sitting around for the deposit & my parents are guarantors for our loan so we do not have to have a deposit for our loan either. They said that they pay the builder as they are invoiced & it is normally 5%. Now the bank have informed us that they will not pay the deposit until the plans have been council approved but Coral will not submit the plans to council until they have been paid the remainder of the 5% deposit . Uh oh... I think the only solution will be to put the deposit on our credit card but as the bank will not give us the money back until the plans are out of council this could mean that we have a HUGE credit card debt for a minimum of 6 weeks (this is how long I have heard it could take Ipswich Council in a best case scenario!!!). I am sooooo over this stoopid paperwork! We have done our sums & if we couldn't afford to buy land & build a house on it then we wouldn't have sold our house in the first place!??! I'm not even contemplating any decorating or fitting out until we have plans in council but DH keeps trying to get me to look at colours, fittings & stuff . I'm sure you are all bored to tears by now but that is my story so far.... Will keep you posted when we have some progress but judging by the snail pace that everything has been going at I don't think I will have anything exciting to post for a while yet. Has anyone else had these issues with the bank or have you all been able to pay the 5% deposit with your own funds? Cheers, robandjoc xx Re: Building slightly modified Norfolk with Coral- Confused 2Feb 23, 2013 4:20 pm all the best for the approval etc we had are own 5 per cent deposit so i am unsure how others cope with finding that deposit because not everyone has it. we also had to get full council approved plans before the bank would let us proceed any further. surely coral homes has had this happen before and will help out with this Re: Building slightly modified Norfolk with Coral- Confused 3Feb 23, 2013 4:28 pm Hi guys, We had no end of dramas (we are nearly finished our build and the dramas are STILL ongoing) with our bank, so please don't feel like you are alone. I'm not going to explain our whole situation here (you can read about it on my thread if you are really interested), it wasn't the same as yours, but definitely still lead me to moments of doubt that we would never have the house. DH was the same as yours - always wanting to look at house stuff, whereas I was not interested in ANYTHING until I was 100% sure it was happening! Keep your chin up, hoping for you it will all work out in the end. 1st build: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=59376 *New*-2nd build: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=70324&p=1154282#p1154282 Re: Building slightly modified Norfolk with Coral- Confused 4Feb 23, 2013 10:01 pm Thanks guys. I've resigned myself to the fact that we will have to come up with this deposit but just not too happy about it as I tried to ascertain all this info from the bank & builders prior to starting this whole process!??! What can you do . I'm still pretty darn excited about the end result but am dreading the prospect of a divorce once we start seriously deciding on colours, fixtures & fittings! DH & I have VERY different ideas on all of the above, mainly the brick choice & roof colour - just a few little components of the house really . In the end I should get final say because DH is colour blind!!! I will post our plans on here when I can find the time to revert back to my old laptop as I prefer to use my iPad now. Is there currently a simple way to post pics on a post? Cheers, robandjoc Re: Building slightly modified Norfolk with Coral- Confused 5Feb 23, 2013 10:22 pm I'm really surprised how it seems to work over east. We paid $2,000 deposit to have plans drawn up and get a contract with the price to go to the bank for finance approval. We don't have to pay anymore to the builder until the slab is down. Though the builder wouldn't progress until our finance had been approved. We did have to pay for any prestart upgrades out of our pocket once they were confirmed. Good luck!! Hope it all gets sorted out soon and for minimal out of pocket expense for you! Re: Building slightly modified Norfolk with Coral- Confused 6Feb 24, 2013 6:07 am Hi, I usually just lurk around these forums keeping notes and if I post only update my own topic. Though for some reason this time I feel inclined to comment. Firstly - most important - To post photo's. I use http://imageshack.us/ it is easy, all you do is upload your photo too it. It gives you a variety of links you can choose from. Paste onto here and presto, picture. Next, We have almost sold our first house also and are hoping to use the difference after paying off our current loan to use as a large deposit for the construction. Once you sold your first house could you not of kept something for a deposit. If you can get something together I find having a deposit saves substantially by not having to pay mortgage insurance for the lender. Though yes, I do understand for those that don't make money from a previous home, it would be somewhat difficult to have 5% laying around after stamp duty and other pointless costs that come up along the way. Best of luck, and I know it can be difficult and not cheap. If it were easy my husband and I myself would already be in our new house, but after 3 years we have not given up. We still see the end result of living in a newly built house worth any bumps we have along the way. J&J Building our Home on The Coast. Thread: https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=55601 No longer our dream it's our reality!!! Re: Building slightly modified Norfolk with Coral- Confused 7Feb 24, 2013 9:08 am fmac I'm really surprised how it seems to work over east. We paid $2,000 deposit to have plans drawn up and get a contract with the price to go to the bank for finance approval. We don't have to pay anymore to the builder until the slab is down. Though the builder wouldn't progress until our finance had been approved. When I spoke to our banker & told her that the plans would go to council after the deposit remainder was paid, she said that they would speak to Coral about a deposit guarantee (??? Finance approval???). Unfortunately our case has been sent to another branch in Ipswich with a new banker & when DH spoke to her on Thursday she said we had to pay the deposit to Coral! I don't know if she even tried the deposit guarantee option!??! jenm Next, We have almost sold our first house also and are hoping to use the difference after paying off our current loan to use as a large deposit for the construction. Once you sold your first house could you not of kept something for a deposit. If you can get something together I find having a deposit saves substantially by not having to pay mortgage insurance for the lender. Though yes, I do understand for those that don't make money from a previous home, it would be somewhat difficult to have 5% laying around after stamp duty and other pointless costs that come up along the way. Thanks for the imageshack info, will try it out shortly. We did make a $40000 profit from the sale of our house & I was ecstatic because this was going to pay for all the extras for the house not included in the contract, new furniture, & an overseas holiday! Yet again the bank had mislead me & when it came time to settle on our house, the bank informed me that the entire profit from our house sale had to go into our loan that we already had for the block of land we purchased in April last year as we no longer had any security for that land loan . We had been paying off 2 loans while our house was on the market but the land loan was interest only therefore wasting mega bucks while our house was unsold. The bank revalued our land at what we paid for it so we had $40000 equity & were able to still have the land loan, phew! Currently the bank are drawing up one loan for the land & construction & I was told that we would be able to access the $40000 for the extra things we need for the house...at what stage & how we can access this I am not too sure . As my parents are going to be guarantors again for this loan, we do not need a deposit or to pay LMI, so for that we are very thankful . I am not what you would call a patient person & I am also somewhat of a planner so this process is pushing my boundaries in every way. I'm hoping the actual building process goes much smoother than the paperwork process!??! Cheers, robandjoc xx Re: Building slightly modified Norfolk with Coral- Confused 8Feb 24, 2013 9:41 am We had a few issues of this type, for instance the bank wanted council approved plans before they even released the money for the land! They were treating it like a house and land package which it definitely was not. Anyway we sorted that out and it should be straightforward from there. The bank still need the council plans approved but Because we are using a custom builder and not a project builder we understood from the beginning that we would have to pay for the engineering, drafting and council ourselves and that that is not part of the building contract. We allowed in our savings for all that. It puts you in a bind however when you get told one thing by one person and then someone else comes along with something completely different. It seems like this waiting and negotiation the murky seas of papers is the hardest bit. I can't wait to deal with some sort of issue that is to do with the actual building and not which bit of paper someone has to see first. Blog http://tobuildahomeimprobable.blogspot.com.au/ Settlement Apr Council Jul Contracts Dec Earthworks Dec Frames Jan Trusses Feb Roof Feb Windows Mar Re: Building slightly modified Norfolk with Coral- Confused 9Feb 24, 2013 10:13 am Wow, yikes I didn't realise the banks can force you to pay towards a loan if you sell another property. We have two mortgages at the moment - one for the land, one for our current house which we are selling. So in a couple of weeks when we have the house fully sold and only have the land loan fingers crossed we can keep what we have for the deposit of the new build, though we have had the land for over 3 years now so think there's a fair enough equity in it to cover. Good info to know about so thanks. I never knew much about guarantors and how that all worked so thanks for sharing. For now we plod along also, planning is what I seem to be good at, charts, spreadsheets how much things will cost and when, how we are going to afford each step. Shame lenders are not nicer but I guess just as everyone's situations are different they have to ensure they get there profits somehow so make different arrangements mostly to suit themselves. Hope it gets sorted soon for you so your plans can be put into actions. J&J Building our Home on The Coast. Thread: https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=55601 No longer our dream it's our reality!!! Re: Building slightly modified Norfolk with Coral- Confused 10Feb 24, 2013 10:57 am Okay so here it is... Building a Norfolk 279 (slightly modified) with Coral Homes west of Brisbane: 4 bed, 2 bath, 2 study (dining on the plan is actually a second study), formal lounge, rumpus, media, family/meals. The main modifications we have made are closing in the rumpus, dining (the 2nd study), the front study & having a half wall to the formal lounge. The house is having extra insulation & fans throughout so we can avoid having ac if possible but if we find it too hot then we will install ac down the track. We are installing a small wood heater in the corner of the meals area between the rumpus & the media so this should keep us toasty in winter (hopefully when we will get to move in!??!). Also there is only a small outside porch off the media/meals but the design lends itself to square off the roof from the media to the garage & thus have a BIG covered outdoor area & we will tackle this project ourselves down the track. What we love about this plan is that we all get our own space, the formal lounge is my space, the rumpus is the kids' space & the media is DH's space/mancave . Also the front study is DH's office as he sometimes works from home & the 2nd study is for the kids' & I. I cant wait to start the interior decorating side of things because I have developed a serious Pinterest addiction & the ideas I have for the interior of the house are numerous to say the least! This is the house plan (apologies for the poor quality pic but am not too good on the ipad yet): Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Cheers, robandjoc Re: Building slightly modified Norfolk with Coral- Confused 11Feb 25, 2013 11:01 am How exciting. I am also building the Coral Norfolk 279. But mine is just the standard design. Our bank had the same issue as we are using the first home owners grant and equity in the land for our deposit with the bank we didn't have the 5% cash. Fortunately for us we just told the bank that Coral wouldn't do it without the deposit and the bank agreed that they would have to pay it for it to happen. We have just had our ACC signed by our local bank and they have sent it to their head office. So hopefully we will have a start date soon. Hope you get all of your bank dramas sorted out. I will be eagerly awaiting your progress. Re: Building slightly modified Norfolk with Coral- Confused 12Feb 28, 2013 10:58 pm Yay!!! Good news. My lovely DH rang the sales consultant we were using at Coral & explained our dilemma & the SC then asked head office about the possibility of us only paying half the deposit now & the bank paying the reminder on approval of the plans by council & guess what... Head office said YES . We can definitely afford to pay the revised amount ourselves & we can probably eat for another month too . Unfortunately the lady we are now dealing with at the NAB is a real piece of work & I am not a fan at all. She had me in tears on Tuesday & I have now told DH to inform her not to deal with me at all & he is to be her only contact. The sooner we get her out of the picture the better I say. On another positive note, DH took me to look at the brick display centres yesterday, even though we have done this on previous occasions & been very disappointed with the outcomes, & WE HAVE A UNANIMOUS DECISION ON BRICKS . Bricks & roof tiles selected... Check! We have opted for PGH bricks - Presto Hotham with either a white or natural mortar ( dependant on $$$ to upgrade the mortar). We have also decided on Bristile roof - Phoenix or Magnum (whichever was lighter of the two, can't remember). Our gutters & fascia will be grey, possibly monument colour & we will have cream down pipes to blend in with the bricks. We will have dark grey/charcoal colour windows & possibly the same for the garage door. We drove around to look at a few houses that PGH told us had used this brick in our area & this helped to make our mind up. This is a HUGE weight off our shoulders as we were both heading in very different directions with our brick preferences prior to this & the thing that swayed us is that the double height presto bricks are now included in the standard range with Coral, which they had not been previously & we are trying to avoid paying extra dollars for upgrades if we can avoid it. I'm still having nightmares about kitchen benchtop choices as DH wants a dark black colour bench top with white cupboards. As our floor is a darkish timber & the walls will be either Stowe white or hogs bristle then I also want white cupboards but I'm worried that a black bench top will not match in with a dark brown floor!??! Has anybody else got ideas for our kitchen colour scheme that would work with dark timber floors & very neutral walls? Cheers, robandjoc xx Re: Building slightly modified Norfolk with Coral- Confused 13Feb 28, 2013 11:02 pm jasons girl How exciting. I am also building the Coral Norfolk 279. But mine is just the standard design. Our bank had the same issue as we are using the first home owners grant and equity in the land for our deposit with the bank we didn't have the 5% cash. Fortunately for us we just told the bank that Coral wouldn't do it without the deposit and the bank agreed that they would have to pay it for it to happen. We have just had our ACC signed by our local bank and they have sent it to their head office. So hopefully we will have a start date soon. Hope you get all of your bank dramas sorted out. I will be eagerly awaiting your progress. Hey there Jasons girl! Very excited to have someone with the same choice of plan on here . Will be watching your progress eagerly too! Cheers, robandjoc Re: Building slightly modified Norfolk with Coral- Confused 14Mar 01, 2013 5:12 am wow awesome choice of brick we also chose the presto hotham brick (you can see pics of the brick on my thread) we are very happy with it here are our colors bricks- PGH Presto Hotham roof -colorbond monument mortar joint - natural grey gutters and fascia -monument windows- black garage doors double and a single -dune front door- pivot Corinthian sunburst downpipes also meter box- dune portico and alfresco posts- merbau with the kitchen i have a grey type tile with the new basmati benchtops and gloss zinworks cupboards and the island bar back moose silk finish splashback dulux harbour blue * a feature wall in the meals area will also be this color walls are going to be grey pebble quarter hope this helps wilthl some more ideas love your plan here is a thread with lots of ideas on kitchens viewtopic.php?f=16&t=13838&start=2240 Re: Building slightly modified Norfolk with Coral- Confused 15Mar 02, 2013 3:32 pm If it helps it cost us an extra $350 to go to off white mortar instead of natural. But we are having the Perisher so being so light it was pretty much a given we were changing to off white. Re: Building slightly modified Norfolk with Coral- Confused 16Apr 25, 2013 2:23 pm We built the Stradbroke 279 through Coral 2 years ago. My preference was the Norfolk 279 but hubby talked me into the Stradbroke. Seeing your plan tugs on the heart strings lol. I still love that plan. I would love to see pics of the end result. Re: Building slightly modified Norfolk with Coral- Confused 17May 11, 2013 7:37 pm I'm baccckkkk! Believe it or not all the above issues have been sorted (including the kitchen bench dilemma). All the bank issues were sorted, the reduced deposit was paid (by us) to Coral & the plans were submitted for approval & guess what...we now have fully approved plans & we have been advised the start date is likely to be the 27th May but we are awaiting confirmation of a few colours appt upgrades & electrical plan changes but we should be given an official start date next week!!! We were disappointed with the costs of some the upgrades, in particular the cost of upgrading the mortar to off white in lieu of natural (approx. $800) & upgrading the carpet underlay only to 10mm thick rubber in lieu of standard foam underlay (approx. $900) when our finishes consultant informed us it would only be $1-2/sq m to upgrade the underlay!??! We are still deeply worried about the mortar colour with our choice of bricks & are still undecided . Our roof colour is a charcoal grey tile, our windows frames are a charcoal grey colour, our garage door is a charcoal grey colour & our bricks are PGH Presto Hotham. We are worried that the natural grey mortar will be too dark as we have not liked the look of all the houses we have been looking at in our area with what we think are the same bricks & the natural grey mortar colour. However, we think we have seen some houses with the same bricks with the off white mortar colour & we much prefer this look but we think the cost quoted for the upgrade is a bit steep!??! Has anyone got any input regarding the quote we were given regarding the mortar or any information on whether in person the natural grey mortar is actually really quite dark with cream coloured bricks? Pretty please with a cherry on top . Re: Building slightly modified Norfolk with Coral- Confused 18May 13, 2013 10:53 am Wow that is crazy. Ours was only about $350 and we did our colours selection in January. Surely it couldn't have gone up that much in 4 months. Maybe it has something to do with different locations. Honestly though, if it had of been $800 we still would have changed our mortar. Our Norfolk has had bricks completed now and we couldn't be happier with the colour of the bricks with the mortar. Congratulations on a start date though. That is really exciting. If this is a custom build then I would expect the builder to set out the door frame closer to the wall to avoid the gap between architrave and the wall and or specify… 9 8306 Ask the council if there is a chance of getting build over easement exemption. Sometimes easements are unused and 24cm is not all that much. Good luck. And yes any builder… 2 13771 In Qld it is a requirement that a builder must have a cost breakdown, for building a home to the same specification, with the same inclusions and the same finish. So ask… 1 4342 |