Browse Forums Building A New House 1 May 14, 2013 10:01 pm Long time lurker / reader however never posted before. My partner and l decided to get out of the renting game and try to build our first home. We had a reasonable savings history and some great government and local council incentives to assist us with getting a reasonable start. We had available to us; - $15,000 FHOG - Nil stamp duty - Local council incentive for building a new home a specified area ($20,000) Given this we sat down with our normal bank, which is also the same bank my mother works for, however we hit some bumps and in turn went shopping around following advice from my mother! We ended up with conditional approval for our building loan and commenced proceedings with our new bank. We decided to split our loans, with our land fixed (2 years @ 4.99%) and our building loan variable, not sure why but this was how we decided to go! We had protracted dealings with our vendor and offers went back / forth until finally they accepted half way in between saving us a further $10,000 - first tick off the list.... We then started formal approval process which took longer then expected, alot longer while we had to chase up all our supporting documentation, and extra stress due to the delay in time however this may have been a blessing as we've been able to save a further $9,000 in 2.5 months while we have completed this process, I'm happy to confirm we have received formal approval today - second tick of the list.... settlement in 28 days! Now onto the building side of things, we had our ideas, plans we loved and agreed on, issues we didn't agree on and also agreed to disagree on, we gained quotes (big eye opener), most outside our realistic budget through your standard big builders! My Father is a builder by trade but wasn't sure if he was able to get down to help us but then decided to arrange time off to build our first home which we couldn't be happier! He'll be completing this with assistance from a family friend. In terms of plans, we enlisted a Building Designer from our home town and have communicated via email constantly to which we now have a draft plan (I'll upload this tomorrow as I'd love some feedback good or bad), the basics are; - 3 bed plus study - Theatre room - Family dining - Double garage We are trying to keep things relatively simple, keeping in mind resale value for if we were to sell down the track and its our first home. The difficult decisions are yet to come......... Re: Our First Home - Mid North Coast(NSW) 2May 15, 2013 12:25 pm Not sure how to add photos via phone, will fix up tonight once home. Below is a screen capture of our draft plan, still few changes to be made, will try and upload a better copy tonight. http://img542.imageshack.us/img542/6726/imagezkyw.jpg Re: Our First Home - Mid North Coast(NSW) 4May 15, 2013 8:04 pm Lush looking location. Congratulations. Just had a squiz of your plans. I would prefer to have my living/family room and perhaps Alfresco area on the north side to take advantage of lighting and winter sun. Home theatre rooms are best dark with artificual lighting, it also looks like your home theatre room is quite large. I'd be chucking the home theatre room where the current al fresco is shown. But that's me. It's your dream! Best of luck. Re: Our First Home - Mid North Coast(NSW) 5May 15, 2013 10:17 pm Thanks Animal, It is a nice area! Koala corridor apparently which is why we have to have timber fencing or koala friendly fencing! Will take that on board and discuss with designer, disregard 'home theatre' as its more so a lounge so the girl can get away from me watching footy! Re: Our First Home - Mid North Coast(NSW) 6May 15, 2013 10:24 pm Cool I think it is always nice to have somewhere in winter that gets full sun but is out of the wind. Get your angles correct on the eaves and it will be shaded in summer. I'm not sure if that north side on the theatre room is a window or feature wall if it's a window you might be OK. Re: Our First Home - Mid North Coast(NSW) 7Jun 30, 2013 10:52 pm Great floor plan cjsimon_11 ! I'm not a fan of diagonal walls, I just think they're hard to fit furniture in and with your living area, if you wanted to move around the furniture, someday in the future, you don't have many options, such as, you could put a lounge against that wall facing the dining but with the diagonal wall, it'd be a bit awkard. But that's just me, and I'm a fan of moving a room around to make it feel different..haha! Where is your land? You have gorgeous grass!! Looking forward to seeing your house come together Hi all, I've received the unwelcome news that our certifier (BCA Certifiers) has merged into the McKenzie Group. A quick Google revealed McKenzie is the mob that… 0 4415 Anybody know any good and reasonably priced Air conditioning contractors/companies that could install a ducted air conditioning system in the Central Coast NSW for a small… 0 10049 Petercurtis You able to contact the certifier and get a copy of your structural plans, if they are not in your contract. If your home was approved via CDC then they… 1 20430 |