Hi everyone,
First time building but not a first home owner. I thought I would share our experience with building from start to finish, hopefully to help others who are about to start the same process and get feedback from those who have already been through this.
Lender: Keystart
Broker: Resolve Finance
Builder: Celebration Homes
We both decided on a block in Golden Bay - we wanted to be close to the beach and wanted the land to be a minimum of 700sqm for our Rottweiler and my partner wants a massive shed for his car restorations.
September 2013:
met with broker and builder, we had already picked a design and idea of mods. Finalised lender to be Keystart due to low deposit, no mortgage insurance and $50 week repayments whilst building.
October 2013: qualify for keystart, applied for pre-approval
3rd November 2013: placed offer on our dream block (we got a letter of eligibility from our broker as he couldn't see why pre-approval would be held up... Oops)
4th Nov 2013: offer accepted, finance due in 21 days (25th Dec)
5th Nov 2013: paid land deposit
9th Nov: finalised designs with builder for our block
11th Nov: extension on finance declined (being a private sale not through a developer he is keen to move on) Owner is still willing to accept our offer if no cash offer is placed on block after the 25th. Stressed.
20th Nov: signed contract on house design with Builder
25th Nov (finance due): Pre-approval received from Keystart. Finally!! Was about 6- 7 weeks in total, but not typical. Their turn around after each new form submission or new info was approx 1-2 weeks.
Photo of our design:
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Only we have removed bedroom 2 to make a large cinema (we don't have and don't plan on kids)
This is our block of land (if there is no cash offers... Fingers are crossed!!)
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We are currently awaiting Formal approval - hopefully there is no cash offers on our block between now and when it's granted. It's a stressful wait to say the least, we had very little to cover for our conditional approval so we are hoping it will be quick. It was a long wait for pre-approval but that was a saga of its eon which we now have covered.
Has anyone else gone through Keystart recently - how long was your wait for Formal approval? And from there how long did you wait for settlement? I would like to officially own the block before Xmas