View from Space Update

Just went and checked out Nearmaps and it seems the view from space was updated. You can actually see our road now. I've put on the pictures below roughly where our place is going. Exciting stuff.

Been A while but the gears are turning.

Well it's been a while since my last post. Basically nothing has happened seeing we were waiting on our land to be settled and given some direction by the builders. Well early last week we got the call. Our lot is ready to be settled in about 2 weeks. Kurmond homes must have got the memo also as they have been in contact with me a few times in the last two weeks also. Other then that, not to much contact from them, but no real need to up until now.

Seeing we got talking to Kurmond again we decided to review our plan one more time. I jumped online and noticed they updated there Strand 39 not only with our changed, but someone else made a smart change to the upstairs ensuite. So we decided to ask for that change also. Peter at Kurmond homes had no issues with that and made the change. See below a quick pic.

The plan of attack moving forward is pretty simple.

• Wednesday we head into Kurmond homes to choose our outside colours. We'll also pick up a building contract and sustainability check sheet so we can get our grant. I'll be talking to Kurmond about timings now with council etc from this point.
• On the June long weekend or there about's we should be able to settle on the land.

For those following my HAF fund issue a bit of an update. We got nowhere, tried a few banks and just decided to cop it on the chin, but with a bit of a fight. We took our complaint all the way up and almost went to the banking ombudsmen. We only stopped before there as we decided we still haven't got final approval on our construction loan and we didn't want to push our luck. We did write to the Minister for Housing and sadly they went and attacked the people at Delfin, rather then the mortgage insurers. That upset Delfin a bit but my point was that the insurers are deducting any grants from the value of the house which makes the grant useless. Good news for us is that we found out we can settle using the grant (so it doesn't even touch our hands) as long as we had a few documents completed and a building contract. This means we no longer have to try and find a shortfall of $9500 and also lose our construction deposit.

the risk now is the bank comes back and does something stupid with the construction loan, I hope not. Also it means we're going to find it tough paying two mortgages towards the en of construction as we planned to use some of the grant to live off. Oh well, they say building isn't easy.

Either way, I'm getting excited again. I live every day dreaming about moving into a home that we can much better call our own. Our current house was a stepping stone, our next is much more for us.

Beware - Mortgage Insurers fighting government grants!

Hit a huge hurdle yesterday. For those that don't know Jordan Springs falls in an area which receives the Housing Affordability Fund. The fund was set-up by the Australian government to entice people to building brand new homes to stimulate the economy and to stimulate new property being built due to Australia's housing shortage. Jordan Springs rebate came to a total of $22,600. To get this the purchaser needs to submit building plans and a building contract at settlement.


Well last year (December) we had to obviously place our deposit on our land for the 5%, to do that we went to the banks and ensured there were not going to be any issues. We got everything pre-approved basically. The land we got approved but obviously our land was being released in June so we would have to sit on the approval until then. If you have been readin the blog you will know that our first loan attemp was knocked back because mortgage insurers wouldn't cover the grant (Keep in mind that there is only 2 mortgage insurers in Australia that the banks use). See this post for what happened before... OMG! What is wrong with Jordan Springs!! 


Anyway for some reason Westpac had on our loan contract that it expired April 24th and told us that there's no issues in just simply extending the loan, we would have to submit some payslips and savings again. They made us jump through hoops but we did it. A few weeks went by and I told Peta that something was up, this should have come back straight away, what happened next blew me away.


The other mortgage insurers are now saying what the Bankwest insurers were saying, they have valued the land less exactly $22,000. The amount of the grant. We've now been told we have to cover the difference. This is after we've paid a deposit on the land and a 2% payment to draw up our plans. We've basically spent $20,000 already.


The issue for us now is we have to use our construction loan 5% deposit to settle on the land. Obviously we will get the $22,600 back afterwards but all our plans have been stuffed up. We also need to find $9500 to settle with a building contract so we can get the grant, as we'll be $9500 short of the 5% building deposit payment.


So beware, the mortgage insurers are doing a dirty trick, and there out to screw people over. I'll be looking to write to the government in the next day or so and see what I can do it about, in the mean time I'll have to start selling my overweight body to try and find $9500 in two months.

Plans Updated - More to come...

See attached the latest plans. So far Kurmond have been really good with making the changes, they have forgotten a few things each time I've sent them my long list of details but they have turned the changes around very quickly, sometimes within hours.

I'm really impressed with the latest plan and I'm really happy with the design now, here are some changes that have been made in case you didn't notice.

• Changed alfresco single sliding doors to cornerless stacker. This cost us a fair whack to change as we need a metal support beam, but we decided it was something we couldn't fix later.
• Changed the front door to be taller and wider at 1200 wide. Allows us to bring things in easier.
• Change all door heights to 2340 on the bottom floor, bulkheads and window head height to 2400. We did this as we had 9" ceilings.
• Moved the gas points around. The one in the family room moved to the middle so perhaps later we can put one of those fireplace things in. Alfresco moved next to tap (east side), BBQ will probably go this side.
• Changed window heights and lengths.

Still a  few things to get fixed though but we're not far off.

• Need a manhole upstairs.
• AC ducts need to be shown upstairs
• Need clarification on Facade material
• Rainwater tank, missing? Plus slab for tank.
• Gas points not shown on slab plan.

We sent this off yesterday so hopefully should get an update today or tomorrow. Our next plan is to go in and speak with Kurmond about Electrical, carpet and tiles etc and sort out all the extras. This way we can work out whether we will be in trouble or not. I'm sure there's some surprises we don't know about yet.

Set of Plans - Dad What you doing this weekend?

Well funny story, we received our first plans and they put the wrong house on the plan. We quickly shot off some notes to them telling them to fix it and at the same time jotted some key things that were missing from the original plan. We've just got the 2nd set of plans now to take a look at. No electrical plan yet as we get to decide that but only a few changes. I decided to put a cold water point next to the fridge space in case we decide to get one of those fridges with the ice maker.

Take a look and let me know ideas and thoughts. I plan to hit my dad up this weekend and get his feedback too.

All ok - Kurmond Homes It Is

Bank has come back and we're all good to move on with our home. We've decided for the Strand 40 by Kurmond Homes. We will be customising things a bit inside to suit us so it's not exactly the same. The front lounge room will become my much needed Man Cave for example.

As for Facade we're thinking of mixing the traditional and ultra-modern together to make the facade we want. We like the sqaure garage rather then that little roof bit to the side, also the porch roof we like sqaure also to make it feel more modern. Saying that Peta doesn't mind the angled roof of the Kent ultra modern. What do you like?

Floorplan

Traditional Facade

Ultra Modern Facade

Ultra Modern - Kent

Kurmond Homes

So over the X'mas break we got in our car and as we do often go and look at some of the houses being built in the area. We noticed a lot of homes from builders we haven't heard of before, and while we were driving around we noticed that there were a large number of homes by a company called Kurmond Homes. After I got home I decided to look them up on the Internet. Their designs look pretty good, and they say on their website that they're pretty flexible with their designs. So I emailed them asking for a price list on Boxing day.

The very next morning I had an email back with the price list. One noticeable thing straight away is that I got an email from the director of the company. The company being owned by two brothers from Windsor, already a good start knowing your talking directly to the owners of the business so you know your going to get some good attention. There both builders themselves so I think it's good you're going to have the owners working on your home.

Their price list looks good, I've attached it below but as you can see much cheaper compared to the big builders and a lot of standard inclusions. Also while driving around looking at their homes they look to be much better built then some of the big companies we've seen, on par with Zac homes. They also tell you upfront what the extras are going to be. They also wrote back to me and said they have 3 in house designers to come up with your own plan. Not happy with their designs they will work with you for free to come up with something you want. I've emailed them back to work out a time to discuss what we're after, Kurmond homes so far are looking good, just might have to cancel my appointment with Zac homes now. By all means I think Zac homes look great, but if Kurmonds builds look just as polished and can do it cheaper then I'll be going with them for sure.

Zac Homes Meeting

So here's the gist. Zac homes can design a home and work with your budget, that's a good thing. The quality of their home is also much better then the project homes so that's another big plus. The problem though is the price is slightly dearer but the inclusions are obviously better.

1m2 = $1150 as of the 22/12/2010

Peta was keen on a 36-40 square home seeing this covered of all the room she wanted. Eden Breas Cremorne 37 would come to about $330k but we would still have to pay for fencing and things like that. But the house would have the squares she wants, but the design isn't 100% what we want. 1 Square is 9.29m2. To put it into perspective:

36 Squares = 334.44m2 = $384,606
37 Squares = 343.73m2 = $395,289
40 Squares = 371.60m2 = $427,340

We've been looking at what we can afford, looking at our plan we can probably go to $340k if there were no surprise costs. I'd like to keep 10k aside though for any hidden surprises that pop up.340k would be 295.65m2 equalling 31.82 squares.

Considering 1 square is 9.29m2 you're losing a room basically for each square you take away.

Zac homes are realistic and because of the custom design they believe if the space is used wisely the home won't feel small at all and it should be like there's no difference to what you want. They work with your budget, what you want and if rooms need to be bigger etc they take out things, inclusions and such. Take the carpet out to do later for example and add you can afford to add a square to the home.

Lots of things to think about over the next few weeks. We have scheduled another meeting Jan 20th to take the plunge. Until then we're going to try and work out how we can get what we really want. Perhaps a second job? I doubt it.

Emailed a friend today whose father in law use to own a large home company in NSW. He might have some advise for us or perhaps even know some people still in the game that could do a better deal. Worth asking anyway, can't hurt. He might be able to tell us how to get the bang for our buck.

All fun and games over the Christmas break.

Meeting with Zac Homes

Tomorrow morning we will be meeting with Zac homes for a sit down discussion about them, their prices, their work and what they can do for us. I'm putting together a list of expectations to give to them so we can get a realistic estimate from them. Lets see how this goes.

We did go check out some of their homes last week and most of them were pretty impressive. They were well built, nice designs and modern facades so couldn't knock them back.

Zac Homes Maybe?

Well it's been a long time, my little boy was in Hospital for a week due to having Adenovirus and Viral Pneumonia. Wasn't good to see him like this and the house plans basically came to a stop.

Some good news is that yesterday was the end of our cooling off period, it's now official we own our very own lot at Jordan Springs now. We handed over the 5% deposit and now we wait.

Still thinking about what home to build. We were side tracked a bit so we'll have to get our heads back in the game. Here's a few photo's of roughly where our block is going to sit. Our block is in line with this street and will be basically where those tress are on the left on that hilly bit.

While we were on the tour we also found out about a company called Zac homes. I like the sound of what these guys do and seeing they are a Penrith based company I like the fact of supporting locals.

These guys for $950 can create a custom designed home based on what you're after in a home and also design the facade. They told me if you've seen it somewhere else you can pretty much have your home the same way. They also allow family members on site during the construction to do work on the home if you want to save some money. They're estimating about $1000 per sqm, which sounds great. I'm going to research them and see if I can view some houses that they have done, but this might be a good option for us seeing none of the designs are perfect yet.

I jumped onto www.floorplanner.com and played around with a ground floor idea I'm playing with, I did 3 of them and so far the below is the best one. I'm sure the builders could spruce it up even more. What do you think? Wonder if Zac Homes can do something like the below.