Getting you up to Speed

Due to nobody's request popular demand, I have decided to create a blog so family and friends can join Matt and I (and Ralph too) as we embark on building our first home.Cue me pulling my collar away from my neck in a nervous way.

So let's get you up to speed.

We had always planned on building a home. But we had planned to do it after living in our current home for 5 years. But after spending time in our friends new homes then coming back to our squeaky clean house we felt the time had arrived. 2 years Early.
Our first step was deciding where to buy.
That came relatively easy as our options were limited HA! We contacted an estate we had been eyeing off in a seductive-come-hither kind of way and enquired about land. We were thrilled to hear they had some in our price range. So we arranged a meeting. We had discussions, but unfortunately none of the land was the size we wanted. It was either too small or already sold. But there was hope. The second stage land release was going to be the following week he informed us. True to salesmen form, this turned out to be a lie. We called the following week to be told it will be another two weeks. When those two weeks had past he called us to say it would be another two weeks. But eventually after seasons changed, he finally called to say there was some land available. We had our appointment booked first thing on the Saturday morning. We arrived nice and early and easily picked the perfect block. The lady made a call to her manager for the best price only to come back to us and say it was $19k over our land budget. This instantly made my eyes go red and I could feel the tears approaching, the poor lady (who is clearly in the wrong industry) started to get tears too as she realised she was the dream killer. MURDERER!!! j/k she was a really lovely lady. So we left there heartbroken.
After the initial shock wore off  and I had been consoled by Matt and chocolate, we were back on our search. Our next plan was to search for land in existing estates. There were 2 that we liked. One was on budget and a massive piece of land. It was the piece of land that screamed "it's too good to be true". Turns out it was. The land had an easement of ten meters. TEN FRIGGEN METERS!!!! Which was a worry as it was only 17 meters wide. Good luck to whoever builds that skinny skyscraper. The last piece was a touch over our budget and in an awesome street close to a park and close to the new train station and shopping centre that is being built. We put in an offer 11k under our budget (25k under their sale price) and wasn't surprised when they rejected the offer. We then offered another 6k more which meant it was still 5k under our budget and we were shocked when they came back and said yes. Shocked as we thought this shit is about to get cray cray. A few hip thrusts and fist pumps later, we signed all the paperwork.
It was as simple and relatively stress free as that.
That is if you do not include our panic due to the estate we bought in not having any internet ports free and us making the hard decision to contact the bank and call off the purchase of the land, only to find out there were now ports available and us calling our bank back in the nick of time and saying we are a yes again so please continue with the paperwork.

Here is a peak at our land.
Right where they are standing is where our soon to be neighbours have been throwing their dogs poop over the fence. I have faith that this wont continue once we have moved in. But I shall keep you poopsted. But isn't it beautiful? Doesn't it just look like us? 

Peter (Matt's dad) and Matt. This is the view from the back of the land