The first phase of our journey is
underway. After fighting with the, quite frankly insane, auction system
in Melbourne for established properties we turned to buying land at
Coburg Hill. Buying a house and land package (or piecing the two
together on an estate) has traditionally been looked down on by us.
Possibly due to my experiences of estates in the UK and Kylie's
experiences of some poorly implemented estates here.
Things at Coburg Hill seemed more promising. First of all, it is "central", being only 9km from the city. We live that distance away and know what that is like, as we are based only 2km due West at present. That closeness, combined with the creek adjacent and the access to bike trails it provides makes it feel very different to other places that we have briefly considered and rejected.
We first looked at a larger block of some 500m square. However, that plot had significant fall, was located as a sole element of the estate on the Northern outer edge, was orientated wrong, and had a bad feel about the neighbouring properties. A shame, as we really wanted a large block to work with so that we could develop a proper garden. However, armed with a trusty tape measure, I discovered that some of the smaller blocks in Stage 5 were actually pretty close to what we presently rent, and if we were clever about the house, we could get a big enough yard out of it.
We settled upon a 322m square lot, put a holding deposit on it and waited. After a few weeks the land was released and with no price hike associated we signed the contracts and moved to pay our deposit. The agent was perfectly happy with us paying a 5% deposit instead of a 10%, something to be mindful of as money in your pocket is always better than in theirs.
Things at Coburg Hill seemed more promising. First of all, it is "central", being only 9km from the city. We live that distance away and know what that is like, as we are based only 2km due West at present. That closeness, combined with the creek adjacent and the access to bike trails it provides makes it feel very different to other places that we have briefly considered and rejected.
We first looked at a larger block of some 500m square. However, that plot had significant fall, was located as a sole element of the estate on the Northern outer edge, was orientated wrong, and had a bad feel about the neighbouring properties. A shame, as we really wanted a large block to work with so that we could develop a proper garden. However, armed with a trusty tape measure, I discovered that some of the smaller blocks in Stage 5 were actually pretty close to what we presently rent, and if we were clever about the house, we could get a big enough yard out of it.
We settled upon a 322m square lot, put a holding deposit on it and waited. After a few weeks the land was released and with no price hike associated we signed the contracts and moved to pay our deposit. The agent was perfectly happy with us paying a 5% deposit instead of a 10%, something to be mindful of as money in your pocket is always better than in theirs.
The
land won't be titled until March 2014 (ish). So it will be a long wait
for finalising site costs and the like. However, with the lot
"purchased" we can barrel along into planning the build.
