About Our Land

Once decided on our land, then came the negotiations with the owners via the real estate agent.  This proved to be a little bit drawn out as the couple selling the land where going through a marriage break up, hence the real estate agent was dealing with two individuals that had different expectations.  However, we got there in the end.  The settlement date was scheduled for November 22nd which worked out perfectly for us because we were due to go overseas on the 27th of November.

The block of land we secured is approximately 1600m2, making it big enough to really fit whatever house we chose.  The block is wider at the back and narrower at the front, which means that we will need to keep in mind the width of the frontage when choosing a house.  The views are fantastic, so hopefully we'll be able to build a house that takes advantage of the position.

Searching & Researching

So now came the massive task of finding a block of land.

We found out pretty quickly that each piece of land had its own complications.

Most commonly:

• Trees (we would need permits to remove trees, therefore additional costs)
• Shape of block (many of the blocks where either very narrow or very wide limiting what we can/can't build)
• Slope on block (we found that anything slopping more than three metres was going to require a custom builder and a lot more money)
• Fire zone (all of the peninsula is considered a fire zone, the level of fire zone would determine how much more $$ it would cost to bring the house to the appropriate standard)

These were just a few things.

I was constantly reading the 'homeone' forum for information and reading blogs to get ideas and opinions.  On top of that I was making list of things that our potential house needed and therefore what kind of block would suit us.

The block we wanted should have all of these things:

• Size (at least 1000m2)
• Fairly flat (1-2M slope at most)
• Close to the beach (preferably walking distance)
• Closer to D's work (no more than a 20 minute drive)

After searching and researching we found two blocks that we liked.  Both fit our criteria in different ways and each block would require a completely different house.  

When I say different house, I mean that one block would suit a two story house and the other a single story.  This didn't really bother us because we were confident we would be able to find the right house plan to fit the block we chose.

A lot of people prefer to find the land to suit the house they like, but we really felt that the land was the biggest investment and therefore finding a piece of land that would really appreciate was very important to us.

So in the end we chose the biggest block, which also had amazing views of the bay and lucky for us was the cheapest.  It is also in the area I favour for schools the only down side is that it's 5 minutes further away from D's work compared to the other block but still 20ish minutes (not too bad).

Here is our block of land!!!!!

In the Beginning...

We thought that now would be a good time to start our first blog, not only so other people can read about building our new home but also so we can look back and read about our experiences and hopefully have a laugh!

It all started when we bought our first house (in Australia). It's a great three bedroom house on the Southern Mornington Peninsula.  Its a brick home with lots of potential to be an amazing home- if only we had the time and expertise to put into it.  We had lots of ideas in ways to improve the home but the idea of renovating and living in the house with two small children did not appeal to us.  

The bigger issue at hand is the amount of time D spends travelling to and from work.  He really needs to be closer and the more we look at our lifestyle and think about the future it has become increasing clear that our current location is not the right area for us.

So, we started 'the search'!  We spent a couple of weekends looking at established homes within our price range, it was pretty disheartening to say the least.  Whilst the homes we were looking at were lovely, they weren't really what we had in mind.  The biggest factor for us was that we wanted a house that didn't need any work- especially the kitchen and bathrooms.  Nothing we looked at fit into that criteria.  Ideally we wanted to be close to the beach (within walking distance) and close to good schools.  

I had always been very wary of building, but we decided that we really should look into it. And so we did....