Finance approved!! And got a date for land settlement

Today, we received an email from our Solicitor advising our finance is approved and the settlement will be on 15th May (3 days after we return to Brisbane). What a relieved because we were worried if we signed all required paperwork before we left although the bank manager was well organised and assured us everything they need are signed.

Couple of days ago our soil test report came back showing M class soil which is considerately good :)

Below is a list of soil class and it's description.

A - Mostly made up of sand and rock and has very little change when wet.

S - Slightly reactive clay in the soil with only slight movement due to moisture.

M - Moderately reactive clay with moderate movement due to moisture.

H - Highly reactive clay site with High ground movement.

E - Extremely reactive site with extreme movement due to moisture.

P - Soft soils, land slip, mine subsidence, etc. Collapsing soils due to moisture and soil structure changes.

Well, we're still in the US at the moment and had a great road trip from Los Angeles to Las Vegas in the Mustang for last 4 days and had an unforgettable birthday there now driving back to Los Angeles. Tomorrow we will be flying from Los Angeles to....NEW YORK!! Have seen a lot of movies filmed in New York City and now we going there to see it for ourselves. Someone told us NYC is bigger than Brisbane city which I thought to myself which City is not bigger than Brisbane? lol. 

I must say if you haven't visited Las Vegas highly recommend to visit and stay at Bellagio Hotel. The 4.5hrs road trip wasn't too bad (that was because I slept the whole way lol), saw a lot of nice scenes on the way. If we get to go there again I would do another road trip. 

Just a few photos from our Las Vegas trip.

Road trip to Las Vegas

Arrived at Las Vegas at last

Aahhh our lovely hotel - The Bellagio 

The fountain in front of our hotel at night. Truly magnificent 

A lovely gift for our honeymoon from the hotel. So sweet

Land contract, deposit, soil test and honeymoon!!

As soon we decided to purchase the land we made the first deposit of $1000 with Plantation Homes so they can order the soil test and we got advised it could take up to 3 weeks for the soil test report to come back. We were OK with it as this time next week we will be on the plane heading to the USA for our belated honeymoon for 3 weeks (Woohoo!).

Next day - Saturday 13th April - an appointment with LJ Hooker to sign the land contract and o.m.g we actually signed the contract!! The moment we walked out the door it felt so unreal we just couldn't believe we signed the contract because we never thought we would build one day. I guess we had mixed feelings between excited and nervous :).

Well, the sale board below says it all - Lot 1 is SOLD. Yes, only 1 block left and that is Lot 4 with the easement. Lot 3 with the easement got sold shortly after we purchased our Lot 1 so the last Lot might get sold pretty quickly too. 

This going to be exciting and we definitely going to be busy in the next several months with all the planning and deciding. 

OK now time to pack our luggage and head to our honeymoon trip to Los Angeles, Las Vegas and New York (^_^). By the time we get back our land will be settled! Can't wait! :))

This is how it all begins....

Beginning of the year, my husband and I was planning to purchase a second house to move in so we started to look around for an existing home thinking of a low set, 4 bed, 2 bath, double garage, less than 10 years old and with open plans. During these times we also looked at vacant land around the South East and South West with a slight interest to build a new house instead of purchasing an existing home that are up to 10 years old for around the same amount of money to build (well we hoped). 

Out of around 50 houses we inspected only one house interests us and it was an Auction sale (buggar). We did put in our decent offer but I guess the owner were looking for more so it wasn't successful. So we went to the Auction to place our bid. Within just the first 4-5 bids the price already went far over our budget so sadly, we did not end up putting in any bid. The house got sold for $565k which we thought it was quite high for a simple design and over 10 years old house (huge 900m2 block though).

And so then we went back to house hunting....fun fun.

Couple months went on, we drove back to one of the vacant land we looked at previously and my godness, we saw a few 'sold' stickers already placed on the sale board! So damn quick! We quickly called the real estate agency to see which Lots were still available and he mentioned the Lot 1, 3 and 4 were still available for us to choose. Husband interested in Lot 2 the most as it has a nice square shape (but it got sold damn!) where as Lot 1 has a curve at the front and Lot 3 & 4 has an easement going through the land on the right side.

We then went to Rochedale Display Village to see some display homes and spoke to a couple of sale consultants to obtain quotes so we can work out if it is a better option to build for the same value of money we going to spend on an existing home. Out of all the display homes we short listed to Metricon and Plantation Homes. We spoke to both and requested a quote. Plantation Homes consultant seems to respond quicker than Metricon. Nevertheness, we liked Plantation Homes design and its theme. Perfectly match with what we were after. We were going with Retreat 18m Lux Q3 so we were given a copy of floorplan so we can go home and have a fiddle and move things around to have it how we wanted. 

So on Sunday 7th April my husband went to the meeting with Plantation Home new home sale consultant to discuss the floorplan that we adjusted (I was at Sydney so he went alone hehe). He was given the quote based on the standard Retreat 18m Lux Q3 and the quote was not too high and it was not too low either but it can be something we can think about. 

After a few thoughts and a quick decision needs to be made before the good land get all SOLD - we decided to purchase the land and build instead of purchasing an existing home which may not have the house layout that we wanted. We end up choosing Lot 1. It has an odd shape but we might be able to work around this. Let's just hope :))