Off to council, finally! Tiles and movement at the estate.

What a crazy and stressful month.

We had quite a few dramas trying to get all of the paperwork prepared and sent in to council. Things certainly did not move as we would have liked. We had to keep following things up with them and were  reassured time and again that everything would be done "next week". After a month of added delays, we were promised that we would lodge to council before the Christmas break. Then, the afternoon before our deadline, we were sent an email stating that it was not going to happen. 

While we had been informed that we were just waiting for the address to be changed on some paperwork, it turned out that we were still waiting for Basix and landscape plan as well. I contacted management who were straight onto getting everything sorted. True to their word, we were lodged to council on Masterton's last day of the year.

No we can just hope that we get approval before Masterton come back in 2014. That would be a great Christmas present. 

Today we had our tile appointment with Don's Tiles at Narellan. We ended up upgrading the kitchen splashback which was not too expensive. We also upgraded wall tiles in the main bath and ensuite and the floor and feature tiles in the ensuite. Then we made the main bath and ensuite floor to ceiling tiles.

Here are our tile selections:

Kitchen Splashback

Pre-construction and more autographs...

I had confirmation today from Masterton that we have officially entered the pre-construction phase. 

There was a lot of miscommunication when we signed our paperwork that appears to have resulted in some delays but all sorted now. 

I am trying to communicate by email as much as possible so things are clear and can be referred back to if needed. 

On another note, after Plan A, win Lotto, did not work out for me, my Plan B has worked. That is the plan where the bank gives me some money and then I give them twice as much back. Our paperwork all arrived today. Looks good but our lovely Mortgage Brooker will come over on the weekend to make sure it is all OK and get it to the bank on Monday for us. Oh well, maybe I can go back to Plan A at some point. 

Bring on the colours, tiles, carpet, air con an alarm appointments. 

Registration... Finally!

Well after some delays we finally received word today that our land has registered. 

Settlement will be on 20 November. 

Exciting times ahead. 

Signing the dotted lines, lots of them.

Today we headed into Warwick Farm to sign our contracts with Masterton. Pages and pages of it. We had a chat with our salesman and asked a few questions but we were out of there in 45 minutes as we had been given the contracts earlier and revised them before our appointment so we had our questions ready. It was all pretty straight forward.

Our plans are now with the engineers who will take about three weeks to do what they do. Hopefully they will work out our additional peering costs (if any) quicker than that.

We will also receive a phone call soon to set up our colours appointment. Looking forward to that and hope I can still afford to buy groceries when I am finished.

In the mean time we will head over to Q Central at Bella Vista to have our air con and alarm appointments as well as select tiles.

We are still waiting on our land to register. It is currently still 'under requisition'. Come on developers, give them what they need.

Plans, Land and Parting with Cash...

Well things have finally started to appear like they are falling in place. 

On 6/10/13, the developer submitted the subdivision to the Land and Information Service and our block should be registered 7-10 days from then. I checked on it yesterday and they have requested further information from the developer. Hopefully they provide that soon. The developer is DHA who plan to start building their own houses later this month. 

We had our external colours and plans appointment with Masterton on 16/10/13. We were advised when we got there that we were just supposed to sign off on the plans but we had not been given an opportunity to make changes and there were still a few things wrong. The guy was great and made the changes we requested. By Friday he had our revised plans and new variations ready for us. 

On Tuesday 22/10/13, our Masterton contracts were ready to sign. Unfortunately, due to work commitments, we won't be able to get over to sign them until next Tuesday but Masterton expressed posted them to us so we could send them to our Mortgage broker so he can submit to the bank for valuation. 

It looks like, after all these months, I might have gotten my timing perfect and we might be ready to submit to council as soon as we (and by we I mean us and the bank) officially own the land. 

Our Stamp Duty was also due on 22/10/13. It seems crazy to me that we have been taxed on something that does not even exist yet. If we were getting a home and land package, we would have gotten an additional 12 months to pay on top of the three months from exchange. But then we would have paid SD on the house as well as the land, much cheaper paying it on land only. 

Fingers crossed for registration in the next week. 

Cheers. 

Bricks, bricks and more bricks!

Well after a lot of thinking, I have finally decided on the outside colours. 

Brick = PGH Pearl Grey

Roof Tile = Monier Horizon Profile in Barramundi

Gutters and Facia = Monument

Down pipes = Dune

Cladding = ??? 

Our appointment to discuss plans is Wednesday week. After having the school holidays off work, and hubby able to take time off this week, we are both too busy to get to Warwick Farm next week. Typical!

Plans - Round 1

Yesterday we received our plans from Masterton and we are pretty happy. 

There are only a few minor changes. The rainwater tank is in the wrong position and we will need to change the laundry door to make it work where we want it. 

The facade is a new design. We have been told we are the first people to use this facade as it has only just become available. Unfortunately, this means we cannot see a completed home and we are just going off drawings. Fingers crossed it all works out in the end. 

The Facade. 

Our new home???

Villina on our Block

Ground Floor

First Floor

From the beginning...

After ruling out renovating, my husband and I had been looking for a home to buy in the nearby suburb of Voyager Point. It is a small quiet suburb with not a lot of real estate action so our search was very slow.

We were aware of a new subdivision but did not think the land would be in our budget. We had registered for updates and when we received an email with land prices, we were pleasantly surprised. The next morning, by 9:05, we had reserved our land.

Now the hunt for a home began. Our 'must have'list included a walk in robe, ensuite with double basin and shower big enough for double shower head, walk in pantry, open plan living with theatre and study downstairs and big rooms for the kids. Our 'it would also be nice if' list included a laundry big enough to leave the ironing board up in and an upstairs tv room for the kids.

I poured over dozen's of floor plans on the Internet. We seriously considered Wisdom and Clarendon before finding the Masterton Villina Grande. It had everything we were looking for.

We have now paid our initial deposit with Masterton and we are waiting on our plans to be drawn up. We are also waiting for our land to register. We were initially told August, then September, now we are looking at the October long weekend. I am hoping that our timing will be perfect and everything we all be ready together. Fingers crossed.

Our Block: