And now some far better news (although it's hard to be as excited as we should be with our rental hassles going on at the same time).
We have bought 5 empty acres of land to build a house on!
In all our time looking at houses around Picton, none of them ever grabbed us as a perfect place to live in. All involved some fairly major compromises. But one thing that not even one of them had was a decent basic set of sustainability features. This is very important to us to save energy and reduce our environmental impact, and is something we both feel passionately about.
So, we started considering building our own house. The government helps out suggesting this too through the current stimulus measures of halving stamp duty (which we probably won't qualify for), and the fact that you only pay your stamp duty on land value when building, not the total cost of land and house built on top.
We really like the acre we are currently living on and if anything want more so that we can have horses and other animals grazing, a small orchard, other fruit and veg, etc., but around Picton there really are no acre or larger lots left. More might be coming, but nobody knows when and we want to be live in this house as a young family asap!
So we broadened our search to Thirlmere and Razorback, both places where larger lots are still available. We found a great 12.5 bushland acres on Razorback and spent months investigating it only to find out that due to legal complications it was unclear whether anyone had rights to build on it. Legal minefield, dropped that one like a hot potato.
Discouraged after all our effort at that point, we briefly considered just buying where we are now as "good enough", but in the end we wanted to change so much, and it was sold before we had a chance to.
I had never really stopped looking online - mainly using the excellent but mostly unknown Google Real Estate. One day I found new advertisements for a new subdivision we had visited months ago, but ruled out due to the excessive prices they were asking at the time. But now the prices were far more reasonable, so off I went for a drive.
Two cleared, flat, ex-farmland 5-acre lots remained for sale and I was there to look at one with a dam - I did, but was underwhelmed with the position and views so just for interest walked up to the adjoining one sans dam on my way back to the car. I turned around, took in the sweeping panoramic views, and immediately thought it a very real possibility.
The next 24 hours is a blur. Liz returned from work and I took her there the next morning. She was still unsure but in comparision to what we had seen more recently, it has far better views, was better located, and cheaper. I said "so, what about if I was to make an offer?" Brave Liz, after just seeing it, took a punt and said yes on the basis that it was not binding, just a verbal discussion between parties.
I rang the real estate office and that afternoon, 24 hours after I first saw it, 8 or so after Liz had, our first offer was accepted!
It turns out that the developer is extremely keen to say the least to offload these last two lots of land and move on to his next project, so he jumped at the chance, even at our low offer price. Two days ago the contracts were exchanged and we paid our 10%, and today the "Sold!" stickers go up!
What a huge step we've taken, and now the huge process of building what will hopefully be our lifetime family home begins.
More details of course to come.
My parents will be quick to tell you that as a teenager I was one to spend 10-15 minutes in the shower without much thought. Why not? There's plenty of water, and power to heat it, and besides I had more important things to do like adolescence and general
Tracked: Jun 14, 00:31