June 28, 2023 • 22 mins
Buying your first home is daunting, especially when you're building it too. But fortunately, this week's diarist had a very positive experience! Resigned to the thought they'd always be a renter, they decided to explore the option to build (on the advice of their real estate agent). Thanks to a first homeowner's grant and some very hard saving, they were soon on their way to a home of their own making.
Acknowledgement of Country By Natarsha Bamblett aka Queen Acknowledgements.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Property Playbook would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians
of the lands of where this podcast is recorded. There
were wondery people of the cooler nations acknowledging the culture,
the history and the connection to the lands of what
we call home. Let's get into it.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Hello and welcome back to The Property Playbook, the podcast
where we take you from A to V of all
things property. My name is Jessica Ricky, and I would
love to own a home one day. But until I do,
I'm asking for help from people all along the way,
including our amazing community who write into share their property
stories with us every week. Now this week I'm all
(00:47):
by myself because Victoria Divine is out sick unfortunately. But
I have you here listening today, so let me tell
you all about our diarist. They said. My husband and
I built our first home in Bachismash in twenty ninenineteen,
it was May twenty sixteen and we had just moved
from Newcastle, New South Wales to Melton on a split decision.
We had jobs, we didn't enjoy, no savings, and the
(01:08):
housing market in the Hunter was out of reach, so
moving to Melbourne was an exciting adventure. For us, and
we resigned to the thought that we would just always
be renteds. We rented a three bedroom investor home, but
we made it our own. In the year we had
lived in this property, it had been sold three times.
Each time hordes of people trampled through for inspections, private viewings,
real estate agents, and this experience was new and incredibly frustrating.
(01:30):
We had a great relationship with our real estate agent
who suggested we build. Plus, we could get our first
home owner grant of twenty thousand dollars for regional VIC
with no stamp duty. So we checked it out and
pretty quickly locked in a block. We saved hard, and
we feel so lucky that our experience was a positive one.
We got a great deal for our land and house,
and we are so grateful that our loan is very manageable.
Had we not taken this opportunity, I don't think we
(01:52):
would get into the property market. Now, Property direst it
sounds like you have had quite the journey getting here.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Yeah, it was pretty wild, but we're really lucky.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Amazing Now. I know that you have answered a few
of the things that I was going to ask you
in your letter, but we do love a structured moment here.
So we're going to go through the questions anyway, can
you tell me when and where did you purchase?
Speaker 3 (02:12):
So we purchased in twenty and sixteen in Backusmash. So
that's a little rural town just outside of Melton.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
And how much did you earn and what were you
doing for work?
Speaker 3 (02:23):
So at the time, I was administration for a local
government and I was on about sixty k. My husband
was a supermarket manager and he was on about sixty five.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
And so I'm assuming that you made that purchase with
your husband. Yes, Yeah, very exciting. Now, when you guys
were looking, what were some of the non negotiables that
were on your list?
Speaker 3 (02:43):
We definitely had to love the area that we were
going to buy in. We also had to love the
house that we were going to live in.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
For us, we had spoken to a few people who
suggested we buy a four bedroom house, but that didn't
work for us because there's two of us and we
didn't want to get a four bedroom house just for resale.
We wanted to actually have a house that was within
our means, that was affordable, yeah, and.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Something that was going to function in the way that
you guys wanted it to rather than having those empty
rooms just sitting there. Yeah, exactly, that makes total sense.
How much did you end up spending?
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Well, the land was one hundred and fifty three and
the house was about two hundred and thirty six and
a half. We also spent about twenty k on fencing, landscaping,
and retaining walls.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
I'm doing the math in my head. I think that's
about four hundred and six thousand including the fencing, the
walls and all that kind of stuff as well, which
sounds like an absolute bargain.
Speaker 4 (03:42):
Yeah, in this market, one hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Yeah, sign me up for that, baby. How much did
you guys have in your deposit when you purchested.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
We didn't have a lot, so we'd only sayed a
small amount and we needed to save ten percent of
the land in order to secure it, so I think
we had about two grands saved up, so we had
to do a FURBI of saving.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Wow, and what was that like? Going from oh my gosh,
like we didn't even think that we could build a
buy or do anything. We're just printing trealala and then
next minute you savings mode, we need this deposit. We
need to get it now. How did you find that switch?
Speaker 3 (04:23):
I found it quite difficult. I am a well I
was a buy now, pay later person.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Oh, one of those we've all been there. No, No,
we've all been there. Don't don't feel bad. I know
exactly how that feels.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
My husband is a fantastic saver. So for him, he
just switched gears and he was like, Okay, we're cooking more.
We're not spending money on things that we don't need.
We're ditching after pay.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Yeah, were like grow pryor from my cold dead hands.
That's hilarious. Did you use any government schemes or grants
to help you get to that deposit? No?
Speaker 3 (05:00):
So the only, as you mentioned before, the grant that
we got was the first homeowners grant and for regional
which backus Marsh falls under, we got twenty thousand and
no stamp duty. So that was really helpful.
Speaker 4 (05:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Incredible. And last question that I have for you before
we run to a really quick break is looking back,
is there anything about your journey that you would like
to change?
Speaker 3 (05:24):
Not so much with the house or the land as such,
with the building process, but I would say that the
landscaping is definitely something that we would change. We had
no idea about gardening or the maintenance, so I think
if we could go back, we would learn a little
bit more and definitely change what we've got now.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Was that landscaping a part of that twenty thousand dollars
spend that you mentioned before or was it a part
of your build or is it something additional that you
guys did afterwards.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
So it was something additional that we had to do.
But we did have a time restriction from the developer.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Oh yes, I've heard about that, where if it's not
done by a certain time, you have like an extra
fee or a levee or something, don't you.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
Yes, we had to in the first year of living
in the house at least start the landscapingh.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Okay, that's really interesting. I have a few questions about
what the experience of building was like, because I know
that that's something that people want to know about. But
I'm going to wait till after the break, So don't
go anywhere, guys. Welcome back everybody. Today we're chatting to
a property diarist all about her experience with building her
first home, and I want to start off by talking
to you about the experience of kind of realizing that
(06:31):
building was even an option for you, because I think
a lot of us have been in that place where
we go, oh my gosh, you just look at the market.
I can't affought to buy, I can't afford to build.
I'm just going to be renting, and that's okay, that's fine.
I've made my peace with it. And then all of
a sudden you're having all of these people come through
your house, which is the worst experience in the world.
And you said your real estate agent was the one
(06:53):
who suggested that you look into building on your own.
How much research did you have to do before deciding
that that was something that might be a really good
option for you.
Speaker 4 (07:02):
Yeah, we did a fair bit of research.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
I'm a research queen, so I wanted to make sure
it was the right decision. As you mentioned, we didn't
think that we were going to get into the property
market at all, so it was pretty amazing to think
that we could even get our foot in.
Speaker 4 (07:16):
For us.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
Building was better because we didn't have the deposit or
the time to say for a deposit for a house
fully established. So research into things like trying to understand
the building process in itself, like with construction loans, the
setup of land easements, type of soils, things like that.
(07:39):
There was a fair bit to get into, and the
sales office was great. They were really fantastic to deal with,
and it was exciting when we sort of started to
realize that this was actually going to happen.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
It's quite overwhelming. It's actually funny. We've just done an
episode really recently with someone who works at a home
building company, because like, building is one of those things
that seems very mystifying. You don't know, or I personally
have had no idea before I did that episode about
what that process really entails and how many things you
can change, how much flexibility there is, you know, where
(08:14):
did you even begin to start looking to find the
right match for you, because there are I would argue tens,
if not hundreds of builders out there in every state
that you could choose from. Did you just start going
to display homes? Did you have a recommendation from somebody?
How did you kind of make that choice? Because it
feels like a really big one. The person who's building
your home is a big deal and you're putting a
(08:36):
lot of money into it.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
Yeah, that took a long time. We have a few
friends that built, so we did get some recommendations, but
for us, it was definitely going through all the display
homes in the area, and we're lucky that we live
in an area that is packed.
Speaker 4 (08:51):
Full of display homes.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
It was overwhelming, but it was definitely helpful. We ended
up settling on the mostar because what we liked about
them was they had very practical homes that didn't have
all these different turns and.
Speaker 4 (09:06):
Areas and things like that.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
But I think what helped was actually going into the
display home and acting as if you were living in it,
which is strange everybody else.
Speaker 4 (09:15):
In the room. It's trying to get.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
A feel for what it would feel like if you
were living here. So you know, would I place my
stuff here, is this practical? If we extended out the porch,
would that be better? If we had a plug here,
would that be more useful? And just really sort of
getting a good vibe for living in this house.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
That is such a good tip. And it's really interesting
because something that I learned is when you are building,
you have kind of your base foundational If you're going
with a volume builder, like what you're talking about, this
is what the house is, how it comes. But then
there are all of these options with things that you
can choose to add on, and there are things that
you can move around, like your powerpoints, or you can
(09:56):
add extra powerpoints, or you can add extra lights to
rooms and stuff. So it's very smart that when you
were looking at those homes you were thinking about the
functionality of the spaces and where would they go. Because
I think when you look at a display home, and
I did this, I went and I looked at all
of them in one day. I looked at dozens and dozens,
which was a terrible idea and I wouldn't recommend it.
(10:17):
But you see this beautiful, idealistic house and you go, oh,
I could live in this house. But you go, well, no,
the rug is white. You know, the walls are white.
I have a dog. The dog's getting everything dirty. Where
am I going to put my shoes? There's an open space,
there's nowhere to put the shoes. So we're going to
have a pile by the door. And there's all of
these things that you go for the way that I live,
(10:37):
it's just not going to work. So I feel like
that is such a good tip to kind of envision it.
Did you guys end up making any changes or adjustments
to the pre existing floor plan that they had for
that property that you guys chose.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
Yeah, they were really flexible with how we wanted to
set up the house. So we changed the front room
which was originally going to be the bedroom, and we
put the bedroom more to the center of the house.
And now the front room is like a library for us.
So we had rented properties before where the front room
was the bedroom. I always hated having the bedroom at
(11:16):
the front of the house.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
I could not agree more. I posted a TikTok about
this not too ago, just not working, if anyone's to flowing
me on titok. But I was talking about how we
are renting currently and our master bedroom is at the
front of the house, which you know, people can debate
back and forth whether or not they think that's a
good idea. I suppose, But we only have blinds and
no curtains, so if you open the blinds during the day.
(11:39):
When we moved into the rental, people could just look
straight into the bedroom and I was like, this is
very strange and uncomfortable, and I don't like.
Speaker 4 (11:45):
It at all.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
So I totally got what you mean about moving it,
and I love the idea of having a library. That's
super cool.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
Yeah, my husband's a massive nerd.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Yeah, that's amazing. Were there any other bits and pieces
that you changed? You said that you had to do
your fencing yourself. And something that I learned when we
did that episode recently on building house and land packages
is that things that you sometimes think would be included
are not. Sometimes flaws aren't included, which blew my little mind,
(12:17):
or driveways like things that seem essential to use a
house are just not a part of it. Were there
any things like that that were not a part of
your initial contract that you had to add on that
you were surprised by.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
We had a lot of inclusions, which was great. We
had a driveway. The landscaping was not included. The retaining
walls was a bit of a shock because they cut
into the land because the land was relatively flat when
we first looked at it, but in order to get
a flat slab, they had to cut into it, which
meant that we had to then put retaining walls in.
(12:49):
So that was an added cost that we hadn't thought
about previously.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
How expensive, if you don't mind me asking, is to
put a retaining walling because in my brain, you go,
it's a wall, Like, how bad could it be? Your
face is very bad?
Speaker 4 (13:02):
Depending on what you want.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Yeah, oh no, not a nice surprise. So we went
with wood yep.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
With the wood fencing as well.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
It costs ten grand all up, so I think the
retaining walls themselves were over five thousand.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Oh my good. Yeah, that's not a fun surprise to have.
You know, by the way, just got to add find
an extra ten thousand dollars. No problems, Thank you so much. Wow.
What was the rest of the landscaping experience like? So
that wasn't included in your build, but there was a
requirement with your your strata or your area that you
had to get that done with in the first twelve months,
(13:39):
and you said that was something you wanted to change.
So how is the experience and what kind of bits
and pieces did you look back on and go, oh,
don't love how we did that?
Speaker 3 (13:49):
The experience It was difficult because trades were really hard
to find in the area because everybody is building. We
probably would have change the type of grass that we have.
We just got left it up to the landscape. And
he was like, I'm going to do this. I'll add
trees in here, I'll put some roses here, it'll all
be cool. And it looked lovely at first, but after
(14:13):
a little while it started to not look so great
because we didn't know how to upkeep the plants.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Yeah. Yeah, plants are hard. One of our last rentals.
Things look really cute when they're small and little, and
then they grow it. Because we had a laven to
bush out the front of our house and I remember
it took over two thirds of the front yard at
one point and I was just like, okay, we need
to cut it back. And I cut it back and
it was just sticks. There was nothing, and I was like, oh,
it's not very cute. Yeah, they are wild those Did
(14:43):
you have to replace anything or make any changes or
did you kind of just go, oh, we're going to
have to learn to have green thumbs.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
Oh so I've learned to have.
Speaker 4 (14:53):
A green thumb.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Very impressive, Thank you very much.
Speaker 4 (14:56):
I enjoy it.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
So we've got these massive lily pill trees down the
side of the house and we've had to pay someone
to trim them down because they grow really fast and
they drop a lot of berries that are really messy.
And out the front we had these little plants that
have been eaten by rabbits.
Speaker 4 (15:15):
So we're actually in.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
The process of putting in new shrubbery out of.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
The fromatic exciting there would be. I guess if you
guys are rural, you would have a lot of I
guess those more wild animals floating around, wouldn't you.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
Yeah, so lots of bunnies that really enjoy our nice
little flower plants.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Oh it's nice that they're enjoying it, but if they
could enjoy it from a distance, I feel like that
would be more ideal, wouldn't it. Oh my goodness. Did
you build in an area that you had lived before,
or did you kind of take a stab and find
the block that fit your budget and fit the size
of property you wanted to go on and hope that
(15:52):
you lacked the area.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
The area was fairly new, which was different. We knew
the town itself, were just little bit up from the town,
but the rest of the area looked really nice. So
we were kind of like, well, this looks okay, we'll
go here. But we went with a corner block and
that was because it was about twenty thousand k cheaper,
(16:14):
Because no one likes corner blocks apparently, but we love
our corner block.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
It's so interesting because I remember when I worked in
real estate, people used to say corner blocks are really
good because you can have dual access sometimes you know,
pending council, etc. And they're often bigger. But then I
personally go, I feel like I'd rather be sandwiched. I
feel like I'd feel safer if I've smushed in between
two houses. So people kind of tend to go one
(16:38):
of two ways. But it sounds like you're loving the
corner block, which is awesome. You said just before that
it was interesting moving to a developing area. What did
you mean by interesting? You had a little look.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
Yeah, so you can almost see the progression of timeline
in which people have built. So the first stage is
always kind of like, oh, I can imagine that this
looks good maybe a year ago, and then the next
stage looks better, and the next stage looks better, and
it's kind of I think you look at the last
stage because that's closer to yours, and you think, wow,
that looks amazing, and then you imagine that your area's.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
Going to look like that.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
But I think it's probably a really good tip for
people to research the developer and see what they've done
in other areas, because they did make a few promises
to us that they didn't keep.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
I have heard that this is a very common thing,
and it obviously doesn't necessarily have anything to do with
the builder, the person who built your home, but as
you said, the developers who are working on the estates
or the suburbs, if you will. It's very common when
trying to sell people on land that they say there's
going to be a school, there's going to be a
(17:48):
shopping center, there's going to be all of these things,
and then you know, five years, ten years down the track,
that's not the case. I'man a Facebook group for my
local estate, which is always a fun time, but a
lot of people complain in there, people who have loved land.
I know, they get a bit spicy, don't they. It's
really funny, but weird is renting, obviously, but a lot
(18:09):
of people who have bought land are very frequently complaining
about things that were said that were going to happen
that didn't. What was it for you guys? What kind
of amenities or things were they saying would be available
to that aren't there yet?
Speaker 3 (18:20):
Yeah, they promised there's some nice trees out the front,
and we didn't get those until at least two years
after we moved in, and then a lot of them
were ruined because people were still building and running over
them and.
Speaker 4 (18:33):
Things like that.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
They also promised us a really lovely park that is
now just sort of like a swampy, weird area that
no one goes to.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Yeah, that's not very exciting that it'd be extra disappointing
if you had kids.
Speaker 4 (18:45):
Disappointing.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Yeah, and you're like, I wanted the park, or if
you had dogs and you wanted to take the dogs
to the parks they could run around.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
Yeah, we've got dogs, so it would have been nice.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
What kind of dogs do you have?
Speaker 3 (18:54):
I have two French bulldogs, so cute.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
Overall, though, are you happy with the experience of moving
to a newly developing area.
Speaker 4 (19:03):
Yeah, I am.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
Happy with the experience. We built around the same time
as our neighbors, so we've got a really good relationship
with our neighbors, and I think that that helps because
you're sharing the experience together, and the area is still
really nice and we're close to town, and again, like
the loan is really affordable. So I can't really complain
about much at all.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Yeah, you guys really thought it through when you kept
things within your means, especially with our interest rates I
think have gone over the past eighteen months where it's
been a little bit crazy. I have one other question
about the building experience, and this may be different for
you because obviously it's been a few years since you
did it, But something I'm hearing a lot about at
the moment is timelines being pushed out expenses going up
(19:46):
during the process, because obviously there's shortages of labash, which
you did mention, or shortages of materials. Did you have
anything like that pop up? What was your overall thoughts
on building?
Speaker 3 (19:58):
I would definitely build again, although like you said, we
built pre COVID, so I'm not sure if the experience
would be different now, but we did experience. Ours was
probably council based because it took over two years for
our land to title in the first place, which was
really annoying. But when it actually titled, the build only
(20:20):
took about six months, so that was fine. We did
have one issue where somebody broke the bathroom window, and
then we had to wait a little bit for someone
to come and replace that.
Speaker 4 (20:31):
Yeah, just kids in the area.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
No, that's such a little I'm going to sound really old.
It was going to be like those little hooligans. And
then I was like, I sound like someone waving their
walking stick in the air.
Speaker 4 (20:44):
Through out there, just chasing them down the street.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Oh my goodness, how frustrating. But that I'm assuming was
all looked after by your builder. That wasn't an additional
expense for you, guys, was it.
Speaker 4 (20:54):
No, that was looked after by them though, were.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Oh that's good, that's really good. It's cool to here,
and I'm really grateful to you for sharing your story
with us because I think a lot of the people
that we've spoken to so far on the show are
people who have bought established and it is people do
always have such differing opinions on whether or not building
is good and blah blah blah blah. So it's really
cool to hear what that experience was like for you,
(21:16):
and you know some of the ins and outs of
choosing bits and pieces. So thank you so much for
joining me today. I'm very grateful for it. And guys,
if you're listening and you want to talk to somebody
about building a property or If you have questions that
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(21:41):
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Let's quickly wrap the boring but important stuff. The advice
shared on the Property Playbook is generally in nature and
does not consider your individual circumstances. The Property Playbook exists
purely for educational purposes and should not be relied upon
(22:03):
to make an investment or a financial decision. Thank you
for joining me Property Diarist, and I will see everybody
next week. Bye,
The Property Playbook would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians
of the lands of where this podcast is recorded. There
were wondery people of the cooler nations acknowledging the culture,
the history and the connection to the lands of what
we call home. Let's get into it.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Hello and welcome back to The Property Playbook, the podcast
where we take you from A to V of all
things property. My name is Jessica Ricky, and I would
love to own a home one day. But until I do,
I'm asking for help from people all along the way,
including our amazing community who write into share their property
stories with us every week. Now this week I'm all
(00:47):
by myself because Victoria Divine is out sick unfortunately. But
I have you here listening today, so let me tell
you all about our diarist. They said. My husband and
I built our first home in Bachismash in twenty ninenineteen,
it was May twenty sixteen and we had just moved
from Newcastle, New South Wales to Melton on a split decision.
We had jobs, we didn't enjoy, no savings, and the
(01:08):
housing market in the Hunter was out of reach, so
moving to Melbourne was an exciting adventure. For us, and
we resigned to the thought that we would just always
be renteds. We rented a three bedroom investor home, but
we made it our own. In the year we had
lived in this property, it had been sold three times.
Each time hordes of people trampled through for inspections, private viewings,
real estate agents, and this experience was new and incredibly frustrating.
(01:30):
We had a great relationship with our real estate agent
who suggested we build. Plus, we could get our first
home owner grant of twenty thousand dollars for regional VIC
with no stamp duty. So we checked it out and
pretty quickly locked in a block. We saved hard, and
we feel so lucky that our experience was a positive one.
We got a great deal for our land and house,
and we are so grateful that our loan is very manageable.
Had we not taken this opportunity, I don't think we
(01:52):
would get into the property market. Now, Property direst it
sounds like you have had quite the journey getting here.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Yeah, it was pretty wild, but we're really lucky.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Amazing Now. I know that you have answered a few
of the things that I was going to ask you
in your letter, but we do love a structured moment here.
So we're going to go through the questions anyway, can
you tell me when and where did you purchase?
Speaker 3 (02:12):
So we purchased in twenty and sixteen in Backusmash. So
that's a little rural town just outside of Melton.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
And how much did you earn and what were you
doing for work?
Speaker 3 (02:23):
So at the time, I was administration for a local
government and I was on about sixty k. My husband
was a supermarket manager and he was on about sixty five.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
And so I'm assuming that you made that purchase with
your husband. Yes, Yeah, very exciting. Now, when you guys
were looking, what were some of the non negotiables that
were on your list?
Speaker 3 (02:43):
We definitely had to love the area that we were
going to buy in. We also had to love the
house that we were going to live in.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
For us, we had spoken to a few people who
suggested we buy a four bedroom house, but that didn't
work for us because there's two of us and we
didn't want to get a four bedroom house just for resale.
We wanted to actually have a house that was within
our means, that was affordable, yeah, and.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Something that was going to function in the way that
you guys wanted it to rather than having those empty
rooms just sitting there. Yeah, exactly, that makes total sense.
How much did you end up spending?
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Well, the land was one hundred and fifty three and
the house was about two hundred and thirty six and
a half. We also spent about twenty k on fencing, landscaping,
and retaining walls.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
I'm doing the math in my head. I think that's
about four hundred and six thousand including the fencing, the
walls and all that kind of stuff as well, which
sounds like an absolute bargain.
Speaker 4 (03:42):
Yeah, in this market, one hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Yeah, sign me up for that, baby. How much did
you guys have in your deposit when you purchested.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
We didn't have a lot, so we'd only sayed a
small amount and we needed to save ten percent of
the land in order to secure it, so I think
we had about two grands saved up, so we had
to do a FURBI of saving.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Wow, and what was that like? Going from oh my gosh,
like we didn't even think that we could build a
buy or do anything. We're just printing trealala and then
next minute you savings mode, we need this deposit. We
need to get it now. How did you find that switch?
Speaker 3 (04:23):
I found it quite difficult. I am a well I
was a buy now, pay later person.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Oh, one of those we've all been there. No, No,
we've all been there. Don't don't feel bad. I know
exactly how that feels.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
My husband is a fantastic saver. So for him, he
just switched gears and he was like, Okay, we're cooking more.
We're not spending money on things that we don't need.
We're ditching after pay.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Yeah, were like grow pryor from my cold dead hands.
That's hilarious. Did you use any government schemes or grants
to help you get to that deposit? No?
Speaker 3 (05:00):
So the only, as you mentioned before, the grant that
we got was the first homeowners grant and for regional
which backus Marsh falls under, we got twenty thousand and
no stamp duty. So that was really helpful.
Speaker 4 (05:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Incredible. And last question that I have for you before
we run to a really quick break is looking back,
is there anything about your journey that you would like
to change?
Speaker 3 (05:24):
Not so much with the house or the land as such,
with the building process, but I would say that the
landscaping is definitely something that we would change. We had
no idea about gardening or the maintenance, so I think
if we could go back, we would learn a little
bit more and definitely change what we've got now.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Was that landscaping a part of that twenty thousand dollars
spend that you mentioned before or was it a part
of your build or is it something additional that you
guys did afterwards.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
So it was something additional that we had to do.
But we did have a time restriction from the developer.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Oh yes, I've heard about that, where if it's not
done by a certain time, you have like an extra
fee or a levee or something, don't you.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
Yes, we had to in the first year of living
in the house at least start the landscapingh.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Okay, that's really interesting. I have a few questions about
what the experience of building was like, because I know
that that's something that people want to know about. But
I'm going to wait till after the break, So don't
go anywhere, guys. Welcome back everybody. Today we're chatting to
a property diarist all about her experience with building her
first home, and I want to start off by talking
to you about the experience of kind of realizing that
(06:31):
building was even an option for you, because I think
a lot of us have been in that place where
we go, oh my gosh, you just look at the market.
I can't affought to buy, I can't afford to build.
I'm just going to be renting, and that's okay, that's fine.
I've made my peace with it. And then all of
a sudden you're having all of these people come through
your house, which is the worst experience in the world.
And you said your real estate agent was the one
(06:53):
who suggested that you look into building on your own.
How much research did you have to do before deciding
that that was something that might be a really good
option for you.
Speaker 4 (07:02):
Yeah, we did a fair bit of research.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
I'm a research queen, so I wanted to make sure
it was the right decision. As you mentioned, we didn't
think that we were going to get into the property
market at all, so it was pretty amazing to think
that we could even get our foot in.
Speaker 4 (07:16):
For us.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
Building was better because we didn't have the deposit or
the time to say for a deposit for a house
fully established. So research into things like trying to understand
the building process in itself, like with construction loans, the
setup of land easements, type of soils, things like that.
(07:39):
There was a fair bit to get into, and the
sales office was great. They were really fantastic to deal with,
and it was exciting when we sort of started to
realize that this was actually going to happen.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
It's quite overwhelming. It's actually funny. We've just done an
episode really recently with someone who works at a home
building company, because like, building is one of those things
that seems very mystifying. You don't know, or I personally
have had no idea before I did that episode about
what that process really entails and how many things you
can change, how much flexibility there is, you know, where
(08:14):
did you even begin to start looking to find the
right match for you, because there are I would argue tens,
if not hundreds of builders out there in every state
that you could choose from. Did you just start going
to display homes? Did you have a recommendation from somebody?
How did you kind of make that choice? Because it
feels like a really big one. The person who's building
your home is a big deal and you're putting a
(08:36):
lot of money into it.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
Yeah, that took a long time. We have a few
friends that built, so we did get some recommendations, but
for us, it was definitely going through all the display
homes in the area, and we're lucky that we live
in an area that is packed.
Speaker 4 (08:51):
Full of display homes.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
It was overwhelming, but it was definitely helpful. We ended
up settling on the mostar because what we liked about
them was they had very practical homes that didn't have
all these different turns and.
Speaker 4 (09:06):
Areas and things like that.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
But I think what helped was actually going into the
display home and acting as if you were living in it,
which is strange everybody else.
Speaker 4 (09:15):
In the room. It's trying to get.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
A feel for what it would feel like if you
were living here. So you know, would I place my
stuff here, is this practical? If we extended out the porch,
would that be better? If we had a plug here,
would that be more useful? And just really sort of
getting a good vibe for living in this house.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
That is such a good tip. And it's really interesting
because something that I learned is when you are building,
you have kind of your base foundational If you're going
with a volume builder, like what you're talking about, this
is what the house is, how it comes. But then
there are all of these options with things that you
can choose to add on, and there are things that
you can move around, like your powerpoints, or you can
(09:56):
add extra powerpoints, or you can add extra lights to
rooms and stuff. So it's very smart that when you
were looking at those homes you were thinking about the
functionality of the spaces and where would they go. Because
I think when you look at a display home, and
I did this, I went and I looked at all
of them in one day. I looked at dozens and dozens,
which was a terrible idea and I wouldn't recommend it.
(10:17):
But you see this beautiful, idealistic house and you go, oh,
I could live in this house. But you go, well, no,
the rug is white. You know, the walls are white.
I have a dog. The dog's getting everything dirty. Where
am I going to put my shoes? There's an open space,
there's nowhere to put the shoes. So we're going to
have a pile by the door. And there's all of
these things that you go for the way that I live,
(10:37):
it's just not going to work. So I feel like
that is such a good tip to kind of envision it.
Did you guys end up making any changes or adjustments
to the pre existing floor plan that they had for
that property that you guys chose.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
Yeah, they were really flexible with how we wanted to
set up the house. So we changed the front room
which was originally going to be the bedroom, and we
put the bedroom more to the center of the house.
And now the front room is like a library for us.
So we had rented properties before where the front room
was the bedroom. I always hated having the bedroom at
(11:16):
the front of the house.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
I could not agree more. I posted a TikTok about
this not too ago, just not working, if anyone's to flowing
me on titok. But I was talking about how we
are renting currently and our master bedroom is at the
front of the house, which you know, people can debate
back and forth whether or not they think that's a
good idea. I suppose, But we only have blinds and
no curtains, so if you open the blinds during the day.
(11:39):
When we moved into the rental, people could just look
straight into the bedroom and I was like, this is
very strange and uncomfortable, and I don't like.
Speaker 4 (11:45):
It at all.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
So I totally got what you mean about moving it,
and I love the idea of having a library. That's
super cool.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
Yeah, my husband's a massive nerd.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Yeah, that's amazing. Were there any other bits and pieces
that you changed? You said that you had to do
your fencing yourself. And something that I learned when we
did that episode recently on building house and land packages
is that things that you sometimes think would be included
are not. Sometimes flaws aren't included, which blew my little mind,
(12:17):
or driveways like things that seem essential to use a
house are just not a part of it. Were there
any things like that that were not a part of
your initial contract that you had to add on that
you were surprised by.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
We had a lot of inclusions, which was great. We
had a driveway. The landscaping was not included. The retaining
walls was a bit of a shock because they cut
into the land because the land was relatively flat when
we first looked at it, but in order to get
a flat slab, they had to cut into it, which
meant that we had to then put retaining walls in.
(12:49):
So that was an added cost that we hadn't thought
about previously.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
How expensive, if you don't mind me asking, is to
put a retaining walling because in my brain, you go,
it's a wall, Like, how bad could it be? Your
face is very bad?
Speaker 4 (13:02):
Depending on what you want.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Yeah, oh no, not a nice surprise. So we went
with wood yep.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
With the wood fencing as well.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
It costs ten grand all up, so I think the
retaining walls themselves were over five thousand.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Oh my good. Yeah, that's not a fun surprise to have.
You know, by the way, just got to add find
an extra ten thousand dollars. No problems, Thank you so much. Wow.
What was the rest of the landscaping experience like? So
that wasn't included in your build, but there was a
requirement with your your strata or your area that you
had to get that done with in the first twelve months,
(13:39):
and you said that was something you wanted to change.
So how is the experience and what kind of bits
and pieces did you look back on and go, oh,
don't love how we did that?
Speaker 3 (13:49):
The experience It was difficult because trades were really hard
to find in the area because everybody is building. We
probably would have change the type of grass that we have.
We just got left it up to the landscape. And
he was like, I'm going to do this. I'll add
trees in here, I'll put some roses here, it'll all
be cool. And it looked lovely at first, but after
(14:13):
a little while it started to not look so great
because we didn't know how to upkeep the plants.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Yeah. Yeah, plants are hard. One of our last rentals.
Things look really cute when they're small and little, and
then they grow it. Because we had a laven to
bush out the front of our house and I remember
it took over two thirds of the front yard at
one point and I was just like, okay, we need
to cut it back. And I cut it back and
it was just sticks. There was nothing, and I was like, oh,
it's not very cute. Yeah, they are wild those Did
(14:43):
you have to replace anything or make any changes or
did you kind of just go, oh, we're going to
have to learn to have green thumbs.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
Oh so I've learned to have.
Speaker 4 (14:53):
A green thumb.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Very impressive, Thank you very much.
Speaker 4 (14:56):
I enjoy it.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
So we've got these massive lily pill trees down the
side of the house and we've had to pay someone
to trim them down because they grow really fast and
they drop a lot of berries that are really messy.
And out the front we had these little plants that
have been eaten by rabbits.
Speaker 4 (15:15):
So we're actually in.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
The process of putting in new shrubbery out of.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
The fromatic exciting there would be. I guess if you
guys are rural, you would have a lot of I
guess those more wild animals floating around, wouldn't you.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
Yeah, so lots of bunnies that really enjoy our nice
little flower plants.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Oh it's nice that they're enjoying it, but if they
could enjoy it from a distance, I feel like that
would be more ideal, wouldn't it. Oh my goodness. Did
you build in an area that you had lived before,
or did you kind of take a stab and find
the block that fit your budget and fit the size
of property you wanted to go on and hope that
(15:52):
you lacked the area.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
The area was fairly new, which was different. We knew
the town itself, were just little bit up from the town,
but the rest of the area looked really nice. So
we were kind of like, well, this looks okay, we'll
go here. But we went with a corner block and
that was because it was about twenty thousand k cheaper,
(16:14):
Because no one likes corner blocks apparently, but we love
our corner block.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
It's so interesting because I remember when I worked in
real estate, people used to say corner blocks are really
good because you can have dual access sometimes you know,
pending council, etc. And they're often bigger. But then I
personally go, I feel like I'd rather be sandwiched. I
feel like I'd feel safer if I've smushed in between
two houses. So people kind of tend to go one
(16:38):
of two ways. But it sounds like you're loving the
corner block, which is awesome. You said just before that
it was interesting moving to a developing area. What did
you mean by interesting? You had a little look.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
Yeah, so you can almost see the progression of timeline
in which people have built. So the first stage is
always kind of like, oh, I can imagine that this
looks good maybe a year ago, and then the next
stage looks better, and the next stage looks better, and
it's kind of I think you look at the last
stage because that's closer to yours, and you think, wow,
that looks amazing, and then you imagine that your area's.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
Going to look like that.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
But I think it's probably a really good tip for
people to research the developer and see what they've done
in other areas, because they did make a few promises
to us that they didn't keep.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
I have heard that this is a very common thing,
and it obviously doesn't necessarily have anything to do with
the builder, the person who built your home, but as
you said, the developers who are working on the estates
or the suburbs, if you will. It's very common when
trying to sell people on land that they say there's
going to be a school, there's going to be a
(17:48):
shopping center, there's going to be all of these things,
and then you know, five years, ten years down the track,
that's not the case. I'man a Facebook group for my
local estate, which is always a fun time, but a
lot of people complain in there, people who have loved land.
I know, they get a bit spicy, don't they. It's
really funny, but weird is renting, obviously, but a lot
(18:09):
of people who have bought land are very frequently complaining
about things that were said that were going to happen
that didn't. What was it for you guys? What kind
of amenities or things were they saying would be available
to that aren't there yet?
Speaker 3 (18:20):
Yeah, they promised there's some nice trees out the front,
and we didn't get those until at least two years
after we moved in, and then a lot of them
were ruined because people were still building and running over
them and.
Speaker 4 (18:33):
Things like that.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
They also promised us a really lovely park that is
now just sort of like a swampy, weird area that
no one goes to.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Yeah, that's not very exciting that it'd be extra disappointing
if you had kids.
Speaker 4 (18:45):
Disappointing.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Yeah, and you're like, I wanted the park, or if
you had dogs and you wanted to take the dogs
to the parks they could run around.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
Yeah, we've got dogs, so it would have been nice.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
What kind of dogs do you have?
Speaker 3 (18:54):
I have two French bulldogs, so cute.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
Overall, though, are you happy with the experience of moving
to a newly developing area.
Speaker 4 (19:03):
Yeah, I am.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
Happy with the experience. We built around the same time
as our neighbors, so we've got a really good relationship
with our neighbors, and I think that that helps because
you're sharing the experience together, and the area is still
really nice and we're close to town, and again, like
the loan is really affordable. So I can't really complain
about much at all.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Yeah, you guys really thought it through when you kept
things within your means, especially with our interest rates I
think have gone over the past eighteen months where it's
been a little bit crazy. I have one other question
about the building experience, and this may be different for
you because obviously it's been a few years since you
did it, But something I'm hearing a lot about at
the moment is timelines being pushed out expenses going up
(19:46):
during the process, because obviously there's shortages of labash, which
you did mention, or shortages of materials. Did you have
anything like that pop up? What was your overall thoughts
on building?
Speaker 3 (19:58):
I would definitely build again, although like you said, we
built pre COVID, so I'm not sure if the experience
would be different now, but we did experience. Ours was
probably council based because it took over two years for
our land to title in the first place, which was
really annoying. But when it actually titled, the build only
(20:20):
took about six months, so that was fine. We did
have one issue where somebody broke the bathroom window, and
then we had to wait a little bit for someone
to come and replace that.
Speaker 4 (20:31):
Yeah, just kids in the area.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
No, that's such a little I'm going to sound really old.
It was going to be like those little hooligans. And
then I was like, I sound like someone waving their
walking stick in the air.
Speaker 4 (20:44):
Through out there, just chasing them down the street.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Oh my goodness, how frustrating. But that I'm assuming was
all looked after by your builder. That wasn't an additional
expense for you, guys, was it.
Speaker 4 (20:54):
No, that was looked after by them though, were.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Oh that's good, that's really good. It's cool to here,
and I'm really grateful to you for sharing your story
with us because I think a lot of the people
that we've spoken to so far on the show are
people who have bought established and it is people do
always have such differing opinions on whether or not building
is good and blah blah blah blah. So it's really
cool to hear what that experience was like for you,
(21:16):
and you know some of the ins and outs of
choosing bits and pieces. So thank you so much for
joining me today. I'm very grateful for it. And guys,
if you're listening and you want to talk to somebody
about building a property or If you have questions that
you want to ask, you should definitely join the Property
Playbook Facebook group. We have thousands and thousands of people
in their sharing tips and tricks and asking questions every
single day. We are also on Instagram at Property Playbook Aus.
(21:41):
We would love for you to come and join us there,
and if you're feeling generous, maybe leave us a review,
tell me I'm doing you a good job, or tell
us what you would like to see more of. But
please be nice because I am soft. Thank you so much.
Let's quickly wrap the boring but important stuff. The advice
shared on the Property Playbook is generally in nature and
does not consider your individual circumstances. The Property Playbook exists
purely for educational purposes and should not be relied upon
(22:03):
to make an investment or a financial decision. Thank you
for joining me Property Diarist, and I will see everybody
next week. Bye,
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