29.5.10

frustration....

Posted by Cath Swan | Labels: , , ,


The great thing about this week is that now Porter Davis are ready to go, site manager is locked in and ready to start, the bank are ready to go, and we're ready to go. Just one little problem.... the land is not ready to go!


As explained 2 posts ago, we have had a whole lot of building rubbish dumped on our block from other builders, (shame on them)..... and everyone is ready to start, but we as the land owners have to have the block cleared before they can start.

'Shouldn't be a problem', I hear you say! Well, do you think we can pay anyone to come and take the rubbish away? No! Everyone is either too busy, too far away, or doesn't want to deal with that kind of rubbish. I've emailed, my husband has called all these different businesses that deal with rubbish, but they won't return our calls or emails.

We had one guy respond and he went out yesterday to have a look at our rubbish. His only offer was to pick it up with his truck and charge us $500, he said we would be better to do it ourselves.

You would think someone would be happy to get paid to take rubbish away, but nooooo that apparently is too hard.

So we are resigned to getting out there this afternoon with a sledge hammer and attempting to break up dumped concrete ourselves, and try and load it all into our cars and take it to the tip!

Maybe we'll pay ourselves and take us out for a nice coffee!!

Word to the wise: - make sure if you're block is standing alone for any length of time, that you either get your builder to put fencing up, or make your block hostile to possible dumping. Maybe buy a doberman and chain him to your land, or install floodlights and sirens for anyone who trespasses.

The banks and builders take ever so long to sort through their own redtape, the last thing you want is for things within your control to halt building. (not that you can control the actions of rogue builders).

stay tuned......

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22.5.10

Woo hoo - the smallest start!

Posted by Cath Swan | Labels: , ,

Today is Saturday! We apprehensively drove out to our block today to survey how much more rubbish had been dumped in the last week, as we are still waiting for site start and for the fence to go up.


Not only were we pleasantly surprised to see that the rubbish dump had NOT increased, but there were signs of building activity.

The first thing we saw as we ascended the hill to our block, was a wire cage, commonly used by builders to collect all the building rubbish. (Something other builders had obviously forgot about, hence using our block for their rubbish!) I guess if you're going to start a build, having a rubbish bin is a smart thing to start with.

Secondly as requested, the next door builder had removed all his bricks & trusses after parking them on our land. So it was looking much more cleared.

The thing that excited me the most, was the new water meter and pipe installed in the front yard. With new gleaming pipes and its store tag still hanging off it.

Progress!! It might only be a wire cage and a tiny little water meter, but to us it was pure joy!!

Almost one year since we settled on our block, building is about to start.

It's the little things in life that sometimes mean the most!!
:)

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15.5.10

Being the last block on the block.....

Posted by Cath Swan | Labels: , , ,


You may have mistaken this picture to be of a random rubbish dump. You would be forgiven for thinking that! But imagine if your beloved, expensive block of land turned into a rubbish dump.


This is the result of being one of the last blocks to start in the new estate of Laurimar. Apparently this is common practice for new estates, and commonly done amongst builders.

I mean where else are you going to dump your dregs of cement from the mixer, that annoying tree stump you just pulled out of your front yard. Broken bricks and half cut-off roof trusses. Even that broken pram you had filling the back of your ute. "Ahh theres an empty block that's not being used, and look there's already a pile of rubbish!"

Every week we've been out to our block, we've noticed more rubbish collecting. It seem the builders have a strict code of disposing of their cans and wrappers on someone else's block!!!

So boo to the care-less and selfish builders that grace our lovely estate! We will have to fork out around the $1000 mark to have our block cleared before building starts in a week.

But the beautiful thing about building with Porter Davis, is that unlike many builders, one of the first things they do is put up a fence around the entire block. So hopefully short of someone scaling our fence, we will be done with the rubbish dump!

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19.4.10

Great news!!

Posted by Cath Swan | Labels: , , ,


We're back!!


If you read my last post which was in January, we faced the devastation of having our finance with the Commonwealth bank rejected, and losing our January start date with Porter Davis. We were informed in January that the earliest start date we could hope for if we got our finance sorted would be maybe June or July.

The Commonwealth Bank did everything to help us, but the low down was getting rid of some excess credit card debt was going to be the only way to build our home.

About a month later we were given the name of a mortgage broker by a friend. We were a little sceptical that anyone could help us, but this woman came highly recommended.

Kerryn Feder visited us one Saturday afternoon and breezed in with her portable office in a suitcase. After a few hours of going over our complicated finances, she bravely gave us some hope that maybe she could work at getting the loan through in two parts. She then left us to go and work on a solution.

Kerryn came back to us in a week or so with a couple of solutions. She could put the first loan through and consolidate our credit card debt with the equity that had already grown from our land. Once that loan was approved she would then apply for the 'construction' loan. It looked like a great plan on paper, but would the bank be willing to give us that much money given every lending institution was tightening up its lending options?

To cut a long story short, the first loan to consolidate debt was approved with no problems. Kerryn then got busy preparing the second loan for us. Ironically, she found the best option for both loans was with the Commonwealth.

We signed all the papers for the second loan, and after a couple of weeks passed, we found out this week that the construction loan is finally approved.

Kerryn was absolutely thorough with all our finances and honestly and professionally handled the whole process. She saved our home and made a miracle happen. We are very grateful for all the effort she has put into helping us get these loans! Highly recommended!!

We are now in the process of getting a start date with Porter Davis, and the best thing is that it's looking like we'll have a June start date. This means we should be in our new home by Christmas.

More to come......

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6.1.10

Disappointment

Posted by Cath Swan | Labels: , ,

Well we've had an unfortunate halt on our building. Site start was meant to be in a week, but we had an unwelcome call from the bank on Christmas Eve telling us that our home loan had been rejected!


We thought that it was all through and approved and getting the final contract was just a formality, well apparently the Commonwealth Bank had a dodgy loan guy and approval shouldn't have been guaranteed due to some of the previous debt we have.

So we still have our block of land, and Porter Davis are still ready to go when we are. It's looking like we may be able to apply again in the middle of the year.

Very disappointing given we were planning to be in by the middle of the year.

I will continue updating this blog when things are moving again, and then there will be the building progress... so stay tuned.....

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