Clare & I out grew out of our 3 bedroom house (12sq 1 toilet, 2 bathrooms) with the arrival of baby number 4. So after what seemed like years (I think it was as we now have 6 children) of slowly renovating the old pad we finally put it on the market in Winter 2009. The location of the old house was also a big issue for us, it was north of the city and although 15 years ago it had been a great suburb over development and new housing estate after housing estate had seen things get a little too busy for us.
The original plan was to sell buy land and build, but as life got busier & the renovations dragged on the thought of building remained a dream for us & we agreed to look for something established that possibly needed a little work. After accepting an offer on the old place (we did get exactly what we wanted and thankfully in 3 weeks. Keeping the house extra clean with 5 munchkins is hard work) and looking at house after house we realised that to find something suitable was next to impossible. Our requirements weren’t all that unrealistic:
• Minimum 4 Bedrooms
• Minimum Bathrooms
• Minimum 2 Toilets
• Large Kitchen
• Large Meals area
• Large enough area to fit our computers and home education gear
• Larger block than our old place (700sqm)
• Decent garage (or space to build one)
• Quiet road/street
• Not too far of a commute to work, but not in the metro area.
Ok so our requirements weren’t that stringent but our budget was. To be honest it fell about 200k short of any of the decent houses that ticked most of our boxes. Its not that we couldn't afford them, we agreed that we didn’t want that level of debt.
So……… The original plan (and the fact that we had a 30 day settlement on our old place) made us decide to look for a rental and search for land.
After getting settled into the new rental we started spending Saturday afternoons scouting out locations. We would look through the week on the Internet and compile a list. We had a list of probably 20 properties ranging in size from a normal sized house block in town to 1-2 acre lots out of town. We saw them all, steep blocks, flat blocks, bushy, cleared you name it. Then after a day spent with friends on their property in the Yarra Ranges (They live on 2 acres which sides with crown land) we knew that the bigger we could get the better and if it was close to national park or crown land (i.e. bush) it would serve as an endless entertainment for the children, riding bikes, horses, motorbikes, exploring etc would all be an option.
Two Blocks met the “big” criteria both were an acre. The first was considerably further away but was half the price, however it was in a parcel of land that had a road at both the front and back of the block meaning the children would be confined to the land (without crossing a road into the national park). The second we went and inspected and were immediately impressed, it was on a quiet road which went into the national park (i.e. basically no through) It was also ½ cleared and ½ bush, with a creek running part way through. It was set amongst orchards and vineyards with the odd dairy farm and the views despite being in a valley) of the surrounding forests were also nice.
The catch was the price, it was over double the price of the other 1 acre block and about 50k more than we wanted to spend. After some deliberations we agreed that this was the site for our “forever house” so picking a location we liked that met our needs was crucial. And if that meant paying more then so be it, we put in an offer which was accepted and it became ours in October 2009.
This blog will serve as a record of the various bits and pieces we need to get done to build our dream house – stay tuned.
