Just heard back from Boutique Homes today that our building permit has been approved! YAY!
Our pre-start consultant is going to try and push our file to the construction department on the 5th August, otherwise it will definitely be the 12th she says.
We'll find out on Friday......fingers crossed.
Tuesday, 28 July 2015
Friday, 26 June 2015
FINALLY!!
FINALLY!!! some good news for us.
Our house was valued at contract price and our new lender has given us Formal Approval today!!
We had a few different brokers looking for lenders for us and we ended up using Tony from AKL Finance to help us find a lender who'll refinance our land and value our house appropriately. I couldn't recommend Tony more, he's been knowledgeable, helpful, professional and his communication was fantastic.
In sheer contrast, the broker from Resolve was sexist, a little condescending and getting him to reply to an email or return a phone call was next to impossible. We'd emailed him and called him a few times during the week asking for him to provide us with some information regarding the loan he was suggesting, but still did not get back to us. I'm not exaggerating when I say; after we emailed him to say we're going with a different lender, we got a response almost immediately (within 5 minutes), and all the email said was "Which Lender?"..........Seriously?
Tony was fantastic though. And I'm happy to say we'll be taking our business to AFG Homes Loans.
On the subject of the actual house though, I'd like to acknowledge just how wonderful Boutique Homes have been this time around. I'm thankful just about everyday that things went to sht with Porter Davis. Our pre-start consultant Courtney has been absolutely fantastic to deal with. Just today I sent her a list 8 things that needed fixing on the plans and without hesitation, Courtney had them fixed and new plans sent through same day. She even keeps us updated with progress of our file without any prompting. We never have to ask what stage we're at. She's a bloody legend!
Fingers crossed for an early August site start :D
Our house was valued at contract price and our new lender has given us Formal Approval today!!
We had a few different brokers looking for lenders for us and we ended up using Tony from AKL Finance to help us find a lender who'll refinance our land and value our house appropriately. I couldn't recommend Tony more, he's been knowledgeable, helpful, professional and his communication was fantastic.
In sheer contrast, the broker from Resolve was sexist, a little condescending and getting him to reply to an email or return a phone call was next to impossible. We'd emailed him and called him a few times during the week asking for him to provide us with some information regarding the loan he was suggesting, but still did not get back to us. I'm not exaggerating when I say; after we emailed him to say we're going with a different lender, we got a response almost immediately (within 5 minutes), and all the email said was "Which Lender?"..........Seriously?
Tony was fantastic though. And I'm happy to say we'll be taking our business to AFG Homes Loans.
On the subject of the actual house though, I'd like to acknowledge just how wonderful Boutique Homes have been this time around. I'm thankful just about everyday that things went to sht with Porter Davis. Our pre-start consultant Courtney has been absolutely fantastic to deal with. Just today I sent her a list 8 things that needed fixing on the plans and without hesitation, Courtney had them fixed and new plans sent through same day. She even keeps us updated with progress of our file without any prompting. We never have to ask what stage we're at. She's a bloody legend!
Fingers crossed for an early August site start :D
Monday, 8 June 2015
A cruel situation....
I think it would be fair to say that things really haven't gone our way with just about any stage of this build.
After speaking with the broker from Resolve Finance (Boutiques 'in house' mortgage brokers), we were hit with yet another blow. Apparently lenders do not like to refinance mortgages within 6 months. That means, because we took out a mortgage on our land in March, we have to wait until at least September before another lender will consider us for finance....WTF?!? I have a feeling that Westpac knew we would likely be in this situation so undervalued our house.
Bankwest think our house is worth what we're paying for it, but we cannot get a loan with them for at least another 4 months. It's such a cruel situation to be in.
Our Aussie broker has tried reasoning and negotiating with Westpac, but they will have absolutely no bar of it; they're being complete and utter pr!cks!!! And the broker from Resolve has tracked down a lender that does not require 6 months repayment history, so we're currently sitting and waiting to hear back about their valuation, but once again, not holding my breath.
So, assuming that this new valuation doesn't come in any better, our situation is this:
1. Accept Westpacs offer, meaning we have to put more money in and borrow more, but we will get in to our house sooner...
or
2. Wait yet another 4 months (we're already 6 months behind schedule) and then try and find a lender that will value our house more reasonably.
decisions, decisions......
After speaking with the broker from Resolve Finance (Boutiques 'in house' mortgage brokers), we were hit with yet another blow. Apparently lenders do not like to refinance mortgages within 6 months. That means, because we took out a mortgage on our land in March, we have to wait until at least September before another lender will consider us for finance....WTF?!? I have a feeling that Westpac knew we would likely be in this situation so undervalued our house.
Bankwest think our house is worth what we're paying for it, but we cannot get a loan with them for at least another 4 months. It's such a cruel situation to be in.
Our Aussie broker has tried reasoning and negotiating with Westpac, but they will have absolutely no bar of it; they're being complete and utter pr!cks!!! And the broker from Resolve has tracked down a lender that does not require 6 months repayment history, so we're currently sitting and waiting to hear back about their valuation, but once again, not holding my breath.
So, assuming that this new valuation doesn't come in any better, our situation is this:
1. Accept Westpacs offer, meaning we have to put more money in and borrow more, but we will get in to our house sooner...
or
2. Wait yet another 4 months (we're already 6 months behind schedule) and then try and find a lender that will value our house more reasonably.
decisions, decisions......
Tuesday, 19 May 2015
We looked up too high!
Well.....things were looking up, but only briefly.
Received our bank valuation back today and they've undervalued the house and land by $34k!
My heart jumped in to my throat.....there is no way we can afford to make up that difference......$10 or $15k maybe, but $34k?? Not a chance.
So I'm doing what I do best today and that's panic. Our contract said we had 45 days to get finance approval so now I'm starting to stress out, as we now have about a month left. Our broker is talking to the bank (Westpac) today and putting together some options for us. Hopefully he comes back with something helpful, but I'm not holding my breath.
I've been told by a few others who've built with Boutique to contact their finance company (Resolve Finance), as they were in similar situations and Resolve helped them out. So this might be our next step, unless our broker can perform some magic.
When will the drama end?
Received our bank valuation back today and they've undervalued the house and land by $34k!
My heart jumped in to my throat.....there is no way we can afford to make up that difference......$10 or $15k maybe, but $34k?? Not a chance.
So I'm doing what I do best today and that's panic. Our contract said we had 45 days to get finance approval so now I'm starting to stress out, as we now have about a month left. Our broker is talking to the bank (Westpac) today and putting together some options for us. Hopefully he comes back with something helpful, but I'm not holding my breath.
I've been told by a few others who've built with Boutique to contact their finance company (Resolve Finance), as they were in similar situations and Resolve helped them out. So this might be our next step, unless our broker can perform some magic.
When will the drama end?
Friday, 8 May 2015
Contracts Signed!
We have finally reached this point and it's a HUGE relief to be here after everything.
We couldn't have signed the contracts without some sort of drama though :P
We received a copy of our contract and working drawings last night and low and behold there was an error with THAT wall. The wall that caused all of the dramas and subsequently the forged signatures that caused us to leave in the first place.
The dimensions of that wall were still larger than we had promised. I called our pre-start consultant who advised us that the wall was drawn to how it was described in the PWC. I'll admit, the wording in the PWC was a bit ambiguous, but it still wasn't what our sales consultant had promised (and confirmed) we would get.
ALL CREDIT goes to our sales consultant (David from the Berwick Waters Estate). I sent him a message regarding this issue (on his days off) and he was on to it straight away. We walked in to our contract signing appointment this morning and our pre-start consultant had advised us that David had phoned and got everything sorted out and our wall will be exactly what we were promised. We were given a drafting clarification to sign and I was a VERY happy lady :)
We walked out of that appointment finally feeling very happy about the whole process of building and that we were getting the house we wanted from the start.
Things are looking up!
We couldn't have signed the contracts without some sort of drama though :P
We received a copy of our contract and working drawings last night and low and behold there was an error with THAT wall. The wall that caused all of the dramas and subsequently the forged signatures that caused us to leave in the first place.
The dimensions of that wall were still larger than we had promised. I called our pre-start consultant who advised us that the wall was drawn to how it was described in the PWC. I'll admit, the wording in the PWC was a bit ambiguous, but it still wasn't what our sales consultant had promised (and confirmed) we would get.
ALL CREDIT goes to our sales consultant (David from the Berwick Waters Estate). I sent him a message regarding this issue (on his days off) and he was on to it straight away. We walked in to our contract signing appointment this morning and our pre-start consultant had advised us that David had phoned and got everything sorted out and our wall will be exactly what we were promised. We were given a drafting clarification to sign and I was a VERY happy lady :)
We walked out of that appointment finally feeling very happy about the whole process of building and that we were getting the house we wanted from the start.
Things are looking up!
Wednesday, 22 April 2015
The depressing wait
So just found out today that our site start won't be until approximately September now; which means we won't be moving in before Christmas :(
Apparently it takes Boutique Homes 8-10 weeks (from colour selection) to get everything organised and on top of that they're currently running about 2 weeks behind schedule *double :(*
Not sure what takes them so long; we're signing contracts on 8th May and our colour selection isn't until 1st June. Colours is just colours, why couldn't they get all of the building permits organised once contracts are signed? I guess there's a lot more to it than I understand.
This whole drama has now pushed us out more than 6 months behind our original plan. That's building for you.
Never again.......
Apparently it takes Boutique Homes 8-10 weeks (from colour selection) to get everything organised and on top of that they're currently running about 2 weeks behind schedule *double :(*
Not sure what takes them so long; we're signing contracts on 8th May and our colour selection isn't until 1st June. Colours is just colours, why couldn't they get all of the building permits organised once contracts are signed? I guess there's a lot more to it than I understand.
This whole drama has now pushed us out more than 6 months behind our original plan. That's building for you.
Never again.......
Friday, 3 April 2015
Evolution of a block of land
Went and visited our block again today; we only live a few minutes down the road, so it's becoming a weekly event now.
We have some rear fencing completed now which is a bonus as I thought we had to arrange that ourselves.
The evolution of our block....
 |
| Our very first pic |
 |
| Early Days |
 |
| Civil works begin |
 |
| Civil works complete |
 |
| Rear fence is up |
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| Concrete Way is complete |
Looking up the street...
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| Our concrete Way is finished |
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| Houses are starting to come alive |
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| Looking towards the end of our Way |
 |
| Needs a good clean |
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| Parked in our driveway :) |
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