I know it's been ages and ages since I last wrote but we have been super duper busy with the section, work and life in general.
So here is an update on what we have been doing and our progess with the section....
Waiting for our answer on the section took 3 agonising days of waiting and wondering. P then finally rang to say "please could he come over to see us after work?" He turned up at 7pm and told Mike and I the vendors had rejected our offer. I began to cry Mike showed P out. I went to bed and Mike tried to console me. I could tell he was pretty gutted too. After a cuddle and a "we did everything we could and now we know" speech I went to brush my teeth and missed a call!!!! P had rung and I'd missed it. I hurriedly rang back butterflies in my tummy and he told us he had talked to the vendors and they had agreed to ACCEPT our final offer.... the relief and excitement flew out at such a rate of knots Mike thought something bad had happened. I said goodbye to P hung up and lept at Mike telling him we got the section!!! We went to bed very very happy, giddy and extremely excited.
Over the next few weeks (to bring us up to 1/7/12) it was all hands to the pump to arrange the meetings with building companies, lawyers and banks. We finally picked Westpac, a Lawyer and picked Milestone and GJ's to talk to about our house.
The bank stuff was relitively easy just a lot of paperwork and evidence gathering. Once we had all of this we stated talking to several banks playing them off each other and finally got a really good deal with Westpac. Building makes dealing with the bank a little bit different but not too much that it put us off. We have to have a floating rate when building then we can fix part or all of it once complete. Our rate is 5.4% and 3.5k cash in hand. I also managed to score a Westpac Helicopter money jar which is going to hold the funds my pond and landscaping for once our house is built!!! Very exciting indeed.
The lawyer stuff was a little more tricky and without going into too much detail he helped us read the sale and purchase agreement, LIM, Title and the Right of Ways/easments that apply to our section. He also helped us think about what names would go on the tile, how we would like to structure the ownership and got us thinking about Wills. This all got a bit much for me and I had a few days of cold feet, high emotions and grumpy pants moments that meant I had to go chill out with Robbie for a few hours one Friday and Sunday. Getting away helped settle me down and helped me remember why I was doing all this in the first place. To build a home with the love of my life, to build somewhere we can be happy and healthy in and one day start a family. I reminded myself that life can be short and that I was no longer living for me but for my big brother Grubs, I am doing it for him now too!!
After I go my mo-jo back we went to visit the Jennian and GJ show homes, a home and garden show and visited website after website at home where we began to collect even more ideas for our already massive pile of possibilities for our dream home. I soon decided I was sick of looking at piles so Mike and I went to Whitcoulls and bought 3 coloured boxes to better organise our papers, documeets and ideas. Red for house proposals, legal and bank stuff, blue for inside the house and green for outside the house. It was actually very therapeutic to go through and organise, sort, throw away and properly file everything we had collected.
So Monday 2nd July 2012 we take possession of the section and Mike and I will officailly own a slice of Wellington land, our dreams coming true!
Saturday, 30 June 2012
Sunday, 3 June 2012
Making the offer....
Not too long into the search for the section, it was fortunate that my parents were up visiting us and we were able to take them down to the section for a look and a helpful outsiders opinion.
I think at first look they were really happy with the site and loved, like me the greenery and mature ferns around the garden. We all stood and figured out where north would be and how to site the house on the section. It was helpful too that a Jennian/Milestone man, C came with us and he was very helpful. He pointed out to us that the type of house we were looking at would not fit on the section, we would have to go 2 story this was not something we wanted or thought we could afford so it was definatly food for thought.
While Mum, Dad, Mike and I were having dinner at our local restaurant we talked about the house, building, how we felt as a couple, did we want to travel or work overseas and generally did the parent thing of making sure that we were on the same page, and that this is what we really wanted. I thought we were but Mike was still a little unsure but kept sending positive signs so I wasn't too worried.
Mum and Dad were able to offer sound advice and it was nice to have someone outside our couples-ness to talk about the house with. I guess the one thing if i learnt anything from talking to them was that we had nothing to lose by making an offer and we would regret it if we didn't. I came away happy, fed and with a warm fuzzy feeling in my tummy!!
Convincing Mike was a little tricky, but having got all the information and knowing a house of some description would fit, we properly sat down and worked out our finances.
Once we knew we could afford it to a certain level Mike was happy to go into the negotiations with this number in mind.
I think looking back he was just a little afraid that our offer would look silly against the asking price, and that we probably wouldn't get it for the price we were willing to pay. Not to mention that he would have to live with a miserable Jemma Bear for the next little while. I believe also that he was still concerned that we would be buying a "White elephant" which I also felt but that's what the conditions on the purchase agreement would hopefully knock out of the picture.
His "White elephant" comment one morning sparked a huge debate. I thought the term was "Pink elephant" - Something obvious in the room, no one knew what to do with, or wanted to talk about. I was convinced I was right... Mike immediately got on the net (wiki) to figure out which one of us was right. Turns out we both where just in our own way.
The term "White elephant" refers to something bought for a high price that has become redundant.... like a stupid car you can barely get into or a section you can't build on :P He was correct with his terminology but so was I, lets just say the anticlimax of winning against the other was subdued and annoying!!
Anyway I digress, yes MAKING THE OFFER! I called P the real estate man and arranged a meeting to put down on paper our offer and then we would know forever and ever we did everything we could to get the section and never be left wondering if we had only asked the question.... We wrote it down and the conditions of sale and went to bed nervous and excited!! The hardest part now was the wait..... what would they say.....?!
I think at first look they were really happy with the site and loved, like me the greenery and mature ferns around the garden. We all stood and figured out where north would be and how to site the house on the section. It was helpful too that a Jennian/Milestone man, C came with us and he was very helpful. He pointed out to us that the type of house we were looking at would not fit on the section, we would have to go 2 story this was not something we wanted or thought we could afford so it was definatly food for thought.
While Mum, Dad, Mike and I were having dinner at our local restaurant we talked about the house, building, how we felt as a couple, did we want to travel or work overseas and generally did the parent thing of making sure that we were on the same page, and that this is what we really wanted. I thought we were but Mike was still a little unsure but kept sending positive signs so I wasn't too worried.
Mum and Dad were able to offer sound advice and it was nice to have someone outside our couples-ness to talk about the house with. I guess the one thing if i learnt anything from talking to them was that we had nothing to lose by making an offer and we would regret it if we didn't. I came away happy, fed and with a warm fuzzy feeling in my tummy!!
Convincing Mike was a little tricky, but having got all the information and knowing a house of some description would fit, we properly sat down and worked out our finances.
Once we knew we could afford it to a certain level Mike was happy to go into the negotiations with this number in mind.
I think looking back he was just a little afraid that our offer would look silly against the asking price, and that we probably wouldn't get it for the price we were willing to pay. Not to mention that he would have to live with a miserable Jemma Bear for the next little while. I believe also that he was still concerned that we would be buying a "White elephant" which I also felt but that's what the conditions on the purchase agreement would hopefully knock out of the picture.
His "White elephant" comment one morning sparked a huge debate. I thought the term was "Pink elephant" - Something obvious in the room, no one knew what to do with, or wanted to talk about. I was convinced I was right... Mike immediately got on the net (wiki) to figure out which one of us was right. Turns out we both where just in our own way.
The term "White elephant" refers to something bought for a high price that has become redundant.... like a stupid car you can barely get into or a section you can't build on :P He was correct with his terminology but so was I, lets just say the anticlimax of winning against the other was subdued and annoying!!
Anyway I digress, yes MAKING THE OFFER! I called P the real estate man and arranged a meeting to put down on paper our offer and then we would know forever and ever we did everything we could to get the section and never be left wondering if we had only asked the question.... We wrote it down and the conditions of sale and went to bed nervous and excited!! The hardest part now was the wait..... what would they say.....?!
Saturday, 2 June 2012
Some of our collection so far....
So I thought I would add a picture of just some of the stuff we have collected so far for our house and section. This pile has been cut down twice already over the last few weeks so you can imagine what it was like before we culled a few companies and products as well as some of the magazines (the mags though have been cut up and put into our scrap book... the black ring binder). We will of course be adding and taking away to this pile as we get samples of brick ect over the next few weeks or months.
Information Gathering Stage
Right the next task or tasks as it happened were to find out as much as we could about the section in Ngaio.
I think the first few things we found difficult to deal with were the sewer and stream that run through the section. As you can see in the picture below there is a red line that runs through 12A!? Yeah that's a public sewer line. Scary huh... well actually not too much... thankfully.
This sewer was the cause of many many sleepless nights, emails and phone calls to councils, building companies and a few other people too. After quite a lot of discussion it was agreed that we could put a drive way and outdoor area over the sewer and stream but no house. This then meant the house location would need to be looked into and how much room would be left.
As you can also see the back half of the section had a slight incline shall we say... you remember me writing that it was a flat section well turns out we own up the bank as well! Thankfully the 102 line had already been cut away so when I went to the site and with all the awesome bushes and trees it was hard to tell just where the boundary was/finished.
The next hurdle was soil and ground conditions. To actually subdivide the section into a decent size (over 40 years ago) the vendor's put in uncompacted fill over the drain and sewer and subsequently when the engineers report came through the solid ground in the front part of the section wasn't reached until the prob got down to about 3.6-ish meters. So pile foundations soon became a hot topic through emails, phone calls and a few nightmares!!
Having talked to quite a few people again it was concluded that most of the fill was around the drain and because we weren't building near it anyway it didn't matter. The good half of the section ranges from 0.5m-2.0-ish meters to solid ground so the foundations weren't going to be that scary after all, still pile foundations but as again a few people told us this in Wellington is quite normal!!
Finally we had everything we were ever going to need to know or as much as we could ever know and it was decision time... what do we do next? We (I mean Mike) made a spreadsheet and we (I mean me) put in 6 months worth of bank statements to see how much we had where we were spending and how much savings we currently had. This went into another spreadsheet to figure out how much we would need to borrow, mortgage rates, repayments and other stuff I vaguely know what Mike was talking about. Having gathered all this information it was off to figure out which banks would help us and which ones wouldn't. Having talked to a few we knew that at least 2 banks and a new build finance company would help us so then it really got down to decision time... do we make an offer?! If so how much do we offer...? Not having done anything like this before we (and I mean Mike) needed time to think about it, so we slept on it (for quite some time).
- Size 504m2
- Meters from side to side and drive way
- Drive way Right of way and easements
- Soil condition and ground conditions
- Engineers reports/LIM reports
- What if any services were connected to the section
- What size house would fit?
- How much sunlight will the site get?
- PRICE
I think the first few things we found difficult to deal with were the sewer and stream that run through the section. As you can see in the picture below there is a red line that runs through 12A!? Yeah that's a public sewer line. Scary huh... well actually not too much... thankfully.
As you can also see the back half of the section had a slight incline shall we say... you remember me writing that it was a flat section well turns out we own up the bank as well! Thankfully the 102 line had already been cut away so when I went to the site and with all the awesome bushes and trees it was hard to tell just where the boundary was/finished.
The next hurdle was soil and ground conditions. To actually subdivide the section into a decent size (over 40 years ago) the vendor's put in uncompacted fill over the drain and sewer and subsequently when the engineers report came through the solid ground in the front part of the section wasn't reached until the prob got down to about 3.6-ish meters. So pile foundations soon became a hot topic through emails, phone calls and a few nightmares!!
Having talked to quite a few people again it was concluded that most of the fill was around the drain and because we weren't building near it anyway it didn't matter. The good half of the section ranges from 0.5m-2.0-ish meters to solid ground so the foundations weren't going to be that scary after all, still pile foundations but as again a few people told us this in Wellington is quite normal!!
Finally we had everything we were ever going to need to know or as much as we could ever know and it was decision time... what do we do next? We (I mean Mike) made a spreadsheet and we (I mean me) put in 6 months worth of bank statements to see how much we had where we were spending and how much savings we currently had. This went into another spreadsheet to figure out how much we would need to borrow, mortgage rates, repayments and other stuff I vaguely know what Mike was talking about. Having gathered all this information it was off to figure out which banks would help us and which ones wouldn't. Having talked to a few we knew that at least 2 banks and a new build finance company would help us so then it really got down to decision time... do we make an offer?! If so how much do we offer...? Not having done anything like this before we (and I mean Mike) needed time to think about it, so we slept on it (for quite some time).
Friday, 1 June 2012
House/section hunting.
Ok this is my first post!! It is long I seem to have a lot to say about the first part of our new journey, but it is good :P The next one won't be as long I promise :D
For me the search began months ago. At first Mike and I were on the hunt for a house. I spent my spare time trawling Trademe for properties to go and look at, at the weekends. We would line up 5 or 6 on a Sunday and spend the day thinking.. ..ok the next one is going to be awesome.
Although we did manage to find a few nice-ish ones, nothing really stopped us in our tracks, turning to each other and saying "yup this is the one!" So we starting discussing our options, moving overseas, travelling or why not building. It's something we have always talked about but not really taken seriously as it's something more middle-aged to do.
So the hunt began again... this time for sections. I spotted the Ngaio section first... I thought wow this is nice, pretty, sheltered, sunny and even more WOW was it was FLAT!! Let me tell you in Wellington this is rare, unless you go out a very long way or have millions to spend or have a few kidneys lying around you wish to sell to dodgy men in dark alley ways...However there was still a problem... it was expensive. So I put it on the watch list to show Mike in the vain hope we would win lotto or it dropped in price.
As the search continued we went to look at again 4 or 5 pieces of land all of which were okish, but mostly on a giant slope. Being from Chch this kinda scared us but were coming around to the fact that Wellington is pretty much built on a hill and most people do, do this.
Mike having been put off by everything I had found I showed him the Ngaio section and he agreed that I could ring the agent and go and see it.
I met P at the section one morning and as soon as I walked onto the green grass saw the beautiful matured greenery I was in love (again) I did the sensible thing and asked all the right questions, making sure not to show my excitement which for me was like asking a child not to run around a sweet shop! P was happy to answer all my questions and agreed to send more information through and allowed me to bring Mike down to see it early the following week. He seemed genuine to our hunt or our future piece of Wellington real estate.
On Sunday Mike and I met P down at the section and this time it was harder for me to contain my enthusiasm. Mike on the other hand was Mr Super Cool! He again asked nearly all the questions I had and pointed out a few I had missed. We poked around walked it out, pasted it out and then went home thanking P for his time and told him we would let him know we would be in touch.
At home Mike did point out the obvious that yes it is expensive and had a few flaws but on the whole seemed ok. My happiness again over bubbled and of course I was told to calm down and we had a few things we needed to talk about and a long way to go... but I could tell Mike was just as hooked as me!!!
Now came the hard part.... information gathering and a lot of sole searching. Numerous emails, calls and show home research!!! Oh my poor brain....
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