The search for Land!

Not much land available in established suburbs close to Brisbane city, so we went looking around North Lakes and Halpine Lakes. Plenty of very nice blocks up there, most were quite small. Then around February, there was this beauty.....


It was 588sqm and $269,000. Great views huh? Problem is, about 100m behind the block, is a corredor for the proposed North South Arterial Rd. Damn.

Then, around July, a colleague mentioned that there was a subdivision going on down the road from him. Ideal location! Just 2 mins drive from out townhouse, bus stop, direct to city just a minutes walk and best part,Woolworths, bottle shop and pub  only 10 mins walk up the road! We went to check it out. Had my eye on this block, adjacent to the park, corner block and 620sqm....


Problem was, it was already under contract! The other 620sqm corner block however, was available!!! Put down a deposit in September and then the wait began for it to be granted title by Council....


Finally, at the beginning of March, it had title! A few days later, the bank said YES! Woohoo!!!

Now we just need a house!!

Background.

Around January 2011, Joycey and I started talking about moving out of the pokey townhouse into a proper house. We started looking around Bracken Ridge on Brisbanes north side. Whats we saw was pretty depressing. Most houses needed quite a bit of work to make them a home.

Got chatting to a mate at work who had in the past, renovated but is now living in a home he had built new a few years back. His advice was build! Renovating a whole house means for a year or more, every evening after work spent sanding, painting etc etc. Lots of $$$ and in the end, it's an old house spruced up.

Building new means picking everything you want, having rooms where you want and having someone else do the hard work and hand you keys at the end of it all. Well, that's kind of the plan anyway!

We visited the display homes at North Lakes and were very impressed with what we saw! It pretty much convinced us to build.

Now, the search for land.....