The progress payments...

1. 3% deposit (balance of) at contract signing
2. 10% at base stage completion
3. 15% at frame stage completion
4. 35% at lock up completion
5. 25% at fixing stage completion
6. 12% at settlement

The house quotation...

After meeting with our consultant yesterday, we sat down at home last night and went over pages and pages of options and prices for extras for our new home. We put together a list of inclusions that we want; kitchen layout, bathroom/ensuite vanities and mirrors, additional internal doors, tiles, fly screens...

By 5pm today our consultant has emailed through the initial quotation... we make an appointment to meet with her again on March 1st to sign the paperwork, pay a $850 deposit, and proceed to the next steps.

The house...

Today we spent hours walking through display homes accross Melbourne. We had a certain criteria that the house had to meet, ie minimum 4 bedrooms, master bedroom separate from other bedrooms, master bedroom NOT at the front of the house, central kitchen, open plan, garage set back at least 1.5m from the front of the house, multiple living spaces...

We spent quite a bit of time walking through the Henley display at Point Cook before sitting down with a consultant to talk about plans. He was incredibly helpful, and made an appointment with us to meet with the consultant in Mernda who handles the area where our block is.

Within 30 minutes we were sitting down with another consultant in Mernda, who went over the house plan we picked (Panorama 322), and starts to put together a quotation. She was completely familiar with the Mitchell's Run estate in Doreen and knows how strict their guidelines are. She already has details of our block on file, as another couple had originally put a deposit on it planned to build a Henley home, however their home didnt fit on the block, so they had to give it up and find another (yay for us!). She sites the plan on the block and we go home with a list of inclusions and options.

The land...

Today we met with "L" at Lauders Real Estate in Greensborough to go over the land contract. The contracts are enormous, but "L" assured us they are pretty standard. We signed the important pages, and payed a $1,000 deposit.

The balance of the 10% deposit (another $17,000) is due by March 6th. All at this stage is subject to finance.

The finance...

We have saved up a nice little deposit, now it's time to sort out finance. We were referred to a broker through a building consultant we had been speaking to over the passed few weeks. After a few phone coversations and emails, today our loan application is lodged with the Commonwealth Bank. Fingers crossed!

The decision...

After a few weeks of speaking to a building consultant, looking at different house plans, and available land, we took our first serious step, and emailed Lauders Real Estate in Greensborough to put a hold on a block of land...