Tuesday 23 August 2011

The initial deposit


All looked good and we were happy with the quote and the next day paid the initial deposit to secure the package. All too easy!

The revised quote

Emailed the sales person to let him know we like the block and would like to progress and also asked a few more questions. Responded with more details and after a few emails back and forth he sent through the revised quote. In between emails he also gave us for free the rendering of the two front piers, which we were happy about.

Saturday 20 August 2011

The meeting

So after deciding that we liked the house we went out to McDonald Jones Homes at Jordan Springs to see the sales person. We spoke to him and we went through which blocks were available for the Havana One and all the inclusions etc. He emailed me the next day with the details. We went out to the block and liked what we saw, well I was not too keen on a side block mainly for all the extra mowing I will have to do, but overall it was a great block.


Saturday 13 August 2011

The past and how it started...

After reading other blogs and stories/nightmares about building we thought we would share our progress on building our first home. We are building the Havana One by McDonald Jones Homes. We are hoping for a pain free process with no horror stories during the process.

So a little catchup on the progress so far since it all started...

A long time ago (many months searching)...
After many months of searching for an established home and not finding one that was up to our standard/style as there was always something that would have required replacing, such as some disgusting colour scheme in a bathroom or kitchen and end up costing $000's on top of the purchase price. If we did find one that we could have lived with it was out of our price range or we didn't have enough of the deposit ready including stamp duty! Plus the fact I think so many houses out there are over priced for what you get and would need to do to them to revitalise them.

Not long ago...
So while we were searching for that elusive established house we spent quite a bit of time on the weekends looking through display villages and also looking for land just in case we were to build a new house. It was then we came across a house and land package from McDonald Jones Homes in a new estate called Glenmore Ridge (which we had been looking at but unsold lots were hard to come by) and this is when the journey began...

13th.August.2011
So off we went back out to the display village at Oran Park and looked at the Havana One. We were both very impressed.
  • Main bedroom away from children - CHECK
  • Walk in robe - CHECK
  • Ensuite - CHECK
  • Dedicated media room - BONUS! As we both love watching movies and I can watch motorsport loud!
  • Open plan living/dining/kitchen - CHECK
  • Lots of cupboard space in the kitchen - CHECK
  • Kids activity room - BONUS! (plus it has a built in desk for the kids to do homework or use their computers)
  • Alfresco - CHECK
  • Automatic double garage - CHECK
So the house ticked all the boxes. There was nothing we did not like about the house and the bedrooms were all a pretty good size compared to other houses we looked at and in most cases bigger. Would have been nice to have a study but it was not a deal breaker and unfortunately could not fit the study option on the block that the package was proposed for.