DELAYS!!

Okay this sux. Latitude Homes has apologised for taking so long to draw up our working plans. They said they have a back log from Christmas but today it's March! And I dont understand what the hold-up is when we are using House-plans from an existing template that belongs to them.
And in the meantime we are paying a mortgage on a section that is doing nothing.

Oh well, I suppose the delay is giving me more time to save up :-(

Building Guide

I am on such a High! I can't wait to interview Tradesmen for the following jobs:
Excavations
Concrete Laying
Building
Electrics
Home Automation
Plumbing
and Drainlaying.

I have posted jobs onto Trade Experts for quotes for each job, and so far at least 3 Tradesmen have responded for each of my job postings.
What an awesome website.


Oh and I forgot to tell you, a really nice guy named Mark offered to send me a copy of the Building Guide. I picked one up from the MCC and I have to say that it is extremely handy!

So if you're building your house, check it out because the information is valuable.
Thank You Mark - awesome Customer Service!

PIM

We received our PIM last week which is the first step in the Building Consent Process. Stephen from Latitude Homes applied for it just before Christmas - just to get it out of the way, and because we were able to apply for it before our Settlement Date.

It clearly spells out that we need to pay a $6700 Development Contribution Fee. Yipee! Not!

Just waiting for our working drawings now. Tick tock, tick tock.

SETTLEMENT DATE!!

Today we have FINALLY settled our mortgage and our section is officially ours!

BUDGET

This is the most IMPORTANT posting and I should have added it in first - but here it is now.

It has only changed slightly from our original budget, but so far I think we're doing okay.

Kitset Price = 216550.00

Plumbing = $10k
Septic System = $13500
Drainlaying = $15k
Builder = $35000
Roofer = $5k
Plasterer (Qualified Family Member) = $1500
Electrician = 9k
Tiles = $5382
Tiler = 11k
Painter = 10k
Carpet = 4k
Carpet Layer = 2.5k
Light Switches = $200
Lights = 6k
Internal Vacume Setup = $500
Building Consent = $15000
Garage Doors = 3k
Driveway = 6k

Total Expenses = $370,132.000

PLUS Section = $390,000
Total Investment = $760132.00

Valuation = 950k
Equity = 190k

Total Mortgage = $640k

We have not included in our luxury items yet, such as the Heat Pump or Alarm as we intend to add this in at a more affordable stage.

Structuring our Home Loan

Finance - what a harsh and abrupt word. But if we manage it well, we can turn it into something positive and exciting.

BNZ have spoken to us about the first part of our Finance - structuring our Home Loan.
To put it simply, the money BNZ is lending us will be drawn down in three to five stages - at the same time that Latitude Homes asks for their progress payments. This means that Latitude Homes will be charging us at each major milestone in the building project - (for example, when the foundation pad has been completed, when the roof goes on, and when the building has been completed) - and BNZ will lend us the money to pay for each stage.

We hope to set up a Flexible Home Loan facility while the house is being built - with a small portion on the Flexibile facility just in case, and the rest on a fixed rate.

To tell you the truth, I am getting a bit worried, because we havent even started building yet and we are already 20k over budget thanks to the Council Fees.

Valuing our House Plans

In order for BNZ to give us a 'building' mortgage we need to get our house plans valued. I didnt know that people could do things like that, but obviously they can.
To get the amount we want from BNZ we need our valuation to come back at $750k. I think thats a realistic figure - but you never know.

Anyway, we rung Lloyd Singh (our very helpful real estate agent from Barfoot) to ask him if he knew of any decent valuers.
He gave us Rex Jensen's contact details as he is a Reg. Valuer & Fellow Of NZIV.

Rex rung us to ask us if we were including our 'proposed' tennis court, and we told him yes, but probably not for a year. So Rex suggested we leave the tennis court out of the quote or BNZ may come back and ask why it wasnt completed since it was included in the valuation quote.

Didnt matter anyway, because BNZ emailed us to tell us that the valuation came back at a great result of $950k, and they would be happy to give us more than we have asked them for. Yeeah!