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Build a house?


Eyebrow

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Well, now that we know we are going to settle here, we were thinking of buying a house.

 

We have been looking for 4 weeks now and cant find anything suitable. We are going almost every day after work and whole Saturdays!

 

Houses are either too old and need lots of maintenance, especially the Queenslander houses, which are beautiful but the wood is high maintenance. Too small - these new box-cutter estate houses that all look the same and are tiny and stacked together. If ou put your hand out of your window, you touch the neighbour's house.... People here seem to be very minimalist and the houses never seem to have much storage. This is a big issue for me. I need space. Or, if one finds the perfectly sized house it is too expensive, like, by far!

 

I want somewhere I can live for a very long time, make a garden and wack nails into the wall if I so choose. And no more quarterly inspections by a little estate agent in a power suit that seems intent to point out my house keeping flaws...

 

My colleagues keep asking about my house inspections and listening to my frustration. So then one suggested to buy a lot and build. This seems too much for me! But I wanted to hear your thoughts? Is it as simple as it sounds? Or not so much? :huh:

 

 

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I am in the process of building a house here in Tassie.

 

Building is obviously more complicated than buying an existing place, but so far it still seems pretty straight forward to me.

 

That being said, we are going with one of those big builders that have a whole bunch of designs to choose from, and then provide a fixed price contract, so it really is simple.

 

If you were to get a completely bespoke design and then get a builder to do it I would guess it would be a lot more difficult.

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On 1/24/2019 at 8:19 AM, ChrisH said:

Have you looked in Mango Hill/North Lakes?

Hi ChrisH, I dont live in Brisbane unfortunately... We are in regional Queensland.

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On 1/23/2019 at 12:36 PM, Eyebrow said:

never seem to have much storage. This is a big issue for me. I need space. Or, if one finds the perfectly sized house it is too expensive, like, by far

To state the obvious:

As you now there are various components that contribute towards the asking price of a house. House material (brick/cladding); lot size, house size. location, distance from town, size of house and age, livability (eg schools, shops)

Approaches to buy a new house: buy off the plan (these are normally cluster housing, land and home package (many to choose from) with many extra add-on which adds to the price. Buy a plot and get a builder etc In the end you get what you pay for.

An existing house: Search for houses that are in distress i.e owner needs to sell due to divorce, death etc (problem is everyone is looking for those

Bank repossessed: Lawyers knows about these ones even before they get auctioned.

House that is structural good but needs a lick of paint inside out. - The ugly duckling in a good street. These may be a good investment providing you do your due diligence. 

 

Better approach

Start off by working out what you can afford, without over commitment.Take into account rates & taxes (and strata fees if applicable). What deposit can you afford - generally 20% required but some banks will give a loan with no deposit.  Make sure you know about all the taxes, registration costs etc. Then determine how quickly would you want to pay your mortgage off.

Once you have a price in mind start to look at past prices of house been sold. Work out the cost per meter square. Now you can start to compare the different locations and areas i.e apples with apples

https://www.oldlistings.com.au/

This will ensure that you dont overpay for a property. Now that you have a better idea what is affordable in which areas then use this website to check what is all available (this search engine searches 100's of websites.

https://www.suburbview.com/

 

good luck!

 

 

 

 

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