I believe I'm right in saying that our mortgage company has finally received our completed mortgage documents. These documents are the FOURTH SET of documents to be issued by our mortgage provider.
Goodness knows what happened to the first set; our local mortgage broker allegedly sent the second set off to us while we were away but it never arrived (it was posted, not couriered, so may yet appear at Dad's place if the UK postal strike ever stops!); the third set was sent off by the mortgage company directly to Michael in Dublin but I found the fourth set at home when I got back from holiday, signed it, had it witnessed and also sent it off to him in Dublin so that he could sign it and get it witnessed and send it back directly to the mortgage company...
When you consider that we first went to see them on July 30th, it took until 10th September to get an approval letter out and that the date on the fourth set of documents was 24th September but that they returned to base on 2nd November, you can see it's been a slightly stressful time of waiting for us and for our superstar builder!
Showing posts with label money. Show all posts
Showing posts with label money. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Friday, September 11, 2009
Good news!
All the best things happen while I'maway, I'm convinced of it... There's a conspiracy there somewhere!
I rang home yesterday and Michael told me that not only has our mortgage been approved (phew!) but our solar rebate has also been approved. This means that we will get back 50% of the money we're paying out for our solar electricity system, and I can't tell you what a relief that is. For starters, we're intending to put the rebate straight back into our mortgage to reduce our monthly payments, so this is REALLY good news.
I rang home yesterday and Michael told me that not only has our mortgage been approved (phew!) but our solar rebate has also been approved. This means that we will get back 50% of the money we're paying out for our solar electricity system, and I can't tell you what a relief that is. For starters, we're intending to put the rebate straight back into our mortgage to reduce our monthly payments, so this is REALLY good news.
Friday, August 21, 2009
Mortgage woe... for the moment, anyway
Ahhh... it's apparently very hard to join up the dots and do things sensibly, at least this seems to be the case in financial offices around the country. Mortgage lender one says, "yes, yes, yes, yes, fab house, love the plans, we can lend you $xxxxx because we valued it at $yyyyyy, yes, yes, yes, just doing the paperwork, oh. We can't lend you anything because your block of land is more than 3 hectares. Bye!" Second mortgage lender (BTW, wholly owned by mortgage lender one) says, "Yes, yes, yes, yes, we'll send out a valuer.... {SILENCE - always worrying}... oh sorry, sent it to the wrong valuer who couldn't read the paperwork anyway, yeah, we'll let you know when we've sorted it all out."
Meanwhile, we've decided STUFF IT! And we've started the foundations. See next post for photos!
Meanwhile, we've decided STUFF IT! And we've started the foundations. See next post for photos!
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Five months later...
And we have a builder! I won't bore you with the entire saga of builder 3 and 4. Lovely people, both of them, but we just couldn't afford number 3, and number 4 could build us a house for the right price, just not the right house! If we'd been happy to do it all the way he wanted i.e. cornices and architraves and concrete floors on the inside, and rendered brick and a tiled roof on the outside we would have been fine. The trouble is that we don't want rendered brick walls, tiles on the roof and bloody fussy detailing around every skirting board, the ceiling and every door. No, no, NO!!!!
Then, amazingly, builder number 5 - Warren Macdonald - came charging in on his white horse to save us. Previously he's been the builder's builder, the one others referred to but said we wouldn't be able to get him because he was too busy working on a smart local development. In fact the owners of the smart local development had warned us off, saying Warren was theirs and not to be contacted except for general advice! But in the current financial situation it seems that people aren't buying into smart local developments and so Warren has less work on with them than anticipated, so although we'd only asked for his advice he offered to do a full costing. Et voila it came in at a price we can - just - afford.
The next hurdle is the bank... Once we've finalised things with Warren and come up with a contract we can go to our bank and ask if they'll lend us the money. If we're successful there is a chance we could be starting the build in June or perhaps July... which gives us an outside chance of being well and truly moved into the new house by this time next year.
Then, amazingly, builder number 5 - Warren Macdonald - came charging in on his white horse to save us. Previously he's been the builder's builder, the one others referred to but said we wouldn't be able to get him because he was too busy working on a smart local development. In fact the owners of the smart local development had warned us off, saying Warren was theirs and not to be contacted except for general advice! But in the current financial situation it seems that people aren't buying into smart local developments and so Warren has less work on with them than anticipated, so although we'd only asked for his advice he offered to do a full costing. Et voila it came in at a price we can - just - afford.
The next hurdle is the bank... Once we've finalised things with Warren and come up with a contract we can go to our bank and ask if they'll lend us the money. If we're successful there is a chance we could be starting the build in June or perhaps July... which gives us an outside chance of being well and truly moved into the new house by this time next year.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
The bottom line
Well the tag-line for this blog is "Great house: small budget: big ideas", so you could always see that we were heading toward difficulties along the way, and I think we've just ploughed straight into 'the money problem'.
You'll recall that we have two potential builders in our sights, Dan and John. John said up-front that he thought it would cost at least half a million dollars to build our house and Dan thought it might be cheaper. John doesn't want to do a costing exercise but Dan has just finished his, and the bad news is that even he thinks the house - not including the studio - will cost half a million dollars to build, which would be OK if we had the money...
The economic situation isn't helping. Importing anything now costs a lot more owing to the fact that the dollar is weak, and the raw cost of materials for building our house has increased by something like 40% in the last twelve months. While we're trying to use local products where possible, such as sustainably farmed timber from local forests for example, the overall cost of materials has gone up as suppliers have increased prices across their product ranges.
Dan has also pointed out that we have expensive tastes, which probably won't be a surprise to most of you! Mind you, I don't think we've gone overboard with things. If I was being snobby about it I would suggest that our European mind-set simply means we're interested in quality products rather than shoddy stuff. We're not interested in gold-plated taps; we want taps that will work for 20 years and more without discolouring, and with the right sort of ceramic disk technology that will work when the water supply comes from a rainwater tank rather than a mains system. We don't want architraves and a decent plasterer costs more than a bodger who uses skirting boards, architraves and cornicing to hide the defects in his workmanship. We could just build the whole house from cement-rendered brick, but we don't like the look, we don't like the associated environmental issues, and we don't want to be patching cracks for the rest of our lives. We could skimp on insulation but it seems like a false economy, especially when we'll be on a solar electricity system that won't allow us anything in the way of electrical heating or cooling. Spending money up-front on appropriate insulation for walls, floor and ceiling is the only sensible answer... and so it goes on.
I'm not quite sure yet how this leaves us. Michael and I haven't really sat down and done the hard work of reviewing our cash-flow, looking at different mortgage options or trying to trim costs. Our Plan B had been to postpone the office/studio building until later, using the second living room as a temporary workplace until we could afford it. We've already ditched the idea of a swimming pool until much later in the proceedings. But as Dan's costings - and we've been through them properly - mean we can't afford to build the office/studio yet anyway, we're going to have to think of a very difference Plan C, and an extremely creative Plan D as a backup.
Funnily enough I'm not despondent. Things haven't got to the stage where I'm seriously worried that we won't be able to build anything at all: we just have to review things and be creative. Often I find that when I first think of something I can't see how to change it, but after a period of reflection it usually occurs to me that there are more options than I had previously thought. What it might mean is a further delay, although hopefully not a huge one as I think it was a condition of our avoiding Stamp Duty on the property that building work had to commence within two years of purchase of the land, which would take us to the end of March next year. More news when we've come up with some ideas!
You'll recall that we have two potential builders in our sights, Dan and John. John said up-front that he thought it would cost at least half a million dollars to build our house and Dan thought it might be cheaper. John doesn't want to do a costing exercise but Dan has just finished his, and the bad news is that even he thinks the house - not including the studio - will cost half a million dollars to build, which would be OK if we had the money...
The economic situation isn't helping. Importing anything now costs a lot more owing to the fact that the dollar is weak, and the raw cost of materials for building our house has increased by something like 40% in the last twelve months. While we're trying to use local products where possible, such as sustainably farmed timber from local forests for example, the overall cost of materials has gone up as suppliers have increased prices across their product ranges.
Dan has also pointed out that we have expensive tastes, which probably won't be a surprise to most of you! Mind you, I don't think we've gone overboard with things. If I was being snobby about it I would suggest that our European mind-set simply means we're interested in quality products rather than shoddy stuff. We're not interested in gold-plated taps; we want taps that will work for 20 years and more without discolouring, and with the right sort of ceramic disk technology that will work when the water supply comes from a rainwater tank rather than a mains system. We don't want architraves and a decent plasterer costs more than a bodger who uses skirting boards, architraves and cornicing to hide the defects in his workmanship. We could just build the whole house from cement-rendered brick, but we don't like the look, we don't like the associated environmental issues, and we don't want to be patching cracks for the rest of our lives. We could skimp on insulation but it seems like a false economy, especially when we'll be on a solar electricity system that won't allow us anything in the way of electrical heating or cooling. Spending money up-front on appropriate insulation for walls, floor and ceiling is the only sensible answer... and so it goes on.
I'm not quite sure yet how this leaves us. Michael and I haven't really sat down and done the hard work of reviewing our cash-flow, looking at different mortgage options or trying to trim costs. Our Plan B had been to postpone the office/studio building until later, using the second living room as a temporary workplace until we could afford it. We've already ditched the idea of a swimming pool until much later in the proceedings. But as Dan's costings - and we've been through them properly - mean we can't afford to build the office/studio yet anyway, we're going to have to think of a very difference Plan C, and an extremely creative Plan D as a backup.
Funnily enough I'm not despondent. Things haven't got to the stage where I'm seriously worried that we won't be able to build anything at all: we just have to review things and be creative. Often I find that when I first think of something I can't see how to change it, but after a period of reflection it usually occurs to me that there are more options than I had previously thought. What it might mean is a further delay, although hopefully not a huge one as I think it was a condition of our avoiding Stamp Duty on the property that building work had to commence within two years of purchase of the land, which would take us to the end of March next year. More news when we've come up with some ideas!
Sunday, October 26, 2008
So where are we?
Well, we're creeping forwards, albeit slowly.
As regards the sale of the house we're currently living in, I discovered - by reading the local paper, mind you, not because either our landlord or managing agent thought to tell me - that our landlord has slashed the price of this place. Indeed, the advert has the price crossed out and the literate phrase, "Ouch! Make me an offer!" written over it. All of which presumably indicates that the pressure is on him to sell at least one of his properties and he's taking action accordingly. I am sure he would maintain that there's no need for us to panic, but somehow our comfortable belief that as the property was vastly over-priced and therefore wouldn't sell and therefore there was no need to panic is evaporating... Consequently I am about to start ringing round estate agents and making bookings to view properties. I'll go and see what I can this week, while Michael's away, and shortlist some properties (hopefully...) to look at when he gets back next week. It's a total pain in the neck.
Meanwhile, back at the block... We HAVE the DA paperwork for the house but the council planning officer apparently 'didn't notice' that the plans were submitted with a swimming pool clearly marked, hence a number of frantic phone calls which have resulted in Christian having to submit additional paperwork for additional approvals which will result in an additional Construction Certificate and associated additional fees. Ho hum. Quite how one could have 'missed' a large pool clearly marked in both text and plans I'm not sure.
Construction Certificates do seem to me to be a licence to collect money. We paid whopping fees to get the DA, for which the 'average' processing period through this council is allegedly 12 weeks, or so they like to claim. But in fact it's taken over 20 weeks and they managed to miss the pool. But then, of course, one has to get Construction Certificates, which effectively sign off at various benchmarks throughout the construction phase, resulting in an Occupation Certificate if you've ticked all the boxes in the process. We've had to separate out the Construction Certificates for the shed and the house, otherwise the completion of one would be dependent upon the completion of the other, and of course we need the shed to be built first to provide us with storage and the builder with amenities during construction. Separating out the Construction Certificate for the pool will at least mean we can get an Occupation Certificate for the house without needing to complete the pool (which we can't yet afford to build!), so that makes sense, but I do find paying for another one slightly annoying. We're haemmorhaging money and the build hasn't yet started. I'm not exactly surprised, though; after all, I have watched several series of Grand Designs with a certain amount of horror!
We should get the Construction Certificate for the shed through this week, which will enable the shed contractor to employ a concreter to pour the slab. This then needs to dry (about a week to ten days, I think) before the walls and roof can be put on. Then we will have somewhere we can store our stuff - including all the boxes currently in the house plus excess furniture, given that we'll have to up-sticks and move soon.
We won't get the Construction Certificate for the main house through until we've signed a contract with a builder and they've presented copies of their licence and insurance to Council. And we can't get our mortgage finalised with the bank until we've engaged a builder and signed that contract... and we're waiting for Dan Duffy to get back to us with an indication of a price before we can decide what to do. Both he and John Newton are still in the running, but we are slightly worried about John's view of things: he maintains he can't build the house for less than $500,000 which is all very fine but we just don't have that kind of money. We thought initially that he might not be that interested in the job, given that he seems to be in demand locally, but jobs must be drying up at the moment because he phoned us to enquire how we were getting on. However, he's not willing to go through a pricing process for us: he just wants to give us a rough estimate. He has offered to 'supply goods at cost' for the build and negotiate a fixed builders' fee on top, but I have to say that everyone we've mentioned this too has shaken their heads and said it's a con, as we'd have no way of knowing whether the price of the supplies was genuine, the lowest available or heavily marked-up! And I have to say that while it appears to be a generous offer, it isn't as transparent as it seems... Dan, by contrast, is out there pricing everything up and looking around for good suppliers at the best price, and wants to talk to us about the various options and the cost implications thereof. Hmmm. We'll see what happens.
So there you go. I have three main tasks - in addition to my own work! - while Michael's away: nag Council about getting the Construction Certificate for the shed into my sticky little mitts; pursue Dan about his pricing exercise; and finding us somewhere else to live in the meantime. Lucky me!
As regards the sale of the house we're currently living in, I discovered - by reading the local paper, mind you, not because either our landlord or managing agent thought to tell me - that our landlord has slashed the price of this place. Indeed, the advert has the price crossed out and the literate phrase, "Ouch! Make me an offer!" written over it. All of which presumably indicates that the pressure is on him to sell at least one of his properties and he's taking action accordingly. I am sure he would maintain that there's no need for us to panic, but somehow our comfortable belief that as the property was vastly over-priced and therefore wouldn't sell and therefore there was no need to panic is evaporating... Consequently I am about to start ringing round estate agents and making bookings to view properties. I'll go and see what I can this week, while Michael's away, and shortlist some properties (hopefully...) to look at when he gets back next week. It's a total pain in the neck.
Meanwhile, back at the block... We HAVE the DA paperwork for the house but the council planning officer apparently 'didn't notice' that the plans were submitted with a swimming pool clearly marked, hence a number of frantic phone calls which have resulted in Christian having to submit additional paperwork for additional approvals which will result in an additional Construction Certificate and associated additional fees. Ho hum. Quite how one could have 'missed' a large pool clearly marked in both text and plans I'm not sure.
Construction Certificates do seem to me to be a licence to collect money. We paid whopping fees to get the DA, for which the 'average' processing period through this council is allegedly 12 weeks, or so they like to claim. But in fact it's taken over 20 weeks and they managed to miss the pool. But then, of course, one has to get Construction Certificates, which effectively sign off at various benchmarks throughout the construction phase, resulting in an Occupation Certificate if you've ticked all the boxes in the process. We've had to separate out the Construction Certificates for the shed and the house, otherwise the completion of one would be dependent upon the completion of the other, and of course we need the shed to be built first to provide us with storage and the builder with amenities during construction. Separating out the Construction Certificate for the pool will at least mean we can get an Occupation Certificate for the house without needing to complete the pool (which we can't yet afford to build!), so that makes sense, but I do find paying for another one slightly annoying. We're haemmorhaging money and the build hasn't yet started. I'm not exactly surprised, though; after all, I have watched several series of Grand Designs with a certain amount of horror!
We should get the Construction Certificate for the shed through this week, which will enable the shed contractor to employ a concreter to pour the slab. This then needs to dry (about a week to ten days, I think) before the walls and roof can be put on. Then we will have somewhere we can store our stuff - including all the boxes currently in the house plus excess furniture, given that we'll have to up-sticks and move soon.
We won't get the Construction Certificate for the main house through until we've signed a contract with a builder and they've presented copies of their licence and insurance to Council. And we can't get our mortgage finalised with the bank until we've engaged a builder and signed that contract... and we're waiting for Dan Duffy to get back to us with an indication of a price before we can decide what to do. Both he and John Newton are still in the running, but we are slightly worried about John's view of things: he maintains he can't build the house for less than $500,000 which is all very fine but we just don't have that kind of money. We thought initially that he might not be that interested in the job, given that he seems to be in demand locally, but jobs must be drying up at the moment because he phoned us to enquire how we were getting on. However, he's not willing to go through a pricing process for us: he just wants to give us a rough estimate. He has offered to 'supply goods at cost' for the build and negotiate a fixed builders' fee on top, but I have to say that everyone we've mentioned this too has shaken their heads and said it's a con, as we'd have no way of knowing whether the price of the supplies was genuine, the lowest available or heavily marked-up! And I have to say that while it appears to be a generous offer, it isn't as transparent as it seems... Dan, by contrast, is out there pricing everything up and looking around for good suppliers at the best price, and wants to talk to us about the various options and the cost implications thereof. Hmmm. We'll see what happens.
So there you go. I have three main tasks - in addition to my own work! - while Michael's away: nag Council about getting the Construction Certificate for the shed into my sticky little mitts; pursue Dan about his pricing exercise; and finding us somewhere else to live in the meantime. Lucky me!
Monday, October 6, 2008
Water, water
Water does seem to play a big part in our life at Wakelands Road, particularly when there isn't any. You'll recall us running out of water late last year when we didn't understand how the bore/tank/hose/tank/pump system worked, and the belly-laughs we had trying to convince our managing agent that the noise of water in our bedroom betokened the hot water system gaily pumping our drinking water out into the paddock...
A week or so ago the "water feature" that diverts half of the pool cleaning pump away from cleaning the pool ceased to flow because the motor went and the motor had to be replaced as the water went green and furry.
Yesterday we tried to turn on said new pump and nothing happened: no water flowed through the water feature and into the swimming pool, but we don't think the motor has failed (although we're not sure what the problem is, exactly).
Today's moment of amusement came when Michael tried to turn on the pump leading from the bore up to the above-ground holding tank, thinking that he'd pump up a tankful of water and use it to help fill the swimming pool which has been gradually going down through evaporation as we've had quite a dry winter. Well nothing happened. Or more accurately, the pump sprang into action as soon as the power was switched on but nothing came out of the ground.
Does this mean that there's no more water in the bore? I guess it could be the case, after all I don't suppose we're the only household around here using the bore - it would be quite odd if a geological feature like that was reserved exclusively for this house. Or does it mean that co-incidentally the water pumps are failing almost simultaneously?
Whatever the answer, our problems are compounded by the fact that it's a bank holiday and our managing agency is closed, and as it's the school holidays our landlord is away. Of course, this house is also on the market, and our landlord is going to be thrilled to bits that things are breaking down at a point when he's trying to sell the place because he doesn't have any money, so I daresay we won't be popular when he finds out!
Talking about selling the house, one of the selling agents brought around an American family on Saturday to look at things, but they didn't get as far as looking in the office where Michael, Ella and I were holed up because as they said to Jim, they really loved the scenery but would bulldoze the house! They also commented that for the money they'd expect everything to be spick-and-span. I don't envy the agents, really. The house is on the market with two companies, one of which is the agency through whom we rent it, and both agents had the tricky task of telling our landlord that they think he's put it on the market for too much money. Jim said our landlord clearly thinks they don't know how much he paid for it, but of course they have access to previous sales figures through the Land Registry. So they know that he's asking $100,000 more than he paid for it two years ago, and the problem is that the market here is stagnant and the house has been quietly deteriorating. Our landlord has put in a new kitchen, but it's nothing flash and hasn't been properly finished so it would have cost him $8,000 at most and certainly doesn't justify the hike in price.
Anyone buying this place would have to spend money on the spa (which is cracking and will need to be replaced), the swimming pool (a 25 year old concrete pool with deteriorating grout and half a cleaning system which has broken below-ground pipes), the pool area (rotten timbers and uneven tiling), the gutters (almost all of them need serious attention), the roof (decidedly dodgy and leaking), the bathrooms (all of which need renovation) and the windows (all of which have corroding aluminium frames). All up you'd probably have to spend the best part of $100,000! And for the same money around here you could buy a 4 or 5 bed new build home on less land but with a new pool and ocean views...
Who knows what will happen. My money is on our landlord reducing the price of the house he lives in and managing to sell it, and thus booting us out of here so that he can move back in. I'll cope well enough with that as long as it happens after Christmas! I just don't want to up sticks and move again now. If we can get our building going and put the shed up, and if I can see progress and we have to move the other side of Christmas then I might be more sanguine about the idea of living in a caravan on-site, or moving into the shed for a while. We could just say stuff it and set about finding a new home for 6 - 9 months right now, but I don't have the energy and we've got enough other changes on the cards, not least getting our daughter through the process of starting at a new school.
A week or so ago the "water feature" that diverts half of the pool cleaning pump away from cleaning the pool ceased to flow because the motor went and the motor had to be replaced as the water went green and furry.
Yesterday we tried to turn on said new pump and nothing happened: no water flowed through the water feature and into the swimming pool, but we don't think the motor has failed (although we're not sure what the problem is, exactly).
Today's moment of amusement came when Michael tried to turn on the pump leading from the bore up to the above-ground holding tank, thinking that he'd pump up a tankful of water and use it to help fill the swimming pool which has been gradually going down through evaporation as we've had quite a dry winter. Well nothing happened. Or more accurately, the pump sprang into action as soon as the power was switched on but nothing came out of the ground.
Does this mean that there's no more water in the bore? I guess it could be the case, after all I don't suppose we're the only household around here using the bore - it would be quite odd if a geological feature like that was reserved exclusively for this house. Or does it mean that co-incidentally the water pumps are failing almost simultaneously?
Whatever the answer, our problems are compounded by the fact that it's a bank holiday and our managing agency is closed, and as it's the school holidays our landlord is away. Of course, this house is also on the market, and our landlord is going to be thrilled to bits that things are breaking down at a point when he's trying to sell the place because he doesn't have any money, so I daresay we won't be popular when he finds out!
Talking about selling the house, one of the selling agents brought around an American family on Saturday to look at things, but they didn't get as far as looking in the office where Michael, Ella and I were holed up because as they said to Jim, they really loved the scenery but would bulldoze the house! They also commented that for the money they'd expect everything to be spick-and-span. I don't envy the agents, really. The house is on the market with two companies, one of which is the agency through whom we rent it, and both agents had the tricky task of telling our landlord that they think he's put it on the market for too much money. Jim said our landlord clearly thinks they don't know how much he paid for it, but of course they have access to previous sales figures through the Land Registry. So they know that he's asking $100,000 more than he paid for it two years ago, and the problem is that the market here is stagnant and the house has been quietly deteriorating. Our landlord has put in a new kitchen, but it's nothing flash and hasn't been properly finished so it would have cost him $8,000 at most and certainly doesn't justify the hike in price.
Anyone buying this place would have to spend money on the spa (which is cracking and will need to be replaced), the swimming pool (a 25 year old concrete pool with deteriorating grout and half a cleaning system which has broken below-ground pipes), the pool area (rotten timbers and uneven tiling), the gutters (almost all of them need serious attention), the roof (decidedly dodgy and leaking), the bathrooms (all of which need renovation) and the windows (all of which have corroding aluminium frames). All up you'd probably have to spend the best part of $100,000! And for the same money around here you could buy a 4 or 5 bed new build home on less land but with a new pool and ocean views...
Who knows what will happen. My money is on our landlord reducing the price of the house he lives in and managing to sell it, and thus booting us out of here so that he can move back in. I'll cope well enough with that as long as it happens after Christmas! I just don't want to up sticks and move again now. If we can get our building going and put the shed up, and if I can see progress and we have to move the other side of Christmas then I might be more sanguine about the idea of living in a caravan on-site, or moving into the shed for a while. We could just say stuff it and set about finding a new home for 6 - 9 months right now, but I don't have the energy and we've got enough other changes on the cards, not least getting our daughter through the process of starting at a new school.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
