Still waiting

Just back from a trip to NZ for a 40th birthday and engagement party, it was nice to see family again after a few years. Poor Mr BellbirdRetreat was ill the whole time though and barely made it out of bed some days, so much for a holiday.... we got back to Brisbane early yesterday to a very happy cat and the comforts of home. We have decided that this Christmas will very much be a quiet affair involving relaxing, good food and saving money for the house.

The latest news from the build is that we got a call from Plantation last week to clarify a couple of changes that we have requested so that they can price it up as part of the new home proposal, we are taking this as a good sign that there is some progress towards the next steps in the build.

We were told to expect a phone call this week to book in the appointment for the proposal presentation, so fingers crossed we get that call soon.


In finance news our broker has advised us that the pre-approval on our loan is about to expire so we will need to apply for an extension on that to cover the period while we wait for the contract to be drawn up with Plantation. We are thinking of getting an increase in the amount we are applying for so that we can confirm that we can get the extra we would like for the post build things and the shed.


We have taken out the pool as part of the build at the moment to make room for some other costs, luckily with the size of the land we can always add it at a later date, so not too much of a worry there.


No doubt we will make another visit to the land this weekend; there are about 4 other houses already underway in the same stage so it will be good to see the progress on their builds. About half of the blocks in the stage seem to have been sold at the moment; the blocks either side of us are unsold at present, we suspect 1 will take a while to sell as it is a Q150 flood zone and has a reasonably deep gully about halfway down the block.