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5 mortgage mistakes to avoid

5 mortgage mistakes to avoid:

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1st Home Buyer

Over the next couple of weeks I’ll cover off some of the basics which a house purchaser should know. Today I’ll have a look at what’s needed for arranging finance

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sort my mortgage - home loans

Build Blog 15

House build attempt 3. After having a couple of significant changes to circumstances and ending up with a prohibitively expensive design we have chosen to not go ahead with our previous design and are now moving onto design 3. With our previous design we had ended up going down a path of using some pretty specialized products that most builders were not familiar with.

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Build Blog 14

1 step forward 2 steps back. Currently our design is still with council but a lot has happened in the back ground in the last month or so. The outfit who designed our house plans were also to build it – after the complications of our first design dealing with architect/builder/engineer we were keen for a ‘one stop shop’. However the outfit have essentially ceased new business and their build arm decided around Christmas that they would not be available for our build.

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Build Blog 13

By the print of this column our plans should be with council and I’ll be updating shortly on the time and  process of dealing with our council.

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Build Blog 12

Build update: Our designers have just about completed the working drawings so we are close to submitting for council approval. Based on a similar house we are hoping for council confirmation in 3 months and commencing the build in January.

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Build Blog 11

So this is the design we have currently opted to run with and working drawings are currently being done. We have had a couple of sessions on materials etc. so far for the house. Currently we are cladding the house in cedar, which everyone seems to recommend.

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sortmymortgage house1

Build Blog 10

It’s been a while since I’ve last added to this but we have spent the last few months in a holding pattern. Just prior to Xmas we did a round of pricing prior to getting working drawings done. Unfortunately the pricing came in 50% over budget. I asked a QS to look at cost saving options but realistically did not feel we would be able to get that design where we wanted the price to be. At this time I had also been working with a couple of clients who had gone through design & build companies with pretty attractive pricing.

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Build Blog 9

Meeting of experts. I had a meeting with the architect, engineer and quantity surveyor today now that we basically have the final concept design. Quite an interesting meeting of minds.

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Build Blog 8

Timeframes. In the back of our minds we were working on being in the house by winter 2014, we have now been told Xmas 2014 would be a great result.

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