The Livingston 20

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Porter Davis were offering a range of fixed price house and land packages with blocks from Solsbury Field. One of the houses PD offered with the 12.5m frontage blocks was their Livingston 20. We quite liked the look of Livingston 20 and went through the display home at Allura (Truganina) a couple of times. We soon realised that many of the features in the display home were upgrades.

Indeed Porter Davis don’t even include floor coverings in their basic price. So in order to get a reasonable idea of cost it is necessary to identify each individual item and enquire if it in the base price. If the item is an extra – it is necessary to ask what the additional cost is.

Bitumen

The photo below was taken today and shows that about 75% of Red Brush Rd and all of Solsbury Crescent has now been laid with bitumen. This is despite the inclement weather we have had over the past week. The forecast for this week for showers Monday – Wednesday but mostly sunny days on Thursday and Friday. Hopefully good progress will be made.

The settled part of Red Brush Drive

The picture from my last post was taken from the boundary between Somerfield and Solsbury along Red Brush Drive towards Solsbury. The photo below is taken from the the same place but facing the completed Somerfield end of Red Brush Drive.

As you can see the most of the homes at the Somerfield end are complete and being lived in. However, the council has not gotten around to planting the nature strip. Perhaps they're waiting until the road is completed or perhaps they’re just waiting ?

When Will Our Land Be Titled

When we first signed the contract to buy the land, the estimated date for registration of the new titles was March/April 2015. At that stage development of the sub-division had just commenced. The estimated titles date has proved to be a little optimistic. The photograph below was taken on April 11, 2015. As you can see things have certainly progressed but the registration of titles is likely to be a few weeks away.

The channel is in place - but the road is still to be laid and the footpath and the driveway crossovers are yet to be poured. I think a more realistic date is the end of May.

Early Days of the Development

We were given 2 to 3 weeks to sign a contract for the land. In the mean time we investigated other land buying opportunities around the area to make sure we were getting a reasonable value. I'm glad to report we were. After signing the contract we weren't required to pay the 5% deposit until finance was confirmed. This took about 4 weeks due to the Christmas break and the fact that our financier was offering the best deal in the market at the time.

This photo of the Solsbury Field area was taken in mid-December when the development work had recently commenced.

81 Lots at Solsbury

There are 81 lots in the Solsbury Field estate. The frontages of the rectangular blocks vary from 8m to 14.64m.

What's Special About Lot 30 ?

We had placed a deposit on Lot 30 Solsbury Field. It sits on the top of a T intersection between Red Brush Rd and Solsbury Crescent. Fortunately there won't be much traffic approaching the property from Solsbury Cresent given it is relatively short and being a crescent there is, of course, another exit into Red Brush Road.

There is a 2m easement which runs along the southern boundary of Lot 29. This means the owners of Lot 29 must leave 2m between their house and the boundary with Lot 30. This will ensure we will see more of the northern sun. The garage, which in the vast majority of house designs is located at the front of the house, will shield the house from the the late afternoon sun in the West during the summer.

Solsbury Field

Solsbury Field is located in Keysborough approximately 1.3km south of Parkmore Shopping Centre. It is bounded by Church Rd, Stanley Rd, Daylily Drive and Havenstone Drive. This is how it is described in the flyer:

“Just 25 minutes from the CBD, Melbourne is just a hop, skip and a jump away with quick and easy access to Eastlink, giving you a direct run into the city. Within easy reach, you also have the beautiful Bayside suburbs with some of Victoria’s best beaches just 8 minutes away. The established Parkmore Shopping Centre is just around the corner, as well and parklands, a leisure centre, tennis club and a number of golf courses all in close proximity. Solsbury Field gives you a unique opportunity to enjoy the established amenities, whilst living in your brand new home.”

House and Land Package

One Porter Davis House and Land package in particular looked quite very attractive, This involved land at Solsbury Field which was 12.5m x 32m and a PD house called the Livingston. On that particular Sunday all the PD sales consultants were busy and we made an appointment to return the following weekend to discuss talk to a Sales Consultant about the Solsbury Field package. On our return the next weekend we learned that all the packages involving land at Solsbury Field with a 12.5m frontage had now been sold.

However, we were told that a 12.5m frontage Solsbury Field block had come back on the market and we were welcome to purchase it from the developer and separately build the Livingston with PD. Keen to take advantage of the situation we put down a nominal deposit on the land that afternoon.

Keysborough

The next logical place to look for land was Keysborough as it closer to Bentleigh East and closer to the CBD. Keysborough is one of the few places in this part of Melbourne where farm land is being developed for residential housing. The major land development currently taking place in Keyborough is called Somerfield by a company called Intrapac. They release land on a fairly regular basis. However when we were looking in early December 2014 they had very little available. As I recall there were only a couple of lots with a 10.5 metre frontage.

Whilst we were in Keysborough we took a look at some of the homes at the local house display village. At the Porter Davis display we found they were offering House and Land packages in the area. The land was from a nearby development which borders Somerfield called Solsbury Field.

Wattlewood

We first investigated the Wattlewood development at Carrum Downs. One of the advantages of Wattlewood is that it is vacant land in an established area. All the infrastructure is aleady in place.

However the last release was had been in September 2014 and there only a few lots available. Also there was a question about how flat the blocks were. The salesman wasn't sure when the next release might be. Indeed, its been a few months since we enquired and no additional land has been released.

Buying Vacant Land

I've come to the conclusion that selling land in Melbourne must be one of the easier ways to earn a living. Perhaps it's more of a challenge in the West or outer South East but in places like Keysborough it seems very straight forward. The prices are set. The demand is such that if you don't buy a lot somebody else will. If you don't get in almost immediately land is released, you are left to choose from the problem blocks no-one else wants.

I work in the Melbourne CBD so didn't really want to live on the fringes of the city given the long commute involved. In recent times we have lived in various rental properties around Bentleigh East area and wanted to remain reasonably close to family and friends who live in the general vicinity. However, vacant land in this area is simply not available in this part of the city. It is very much Knockdown Rebuild territory. And as many know that can be a very expensive proposition.

Welcome to the Blog

Hello and Welcome to our Blog which will chronicle the inevitable highs and lows in building our new new house. It's late April 2015 and its high time I sat down in front of the keyboard and began our homebuilding story. 

We are building the Balwyn 196 at Keysborough (in South East Melbourne) with Orbit Homes - a relatively small project builder. More information on the Balwyn 196 can be found at balwyn-196.