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.