To build or not to build......

Believe me when I say this is not an easy decision and one that we agonised over for a long time. When we initially had the thought put into our head by friends we were all over it and super keen to get started. BUT!!! What I discovered is that there are so many hidden factors and costs in the decision to build a new house that most people simply aren't aware of. Well, we weren't anyway and it came as one huge shock! I'm hoping by starting this blog I can give people some much needed insight into the overwhelming process that is building a new home.

For some background - we bought our first house in 2008. It was a shocker. A 1920s hardiplank home that had been extended on and renovated many times over it's life. When we got our hands on it, it had 1970s brown and orange swirl carpet, different coloured wall paper in every room and it was a total eye sore. But I instantly fell in love with it and saw it's amazing potential. My partner took some convincing as did our families. But I could see it! It had solid bones, 3.3m ceilings, 4 bedrooms and a brand new kitchen that had never been used. We bought it and got to work. Little did I know that it would turn into a 10 year long renovation project! We certainly bit off more than we could chew with us both working full time and then getting married and then the birth of our 2 girls in amongst the chaos of renovations. Do I regret it? Not one bit! It gave us huge insight into owning a home, renovation requirements and we wouldn't be building a brand new home if we hadn't of done this first. I look back on it with great pride now, even though it felt like an ongoing nightmare many times over the years. See pictures below for the before and after!

So along came our second daughter and we quickly realised that we had outgrown our beloved home that we had thought we were in for the long term. We had 4 choices - buy bigger and renovate again (I think my husband had a mild cardiac arrest at the mere thought!), buy bigger with something that didn't need as much work (we quickly realised that was not going to happen in our price range where we live after some extensive searching), extend our current house or build new (we hadn't even considered this but had friends who were building and the seed was planted).

So off we went to out mortgage broker with the idea that we wanted to extend - he quickly burst that bubble when he advised us that we would way overcapitalise our current home (which was fine if we really were going to stay there for the long term) and we still wouldn't really have the layout we desired we'd just be adding square footage. So essentially he convinced us to look further into building new.

After extensive research which I will cover in upcoming posts our beloved home went up for sale. Three weeks later it was sold. I was devastated to sell our beloved first home that we put so much blood, sweat and tears into, but excited about what was to come. So is building the right move for you? Unfortunately only you can answer that. If you google you will come across lots of pros and cons lists which go something along the lines of:

Pros for building new: you get to start fresh and choose the layout, you can customise the home to your tastes and lifestyle, warranty and less maintenance required, often more energy efficient, can be cheaper than buying established

Cons for building new: it's a long, drawn out process, upgrades can drive the price up significantly, costs such as landscaping and window coverings can quickly add up, you may be living in a construction area for some time

Pros for buying established: you can see exactly what you are getting, able to negotiate on the price, mature landscaping is included, probably in a more central location

Cons for buying established: you might not get everything you want, there could be maintenance or renovation costs involved, not as energy efficient.

Anyway, there is plenty more, but you get the picture! My advise for whatever it is worth:

- Know your budget and your financial situation inside and out

- Know exactly what you are after in terms of location, lifestyle, house layout

- Write your own pros and cons list

- Seek expert advice and speak to people who have been through the process before

- Research, research, research!!

- Ask questions - none are silly!

- If you decide to build find out everything you can about upgrade costs (I'll dedicate a whole post to this later!)

- Join groups on Facebook as they were an invaluable source of information for me

- Everybody's lifestyle, finances and circumstances are very different so don't do anything you feel you can't comfortably do

That's not an exhaustive list, but I'm sure I will have more advice as we move along! Stay tuned for my next post about choosing land vs house design or what you could almost consider a chicken and the egg dilemma!