As some of you may already know, back in 2008, Nana and I took the plunge and secured ourselves a little patch of Australian dirt! Fast-track to 2010 and we have finally built and moved into our new home. Sounds simple does it not, buy land, build, move in. And hey presto, instant home! Well, let me just dispel this fairytale myth and plant reality firmly back into its rightful place. Back in March 2008, as we were quite young and practically penniless, our budget wasn’t of a standard to be admired. Therefore, when we were both looking at procuring our first house, we mainly looked into old established homes which were located approximately around our current neighbourhood. Nan was adamant that we should buy in our area as he refused to move out any further.

When searching for that elusive house, we were armed with three very distinct criterias: 1. We wanted a nice house 2. Attached to that a cheap price tag 3. Within our current neighbourhood. Not much to ask for right (lol)?! I know, we wanted the whole world, but weren't willing to pay the price! We never even entertained the very idea of building a house, simply because we thought it was completely and quite utterly out of our budget range. However, after scrutinising briefly through the local real estate ads and the internet, we came to the sad conclusion that an old established home just wouldn’t be sufficient, it just wouldn’t fit in our grand master plan of life.

That moment of defeat however gave me the inspiration to sit down one sunny afternoon and methodically crunch some numbers to devise a new plan of action. What is this new plan? Well, for the amount of money which we would need to buy an established home in our neigbourhood, plus stamp duty and all other associated governmental fees, it would cost just as much to go out 15mins drive further from our current neighbourhood, and purchase a block of land in an up-and-coming neighhourhood littered with new estates. The amount of money saved on stamp duty when purchasing land is in excess of $10K! Added to the mix the government’s willingness to give more to those willing to build a house, it wasn’t hard to distinguish which option was best for us. At least this way, two out of our three criterias were met. It’s all about compromising, and taking opportunities by the horn when it presented itself. With this new found epiphany, I presented Nan with my arguments and calculations as to why it would be more economically viable for us to proceed in this direction. It truly wasn’t difficult to persuade Nan to see things my way. All that was required was for me to fill his head up with pictures of nice new things and a beautiful house, it was like dangling a carrot!

And there, my friends, begins our journey of finding our perfect block of pristine Aussie land, building our first home, and chasing that elusive Australia dream…


xox
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