one step forward, two steps back

Feeling really flat today, just had word from our broker that our finance has not come through for the construction part of our loan, despite having been pre aproved. he has assured us that we will not have a problem getting our loan with bank b. but the hassel of going through the whole process again has really knocked me down. who would have thought having a 20% deposit 3 jobs between us and no debts would lead us to being declined! cant believe it. just when I thought everything was going to start happening with our build, this happens....

contracts signed

CONTRACTS SIGNED AND SIGN IS UP.

we had our contract signing yesterday, and everything went very smoothly. The only thing Im still not 100% happy with is the fire rating that come in in September.
Our liason asked us to sign a form that exempt us from having to have the BAL rating because we put our deposit down before the law was passed, then after I told her to take it($4600) out of our contract berfore we sign the contract she back tracked and said that we would have to have it, if its in the contracts made up. very frustrating and im kicking myself now for not demanding it be taken out of our contract, our liason has been so nice and I didnt want to get her off side.
Anyway, no point in complaining! we have our sign up on the block, and its nice to see a few other Burbank signs in our stage aswell.
Monday plans will be sent to council and finance paperwork will be sent off. Cant belive it is all really happening now. Although reality hit when I seen my bank statement and all our savings were gone!  Lucky we'll have something to show for it soon.

Admin nears the end

Little update-
Settlement is going through Thursday
We had to pay $600 in penalties so unfair. Ill know for next time to get finance myself and not rely on a broker.
Burbank has advised us that our contract is ready to be signed so well go in next week to do that.
Cant believe that the admin process is comming to an end.... we finally are going to see our home come to life!
Go Away RAIN

waiting on settlement

Land settlement was schedualed for the 16th of April..... unfortunatly because of our late finance application we are now paying intres penalties until our finance comes through.
Note to self-
finance contracts only last so long before they expire!
we didnt realise this, and the bank we had our loan with didnt tell us either!we just assumed we had a land loan and it would all go through at settlement. luckly for us, our conveyoncer brought it up so we frantically started getting finance again....with a different bank!
on the positive side things are moving along nicely through the admin side with burbank. we have just recived notice that our engieniring is complete and our site supervisor has been down to our block to check off everything.
hopefully the wait wont be too much longer.

Soil test complete

Just a little update:Soil tests done and only $7600! I expected it to be a little more than that. our block has a 1500 fall according to the reports.
Initial write up has been signed and returned and I am happy that I came in about 3k under what I expected , fire BAL 12.5 was only an extra $4500. (still a big waste of money I think!) couldve got a nice new tv for the theater room with that.
Had my mortgage broker ring Burbank last week to see how long till contracts? hopefully a gentle push will move things along
I know im always exited, but I really really am now! titles are due on the 11th of April wont be too much longer and we mite start seeing some action on the block!
and heres a piccy of our patch all done.

thinking gardens

So were still waiting on titles... our block has been pegged out and ready to go for about 3 weeks now. not sure what the hold up is? to stop me from going insane I have started to focus on what our garden will look like. Our estate guidlines require the use of only native or drought tolerant plants , so with that in mind I went for a look at our local Botanical Gardens for inspiration.

we were thinking of using mondo grass in the front yard instead of regular turf.

I love the look of layering in the garden

this is going to be our water feature.

we have started growing our own clippings and  yukka pups

so that they are well established for when the house is finished.

still waiting

Although I havnt been officially told by our liason, our burbank workflow shows that our developer aproval has gone through. very happy, and its only taken a week!
The spray on grass has gone down on our block and everything is looking finished. not sure what the hold up is now? Im still being told settlement wont be till April. :-(