It's all happening!!!

So Nath and I finally had a bit of money saved up and decided to go try our luck with the brokers from Loan Studio with Carlisle homes and see what they thought our chances were of being approved for a loan! After a quick talk on the phone explaining our Jobs, wages, debt and savings we were pretty much pre-approved on the spot for a home loan! 

It was such a relief after hearing from a couple of banks previously that we needed another $20k upfront in order to get a loan (but this was because we were looking at maybe buying established for a while there). They told us were were good financially to pay back about a $700k loan (not that we would) but just needed more for all the upfront costs. 

But it is soooooo much easier to get your first home if it's a house and land package scenario! You get a 10k grant from the Victorian Government at the moment to go towards the deposit, stamp duty is only on the land and not the house and you get an additional 40% off it as well, plus deposits are only $3k with Carlisle Homes instead of the regular 5-20% (But SERIOUSLY what first home buyer has like $80,000 in cash?!). 

So after getting a verbal pre-approval from the Loan Studio, we arranged a meeting with Brian from Carlisle homes to go down to Geelong and sit with him to go over what house plan we were interested in and which facade. It all happened very quickly! But infact Nath and I have been interested in building in Warralily for a good 3 years now, so it's been a long time coming and a lot of research over the years as to where we wanted to live and what builder we wanted to go with. 

Brian from Carlisle Homes was absolutely lovely, with a Santa-esque vibe with his big white beard. A bit like getting your dad to help you build your first home because it felt like he was looking out for our best interests and our budget with every question we had.

We had previously picked out the Addison as our floorplan (I think i wrote a blog post about this a while ago if you want to read), and decided to go with the 24 instead of the 26 so that we would have a bit more flexibility with block size, keep the costs down and also because i think i actually liked the 24 better than the 26 because the bigger one has a fair bit of unnecessary space in the hallway and such. We also picked out the Ramsay facade because we both loved the stained wood panel finish available and alos you get this cool little cutout niche extra space in the front window of the master bedroom (you don't get this in the other facades!) Free space! It's probably big enough to fit a chair, love seat or a blanket box i would think!. 

We now have a meeting tonight with the Loan Studio to finalise loans and fingers crossed get officially approved for finance! Then this Sunday we are meeting with Brian from Carlisle Homes to finalise the house plans and sign them off as well as we are meeting with Ben from Warralily to finalise the land and sign some documents! Exciting stuff!!!