Land And/or House Buying/building...

[RubyRS4]

Can you go into the Devine office in Adelaide to speak with someone? Or do you have to call that Sales line? I'd rather speak to someone in person, though!

There is a Devine display centre at Reynella. There is always someone there to speak to and you can see the houses and land available and put together a package there and then.

When I built my place, I opted to go for a stricter lender (I had the leverage) to get a better deal in the long run. They'll present you with lender options, the easier lender will not necessarily be cheaper, so try going to a stricter lender.

[savage GTR]

You will probably find it will slightly be cheaper to build , you will increase in value quicker , But consider fences, flooring, window furnishing etc when you work out how much it will cost in total

I would never recomend Hickinbotham

Also make sure the builder is a member of the MBA. (master builders association)

The MBA can always help you if the builder does something bodgy.

Do your homework

On another note ,Rent for a year with the partner (if your in a new relationship) . You want to know that you can live with your partner before you buy a house together.

[KISIN]

like pretending you are living in it for 6 months - direct all your bills to the address, have a bit of running water and light usage every now and again etc

yeh thats one way

[Boof]

Yer we built our place with Devine we did exactly what Ruby did, walked in and talked house and land packages with them! Longest part with them was waiting for the paperwork to be done. From the time the slab was layed to the time we moved in was like 9 weeks or something!! They don't stuff around!

[Nightcrawler]

why not build and rent it out as a source of income and stay at home till your ready to get married then you have a new house to move into

because you would not get the $21k first home owner's grant = effectively lose 2 years of rent.

I agree with what others have said - rent somewhere with your gf and make sure you can live with her - women are VERY different when you actually move in together. You would NOT want to go through all the pain, suffering and headaches of building (and yes, there are MANY), only to lose half of it if you and your gf broke up - it doesn't take long these days to build a de facto relationship, and it doesn't matter who contributes more to the costs and living expenses, she would still take half or more.

Definitely see a mortgage broker - they can run all your facts and figures through complex PC software to establish which funder will get you the best deal. I believe regardless who you go with that an offset account is an absolute must. Get a lender who will give you a cost-free $10k credit card and live off the credit card all month. When you get paid pay off what you have spent in the last month on the credit card, and put the rest in your offset account. Each month most of your pay will sit in the offset account, and this amount comes off the principal amount of your loan effectively saving you paying interest on that amount. At the start of your loan this can add up to a significant amount over the course of a year. so each month you live off your Visa, then the start of the next month, pay it off, leave the balance in your offset account, and start living off the Visa again. Repeat forever.

We went with Mortgage Choice, who were excellent. They put us onto a loan through them with ANZ. A couple of years later ANZ contacted us directly, and we changed over purely to them, as they offered us a better deal (since they no longer had to pay Mortgage Choice a trailing commission).

FYI I am a property valuer doing mortgage security work primarily for the biggest lender in Australia, so I hope I know what I am talking about

[RubyRS4]

Yer we built our place with Devine we did exactly what Ruby did, walked in and talked house and land packages with them! Longest part with them was waiting for the paperwork to be done. From the time the slab was layed to the time we moved in was like 9 weeks or something!! They don't stuff around!

Yep ... my house was built in just over 9 weeks also. Of course, back then there wasn't such a high demand for property development.

[Carbon 34]

I built with devine 3 years ago in Aldinga, cause they had all inclusive deals.

well my experience was mixed,

say no to there financing , too expensive

keep an eye on the build process, ride them hard or they get slack ass, make sure you have every little detail signed off, they farked up the blueprints with the wrong buyer, the wrong plans twice. but in the long run there is nothing like a fresh clean house. and I got more in the long run, first house in oz

stay away from HARLEM HEIGHTS..lol its horrrible everywhere. you can polish a turd forever but it still stinks, crime central I lived there behind shutters for 3 years,, never again!!!!

Sellicks beach is a great place with better resale value and fresh air. the beach kicks ass, even 2 k inland you can hear the waves at night.. priceless

I'm looking at Sellicks now. Aldinga is nice but now I sold my place for a huge profit and you can get one in sellicks right on the water still,, very nice..

wins hands down.

Devine is ok, but haggle they will come down or throw in stuff. hot over 40k worth of stuff free. on top of upgrades for free.

really mopst builders are only as good as the workers, go buy them some beer now and then , it greases the wheels a bit...lol

[PREISS]

Im always at sellicks chasing the salmon. great fishing there.

nice place for sure.

just alittle far away from everything tho.

[CRoNic...]

Andrew, my boss was only talking about setting up an offset account the other day for a mortgage! I'll have to also look into that!

Sapphire, yeah I'm looking at either Sellicks or Aldinga at the moment. Once the Noarlunga train line extension goes ahead (be finished in 2012) then house prices would shoot up I'd say, due to there being more public transport avalible in the area, as the line would get extended to Aldinga/Silver Sands. Where abouts is this Harlem Heights? Is this an estate in Aldinga?

[Carbon 34]

Andrew, my boss was only talking about setting up an offset account the other day for a mortgage! I'll have to also look into that!

Sapphire, yeah I'm looking at either Sellicks or Aldinga at the moment. Once the Noarlunga train line extension goes ahead (be finished in 2012) then house prices would shoot up I'd say, due to there being more public transport avalible in the area, as the line would get extended to Aldinga/Silver Sands. Where abouts is this Harlem Heights? Is this an estate in Aldinga?

lol no its paying out huntfield heights, the slums lands of the south..lol crime central, or as some call it. deep south elizabeth..lol... every night was a new crime wave there....its really bad. and ask devine how many houses near you are housing trust in huntfield, last time i looked it was 12 in a small area? , they set aside a bunch mixed with the new houses for the trust and we know what kind of people they can bring in on that plan, not always bad people just the never ending people in people out every 6-12 months. hurts the house resale ???

oh and the area you spoke of has the sewage ponds smell on hot days wafting thru your windows..

Aldinga is nice, but you want really fresh air and silence with some great fishing on your door step Sellicks beach is better. and cheaper too. but one thing to watch out for is they have a lack of sewage connection in sellicks,make sure in the contract you have a 100% assurance of drainage into the mains. caused a bit of grief last winter on new home buyers who signed up then couldnt get mains sewage. septics suck...lol

dont hold your breath with the trainline, the delays and costs are huge..but the house value is stable right now down here.

the best thing is the quality of living , clean air, views, beach, nice people still, it seems far from everywhere but really its worth every penny of extra fuel to come home to the beach. it only takes a extra 4 min to go to sellicks from aldinga I timed it on south road and 7-10 from seaford, 45min to a hour into the city by car at good times.. and they do have plans for more shops etc in aldinga. the draw back is the trucks on south road driving erradic speeds makes me crazy. bumpy roads of disrepair never getting fixed.(slowly getting better now) and the lack of forward planning in the south , jobs, roads, infrastructure is bad. oh and it does get windy here a lot.. but most of the time its much nicer then in the city temp. wise.

and the traffic is going to get worse with the announcement of 1300 new homes in seaford rise, near the bridge on south road heading past the dump.

in sellicks you will be closer to the beach, then aldinga. unless you move into the older houses. and sellicks isnt has flat as aldinga so the views are better.

plus most of the new house buyers are younger so finding mates in your age group will be easier ? most of us oldies live on or near the esplinade now..lol

lucky to live here, in USA you would pay many millions to live this close to a good beach.

[CRoNic...]

Lol you lived in Huntfield heights, too?! I've lived there for... 20-odd years now. I basically grew up in the area (went to school at Hackam South primary!). I could write a book about my experiences in that area, but I wont go into detail lol.

Quick hot fact: when they were changing the name to Huntfield heights, the other name option was Huntingdale!

[SLED]

lol, they needed a name change.........Hackham West sounded too much like Davoren Park and Elizabeth West..........apologies to those residents.............and condolences

[CRoNic...]

Lol Pete. Yeah, we got the papers in the mail years and years ago from the Onkaparinga Council. Everyone hated the name "Huntingdale" as it sounds too much like a American college!

[mid life crisis]

lol i was brought up in elizabeth west u had to learn to run fast or fight hard i survied ans still live fairly close ive never had any trouble at all really moved there when i was 5 now nearly 50 seen most of the so called tough guys come ango by now lol

[RubyRS4]

lol i was brought up in elizabeth west u had to learn to run fast or fight hard i survied ans still live fairly close ive never had any trouble at all really moved there when i was 5 now nearly 50 seen most of the so called tough guys come ango by now lol

I grew up in those suburbs also. Learnt to break into a run when you hear a car pulling up behind you. You could stand and fight, but most times they had bats etc. That was like nearly 20 years ago! Don't miss that place. Lived away from there for the past 10 years, stuck to school and used my brain and not my fists. Nothing like what it use to be, but bored polished up ferals still steal and fight nonetheless.

[Robo's]

Im a broker and have found most banks are making it hard to lend $$$ due to the rate cuts and recession. ANZ have dropped from 95% to 90% lending and CBA have just dropped there no deposit home loans. Try St.George, they still do 100% loans and still offer a reasonable interest rate.

[Damo_R34]

Shouldn't people be encouraged to make more long term investments (eg house/land ownerships) at times of recession? Or would the government prefer consumers to pump all of their hard earned savings into short term consumables to boost the economy?

[CRoNic...]

Good point, Damo.

[Carbon 34]

Im a broker and have found most banks are making it hard to lend $$ due to the rate cuts and recession. ANZ have dropped from 95% to 90% lending and CBA have just dropped there no deposit home loans. Try St.George, they still do 100% loans and still offer a reasonable interest rate.

watch out for the devine 105% loans, and high fees to break the loan in 3 years.

I found the homestart and st george dudes had the cheapest loans, but in the end i sold the house.

CBA and a few others valued the houses low here. cause they didnt have sales data for the area, too new!!

another option is newish but used, a lot of houses around here, a year old and up for sale due to job losses ?

one gotcha in this economy is buying more house then you can afford, just because you can buy it (qualify for it) doesn't mean you can really afford it in the long haul , houses have lots of hidden cost most people don't figure in home loans or budgets? banks can afford risk, but most of us cant afford to loose a house. just my two cents of advice?

[rtune]

my advice completely unsolicited: don't buy anything now, whatever you are considering will be much MUCH cheaper in a year! and interest rates will be lower as well. Why lock in a 3 year fixed now that will be 2% or more cheaper in a year as a severe downturn takes hold. Over paying on your mortgage and over paying for your house will wipe your equity out instantly.

de-leveraging has yet to fully hit australia but the rest of the world points the way, doesn't matter what the australian government does, there is massive asset deflation everywhere. What happened to second hand car prices, stocks and commodities will happen to house prices, land and treasuries. Just a matter of time. Watch "The Ascent of Money" (youtube.. if you don't have the patience start with episode 5). Then consider that what happened in Ireland, Iceland, the US, the UK, Spain (and is still happening) has yet to fully unfold here! The australian financial media still glowing from the bubble as recently as march 2008, is really behind the curve.