Home Loan Contract Schedule Received and Builder Home Contract Signed

Yesterday, we received by mail the Home Loan Contract Schedule from our Lender, which we duly signed and witnessed by a JP, and posted them back to the Lender for the way forward.

Today, we met with our lovely Sales Consultant, Rebecca Hoyer at the Metricon Brooks Reach office (instead of having to travel to Sydney headquarters) and signed three copies of the Contract and a variation.

I then flicked an email to Metricon Customer Support Consultant advising her of our loan approval and providing evidence of it, so that Metricon can move forward to the next stage of the pre-construction process.

We learnt today whilst signing our Home Contract that our site supervisor is likely to be the guy who built the display house at Brooks Reach. If this is the case, I would simply be delighted!

Next stop: External, Internal and Electrical on one long day on April 4…however, we have been through this process before; therefore, we should be super-efficient and hopefully enjoy the selections!

Registration of Subdivision

Source: www.stockland.com.au

Last week-end, we received notification from Stockland that the plan of subdivision, within which our new home site is located, has been registered. We expect Settlement by the third week of September. We have formal bank approval; so, I hope everything goes to plan.

Two weeks after we signed the Contract, we paid the 5% deposit. At the time of signing, there were a few errors in the drawings which we asked Metricon to address, in addition to requesting a few changes such as converting some hinged doors to sliding doors, adding sound screen batts to some bedroom walls to protect against noise pollution and insulation batts to entire garage floor ceiling so that the upstairs bedroom flooring immediately above the garage is shielded, adding timber look floating laminate flooring throughout the house (in lieu of the Promotion that offers laminate flooring only to main living areas), adding a recycled tap in addition to the two standard taps Metricon provides and adding/modifying a few windows. Metricon raised a post contract variation totalling about 6K and sent us the updated drawings reflecting the post contract variation.

Four days after Metricon lodged our plans and colour schemes for Developer Approval, we received notification from Stockland that our application for Full Design Approval has been approved according to the Design Requirements for Brooks Reach. Yeah! We are glad to have had two significant events happening within a week’s time.

A number of people from Metricon have so far been managing a sequence of events from the initial discussion of plans to following through on getting the updated drawings. We have been fortunate to have some good people manage our case right from Sales Consultant (RH)->Design Manager (YD)->Contract Presenter (MS)->Customer Support Team Leader (JO’D)->Customer Support Coordinator (SY), and I am relieved to see that it has been an efficient process so far.

We now await Settlement, so we can get some documents from Council that Metricon requires to proceed to the next stage of our pre-construction phase.  

New Home Contract Signed

With Metricon correctly addressing most of our requested structural changes before the Contract Agreement meeting, we met MS, who presented every item of the Tender (Contract). We only changed one item during the presentation – widening the kitchen window from 2 to 2.7 metres. The meeting lasted over 2.5 hours, after which we put our initials on 3 copies of the HIA contract, and signed our lives away! We had gone through this process once (see my first post) and I am glad our Metricon design with a few changes is better and bigger than the previous one. I can honestly say that when this one becomes a reality, it would be the “dream home”; and therefore, we felt excited to have reached this important milestone in the process.

We did not pay the balance of the 5% today, but were advised that we would have to pay that soon.

The top 10 pricy items, in addition to the site costs, and complying with BASIX and 12.5 bush fire requirements are:

·         Dining room extension: 15.3K

·         Outdoor room extension: 13.5K

·         Front entry pivot door with door furniture: 3.8K

·         9 x timber with translucent glass doors: 9K

·         Revised layout and fit out for Butler’s Pantry including laminate pantry, 2 x 620 wide cavity sliding door units, laminate base cupboards and bench top, tiled splashback, round inset bowl and mixer: 6K

·         Increase PDR room (3.0 x 3.1) & include WIR, doors, windows, shower, exhaust fan, ceiling light point, and mirror: 5K

·         Air conditioning ducts only and up to 12 outlets: 4.2K

·         Redesign kitchen with wide kitchen island bench, plus base cupboards, drawers etc: 3.3K

·         Upgrade staircase to include stained finish to maple tread and risers, with zig zag capping: 2.8 K

·         2.55 m High ceiling to first floor (higher ground floor comes as part of the promotion): 2.6K

Our Plantation Facade

After Contract Agreement/Signing, we had a quick lunch before making selections on our external colours that is required for Stockland Developer Approval. Following are our selections:

Hebel Main: Dulux Gnu Tan

Balcony beam: Dulux Hog Bristle

Gutter, Fascia and Water tank: Colorbond Paperbark

Eaves/Lining: Dulux Hog Bristle Quarter

Downpipe: PVC round downpipes, painted in Paperbark

You will note Gnu Tan (pillar), HogBristle (upper and lower balcony beam) and
Paperbark (gutter and fascia - see above garage) in this picture (our facade is Plantation, not Oakpark)

Scyon 300 mm 'Stria' board lightweight cladding
(ours will be painted Hog Bristle, not the one you see in the photo)

Timberlook steel garage door (Panel Glide Tuscan Profile Colorgrain CAOBA)
(Image sourced from shayneandjasonbuildahouse.blogspot.com.au)

Aluminium Powder Coated Sliding Doors and Windows in Interpon Hamersley Brown

Pivot Door Hume XS26 2340 x 1200 in Merbau + sidelights in Merbau stain finish plus
Gainsborough 750 mm Horizon back to back pull handle 9248PHBB750SS + lock

We requested translucent glass to the main door and clear glass to the sidelights

Intergrain Merbau stain

Silver Chrome handrail (similar to the one in the picture), with horizontal stainless steel wire balustrade
(Image sourced from www.civico.com.au)

Other external selections include: Roof tiles in Classic Gun Metal; Timber posts in Dulux Pawn Broker (Dark Chocolate Brown with a tinge of Dark Red); Decorative timber slats infill to dutch gable in Intergrain Merbau; and 

Barge/gable end of the roof in Colorbond Paperbark.