Deciding on a builder

I thought looking for a block of land was tough!!
Once the contract was signed on the block of land i was straight into looking for a house design i liked. I learnt many things along the way with looking at almost every display home in Brisbane.
It is very hard not to get pulled into the big house design companies such as Metricon and Plantation Homes etc. They have all the beautiful homes which look amazing and tell you the base price is only $170,000! Whilst the one on display in worth $350,000 with all the bells and whistles.

I started with Metricon as i was sucked in by all the advertising and amazing display homes. I soon realised that any modification to the house incurred a big increase on price. They would not listen to any of my concerns and needs and just kept pushing me to give her money to lock me into a deal i was no where near ready to sign.

I went back to the drawing board and visited a site call productreview.com.au. It is a website where all of the builders in QLD get reviewed by previous customers.

After a few weeks of looking around i got down to GJ Gardner, Stroud Homes and Hotondo Homes. All had similar homes in a similar price range.
I found myself choosing a builder for their design and not how comfortable i felt with them. I took a step back and talked to the builders about the design i really wanted. Hontondo was the only builder whom was keen to look at my block and meet me in person.

Hotondo stood out from the rest.
They ended up doing a custom home design for me listening to my every need. The new home consultant was out to meet me at my block as soon as i expressed interest in building with them. The following weekend i met with the builder who would be building my house in the display room, whom was more than accomadating, answering any question i had in regards to my block, house or building process.

Today (29/1/13) i signed the Preliminary Agreement giving a deposit to get started into the final design of the house and get all the tests done.
Fingers crossed!

Purchasing My Block of Land

In the beginning i did not even consider building my first home. I began looking to buy a house around Jan 2012.
After 6 months of countless hours online (realestate.com.au) and wasted weekends looking at open home and not finding anything close to what i really wanted, i decided to consider looking into purchasing a block of land and building.
The $15,000 building grant for first home owners had also just come into play which helped push my decision to build.
During the process i submitted written offers too 2 houses and 2 blocks of land (over 7 months).

My block is a 24x25ish block of land totalling 700 sq metres including the driveway (the block is a battleaxe block (behind another house)).
This settled on the 11th of December 2012.