Saturday, February 12, 2011

First Love Never Dies

At this very moment, I and my hubby Bjorn have reserved 2 residential lots at different locations in New South Wales. How it happened is kinda long story, so I'm gonna try to write the gist of it.

Having had to rent an apartment that sets us back 1.4K a month, we decided to seriously look for a place of our own, hoping to put that rental money into good use. And just like any newly married couple who are both decently employed, we have our goals set high thinking that we are "invincible" and are able to afford to build a modern house in a thriving suburb. Armed with this clouded thought, we set off to see display homes in Kellyville, The Ponds, Oran Park, Warwick Farm, Sunnyholt etc etc. We spoke to a few builders whose display homes caught our fancy, but realized we have to secure our land first before we can go further with them.

The Ponds have always captured our hearts, not only for it's catchy name but because of it's new, well-established and thriving community. This is where we first shopped for that piece of OZ land. But to our disappointment, the cost is beyond what we are prepared for & this practically woke us up from the Australian dream bubble! We started looking more closely at our finances & we totally got disillusioned. We were thinking that if we go through this path, our life as we envisioned it, would totally take a 180 degrees turn. Gone are the days of shopping, travelling, and dining out! At this point, I would convince my hubby to just go for a 2-bedroom apartment so we won't feel the pinch so much, and still be able to live our lives the way we want it. I somehow managed to convince him until one day, out of the blue we decided to check out Stonecutters Ridge. Boasting of a Greg Norman designed 18 hole golf course and a masterplan exuding resort-style luxury & urban community, we just can't resist the beaconing oasis that is Stonecutters Ridge (SCR)! Without so much of a thought, we parted with $300 to secure an unregistered 480 sqm land and went home happily with renewed plans for the bright future. Yey!

We are given two weeks by SCR to exchange contract & pay 5% deposit, and the balance to be paid on Novemeber 2011 (the expected registration date of the land). This gives us a bit more time to save as much as we can so we are feeling fantastic about our decision. My hubby started to research day and night about the property & it's neighborhood so much so that as an informed buyer, it brings us new things to worry about. Also at this time, I would start to doubt again our ability to pay and I'm feeling resentful about the sacrifices we have to make. We found ourselves taking one step forward & two steps back by looking at apartments & old houses again. We just couldn't decide! And for some reasons our solicitor told us that he need more time to discuss the contract with SCR to clarify certain things, which gave us another week of needful time to make up our minds. Finally, the inevitable has come. Today, Feb 12 2011,  we had to pay the 5% deposit to SCR. As a final shot to indecisive us, we set off early in the morning to see Bunya Living (which according to a colleague has just opened  for land sale) hoping that this will make or break our decision. Unfortunately, the land being released has no pricing yet so it looks like we are destined for SCR. Then my husband suggested we pass by SCR first (since we are nearby), then visit the Ponds for a last look before going to the bank to get the cheque for SCR. As we pass by SCR, we felt differently from 3 weeks back for a lot of different reasons which I will not divulge here. Off we go to The Ponds but unlike SCR we still felt the same like we did before ~ a case of first love never dies indeed! Two lower priced lots were put back in the market today, and we managed to snag one, but not after going back & forth to the Land Sales & our builder of choice (at the moment). We parted with another $300 to reserve the land till exchange of contract, went home feeling good and confident again and hoping that this love affair with The Ponds will last forever :)

P/S My hubby will do the dirty work of talking to the solicitor & cancel the transaction. I hope he won't charge us anything since we wish to engage him again in this newfound love nest :)


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