The Section – The Blank Canvas

Lot 326 is where Casa del la Holdsworth will be constructed (Click to enlarge)

We’re currently at that ‘in the system’ stage waiting for our plans to be approved by the Christchurch City Council.  Patience is the key here methinks.  It is a good chance to share some of the journey with you.  The best place to start would be, the section.

We are the proud owners of a plot of developed and compact land in Halswell.  It’s located in final, Stage 6 of Halswell on the Park and as far as outlook is concerned we’re pretty happy with it.

Features we were looking for in a section were:

• North facing
• Close to the city centre and amenities
• Quiet street
• A nice, new subdivision
• Close to parks recreation areas
• Affordable (harder than it sounds!)

Of course these features are generally similar features anyone would look for but finding a section that met those criteria in Christchurch? Now that’s a different story.

The day we drove through the subdivision and decided to actually walk on the sections was a very surreal occasion.  We kind of decided tentatively to go for it while standing on the land.

Interestingly our plot, Lot 326 was not our first choice; 309 was.  We thought we wanted the north facing part of the section to be the street front. After visualizing having a BBQ at the front of our house during summer we settled on something that had the north face towards the rear of the section.  326 was perfect for this as our outdoor entertainment area will be on the north-west side of the house – good afternoon and evening sun.

We also like the fact that Lot 326 is in a cul-de-sac so there is low volume traffic and a nice street area for the girls to ride bikes etc.  Add to that we have a park just over the way with proposed tennis courts, an existing playground and park facilities we believe it’ll be a great area for the family to hang out.

We went back a few more times by ourselves and with the developer during the negotiation stage to confirm we were still happy with the decision and much to our relief, at no time did we think, ”No, this isn’t right”.  Always helpful when reaffirming a decision to take that leap into building.

We were quite lucky to secure our section as it had already been previously purchased but was sold back to the development company after the owners had a change of heart.  Our gain I guess (after an engineering report confirmed there was nothing wrong with it).  Another stroke of luck for us was the fact we decided to go for it then in May as I believe all the sections in the street are now sold.  Demand for sections has increased dramatically in light of the earthquakes so getting in prior to insurance payouts was a very good decision.

We have a long way to go but so far so good and there you have it – how we got our section.

To Bring You Up To Speed….

As I mentioned in the first post we actually started thinking about building our own home several years ago – I’m picking most people have the same thought at least once in their life.

Yes, we have always wanted to have our own home built for us, yes we’ve thought long and hard about it, yes we have had thoughts and second thoughts but we’ve come to the realization there really is no ‘right time’.

One of the main things that for lack of a better term, encouraged us to build now was the Christchurch earthquake.  While we were comparatively lucky and our Fairford Street house was only cosmetically damaged, the prediction for Christchurch over the next several years during it’s rebuild is builders will be incredibly busy and the cost of material for building will almost definitely increase.  Add to the fact there is already more engineering required for things like foundations,  the overall cost of building will make it more challenging in the future.

Rather than share all the flowery stuff  I’ll just fill you in on a couple of milestone moments we had up to this point.

May 2011 – As we do (or did) regularly, we drove past a subdivision for a ‘tyre kick’ at sections we thought may be suitable to put a house on (More on what we looked for in a section in another post).

Made a conditional offer that was accepted subject to selling Fairford Street.

May/June 2011– Tidied up and made ready Fairford Street for sale.

June 2011 – Accepted an offer on Fairford Street

September 2011 – After sorting through the mine field of insurance transfer, red zone jitters and evolving selling processes caused by the quakes, offer goes unconditional on Fairford.

November/December 2011 – Selected a building company and worked through plans and ideas with them.  Much more on this later.

While we’re still waiting for consent which will be the most significant milestone for the build to date, we are carrying on selecting fixtures, fittings and colour schemes which has been easily the most enjoyable part to date.  The challenge will be keeping things within budget…….