Land Hunting

The first key challenge was identifying the right block of land.

Our key criteria were relatively simple:

• we wanted to stay on the north side of the city
• we wanted at least the same size as our current block (918m²) or bigger
• we did not want to be any further from the city than we currently are (10km)
• we wanted an established area well serviced by shops and public transport
• we wanted to ensure our house would be comparable with those in the neighborhood and not over capitalise
• we wanted a suburb that did not have social problems

There were only five areas that roughly met this criteria but we narrowed it down quite easily to one suburb. 

Two areas we looked at did not have any services, one was unlikely to ever get them and the other had a lot more development to go so services were miles away.

Two other areas had one off blocks but for the size we wanted they were outside our budget or the houses around them were a lot smaller or older than the type we wanted to build thus increasing our risk of over capitalisation.

That left one area that had two small new estates in it as well as some incidental blocks in other areas of the suburb.  This area met all of our criteria.

We were able to eliminate one of the estates quite quickly as although the blocks were flatter they were also about 100K more expensive so not really value for money.  There were only a few one off blocks and those were either not the right size or for various reasons did not appeal to us.

So Timberline Estate won out - but which block.