How we came to buying our block of land...

Initially, at the start of this year, we had planned to buy a new townhouse out in Castle Hill, however, they all seemed to be selling so quickly! We managed to make it to one Open for Inspection (after an hours drive from Manly) and it had been cancelled. Quite frustrating! It was at this time that I was giving my Dad an update on the situation, when he suggested we look at the "new land releases" out near Kellyville. Perhaps we could just build a house (and bypass the whole townhouse stage anyway - which we would have most likely grown out of in about 5 years) - Ok, so buying land/building a house was definately worth considering.....

To be honest, I wasn't so sure about the prospect of moving out to the North West. I thought it was too far away...(as I was born and raised on the Northern Beaches of Sydney) so I was slightly reluctant. My Dad was so positive about the new estates/suburbs though, that we thought it was worth looking into.

The following weekend, we made our way out to the home display centre in Kellyville...then (although slightly lost) made our way to the land sales at Braemont and then onwards to The Ponds. Upon our arrival at The Ponds, we both just loved the area! (it seems that my Dad was right after all!!). The planning and intrastructure was wonderful, new parks, waterways, sports fields, new houses, the nice new pot-hole free roads (which was a delight compared to the roads out on the Northern Beaches), new schools, shopping centres, bus T-ways and most of all the potential to build a great house - it was so nice!

We ventured to the "new Rouse Hill" shopping centre for lunch and we're LOVING the atmosphere there too. We felt so comfortable and really felt that this idea of buying land and building was the right idea for us!

We started going back to The Ponds every weekend (only about 25 minutes drive from Neutral Bay when using the m2/m7), doing research and checking out our favourite home (at Eden Brae) and eagerly awaited the next land release...which was very "hush hush".

Then, on Tuesday, 9th March, we received the email from Michelle at Australand - the next land release was on Saturday 13th March (and that people were ALREADY at the sales office with the intention to camp until Saturday). Being that we both had work committments, we found it quite frustrating that we couldn't really join the camping queue until the Thursday afternoon!

We ended up camping out for two nights and made a nice group of new friends at the same time. I wasn't so keen on the idea of camping - however, it ended up being such a nice experience and a great opportunity to make friends with our new/soon to be neighbours.

On the Saturday morning, every one seemed a little bit nervous - and hoped the land they wanted would still be available. We were number 20 in the queue, so needless to say, it was quite nerve racking. As expected, the block we originally wanted was sold...then our second choice was sold.....So we were hopeful to get our third choice (which we found out a few minutes before - was actually best suited for the house we wanted to build) ...Awesome....and then it was our turn to enter Michelle's office. We had quite nervous wait as we had to hear which block the couple in front of us chose (we looked back into the sale centre and could see our new friends eagerly awaiting to hear our news, which was nice). Luckily, the couple before us didn't chose our block...so it was official - we got the block we wanted!!!

We went out and put the little red "sold" sticker on our land (on the picture board) and were thrilled!! We had our land!! .... After all that excitement, it was time to head back home and catch up on some much needed rest.