Where to buy land and how much do you need?

We were looking to some sort of "cottage industry" in the future. With that in mind Sandy and I agreed that we would look for blocks of around the 2 to 5 acre size, depending on asking price, and take it from there.  

As with all sticky questions, the answer normally beings with .....It depends...!

Not a great help I know, but here's how Sandy and I decided on where and what to buy.Once Sandy and I had decided that St George was the town for us, we settled into paid employment and our new community.  We were still living in our caravan in the local caravan park, but we were now ready to find something more permanent, but what to buy and where?

Questions we asked ourselves included:

  • do you buy a home with everything done,
  • do you buy a house which you can maybe put your own stamp on, possibly renovate,
  • or do you start with a blank canvas and do a new build?

Sandy and I had done all of these previously, having had several previous houses. So what are the pros and cons of each?

Buying a house that you can just walk into, which doesn't require you to do anything can be great, especially if you are time poor with other pressures in your life or, of an age where you do not want to have to be doing major reno works.  You know what your are getting for your money and therefore it is easier to budget for. For Sandy and I though, when we have done this in the past, it did not feel like it was our home, and as time went on we would find things that maybe we would have done differently. So buying a house ready to go was not going to be our choice this time.

Buying a house to renovate can be a great way to work your way up the housing ladder, and we have successfully done this previously. However, it is important to plan your time, your finances and determine your preparedness  to 'camp' in a building-site as you 'gut' your home.  There are definite challenges to renovating and whilst doing as much of it yourself as you can, can save you money, working in a paid job during the day and then renovating in the evenings and weekends can be exhausting.  So we decided no renovations this time round either.

So that left us with the option of a new build.  We wanted the house that we were going to build to be our 'forever' home, we wanted things to be 'just right' and to meet our needs, not the needs of a potential future buyer. Renovations and new builds that we had done in the past had always been for the resale market, so considering future buyers was something we had always taken into consideration when doing the design.  This time however, Sandy and I were going to build for us.  

So where do you start?  From the previous houses we had built, we had a good idea of things we liked, so once again we developed a list of what we wanted, and of course first up on our list was land. You'll be getting the picture by now I'm sure, I like lists!

The things we took into consideration when looking for land included:

  • Location of the block (in town, outskirts, outside of town)
  • Zoning ( important depending on what you are going to do on your block) residential, rural residential, or rural
  • Any covenants on the land, as these can restrict what you can do with your block
  • How much land did we want (landscaping costs, ongoing maintenance)
  • Neighbours ( are there any, do you want any, how close, what is their age range)
  • Environmental issues (flood plain, prevailing winds, storm paths, pollution)
  • Climate (temperatures, rainfall, frosts, number of low chill days)
  • Quality of the land, what was there before (green field site, brown field site,
  • Industries around you that could impact on you (agriculture, horticulture, service industries)
  • Services (power, water, septic, landline etc) - what is a must have, what is a nice to have.
  • Existing planning permissions in the area (positive or negative impact)
  • Amount of remedial work required (land clearing, house pad, erosion, etc)
  • Access to your block of land (tarmac road or dirt track)
  • Any easements - how does this impact on what you want to do with your land
  • Any existing right of access to your land
  • Financing options (deposit, mortgage, staged payments etc)

It is important to take the time to review land options objectively, taking into account the items listed above as these can impact on the liveability of your home, its value, and possible saleability in the future. Another consideration is if you ever did need to sell in the future, is not to over capitalise, that is spend more money on your block that you would ever get back if you had to sell.  You have to be able to buy the land, build the house, set up the infrastructure and landscaping, all within what would be the possible resale value of your home.

Lot 7 was a 6.5 acre block, just outside of town, zoned rural residential. This was more land than we had initially planned to buy, our upper limit had been 5 acres, but we were happy to compromise on this to get the right block. Services available included power, river water (not potable), and landline telephone. As there was no potable water on the block, we would have to provide our own drinking water. Sandy and I had never bought a place without potable water before, so we had to think what this meant for us and explore the world of rain water catchment and tanks. There was also an existing covenant on the land that we would have to take into consideration.

 Access to the block was via bitumen 'no through' road with some street lighting. The land had originally been a grazing property (sheep), that had been subdivided into several blocks of varying sizes, a couple of which had already been developed.   The land had previously had the scrub growth pushed into huge piles, but there was plenty of regrowth, so would require some remedial work to clean the block up.  The land was flat, sandy loam, pH was 6 to 7 , and was not on a flood plain. No apparent pollution issues or problems with erosion or drainage. There were some neighbours already there, however most of the blocks had to yet be developed, so future neighbours were an unknown.  There was a table grape farm in front of us, and a large scrub area opposite, so there maybe some impact from local wildlife.

In August 2011, we became the proud owners of  Lot 7 Willowthal Road, St George, Queensland.

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