Electricity Abolishment

So the Luckiest Girl in Caulfield cruised past the house on Friday to check out whether the electricity had been abolished and called me to report the news.

Yes the cable had been cut, the meter removed, but there was one more cable coming from the electrical pole that hadn't been cut.

The cable running towards the 1:00 position was still there after the abolishment!

F#*king Great! So after applying for the abolishment, waiting without hearing anything, following them up, and them re-lodging the paperwork, and then another 21 business days, they hadn't completed the job properly???

I took some photos and emailed it to my demolition guy, begging, pleading with him, that he was able to just cut the line, and proceed. "Don't tell me we'll have to re-apply and wait another 30 days", I begged.


Thankfully he informed me that it was most likely the phone / foxtel line and he would be able to cut it on the day.

THANK GOODNESS! I was having some massive palpitations! 

Now, we just wait for the council to grant the demolition permit, and then it's onwards towards a vacant block for Metricon to start a'buildin.

Demolition and Abolishment...

Metricon require you present them with a clean slate. They don't want to know about the demolition process, the asbestos, the abolishment of services, nothing. Just give them the blank piece of land.

Ok, so I'll ring a demolition crew, and they'll bowl it over in a couple of days? Wrong.

Before you can ring a demolition crew, who take their own sweet time to go out and quote the job, you need to apply for your gas and electricity to be abolished. Not removed, abolished. This means that they remove the meters, disconnect the wires, and cap the pipes going into the property.

So, I fill out the required paperwork with AGL and lodge it with them. Interesting side note, not once did AGL ask for proof that I actually owned the property. I wasn't just changing gas companies, or getting the electricity turned off. I was having all services to the property ABOLISHED. And not once did they say, hold on, do you actually own the property??? I didn't even have an account with them! They made one up for me just to put in this request!!! Scary!

AGL inform me that it will take 21 business days to have them both abolished, no one will notify me once it has been done, and I'll just have to cruise past and check it out. Fantastic customer service.

A week later, I haven't heard from AGL, even though their automated email system has told me that someone will get back to me within 3 business days. So... I call them.

The gas job has been noted, and is all ok. The electricity job is sitting here waiting on some confirmation, but now since I've phoned in, they'll push it through. WHAT? What the hell would have happened if I had just left it and did as the email said and assumed it had gone through? Bastards!

I applied for the gas disconnection on the 19 August, and today, the 9 September, 15 business days later, it has been removed. Electricity... still waiting.

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It's Off to Officer We Go...

So in the pouring rain, we drove from Metricon's head office out to a suburb called Officer in Victoria's South East. This was not just a display village for Metricon, but it had all of the main McMansion companies down there, all showing off their different styles of homes.

Even though our Glendale hasn't been built yet, (not even a spec home) we ventured down there to get our heads around the size of the ceilings, the layout of the rooms etc. We went and checked out the Whittaker and the Riva. The Riva had room sizes that were comparable to the Glendale, so we went to have a squiz and see if it affected any of our current thoughts and decisions.

The Riva was stunning. As I imagine all the spec homes would be. We walked around, checked it out, and then decided to check out the Whittaker next door.

The Whittaker is 10 squares bigger than the houses we were looking at, but we fell in love straight away. It looked amazing.

As we were standing in the kitchen, I looked at it and realised the space in which the Whittaker allows for the kitchen and the dining room, in the Glendale is the Kitchen, Dining and Family Room.

Glendale Plans

Whittaker Plans

It was pretty narrow across the hall to fit in the kitchen the dining and the living room, so my added on rumpus room, which is where the living room is in the Whittaker plans, has now become an open plan living room ala the Whittaker. Essentially we have changed the whole Glendale into a mini Whittaker. The Luckiest Girl in Caulfield has requested the butler's pantry set up, with a door to the corridor as well, and I have enclosed the study and the front room. 

The thing that suckered me in the most was the outdoor room. Initially I was against it. It rains too much in Melbourne. It's too cold to want to sit out side in an outdoor room. But the spec home suckered me in big time. So much so that one week on, in the cold dark of a Melbourne's Winter Day, I still want my outdoor room! 

Studio M

We ventured into Metricon again, and came armed with a few more concrete ideas. The house is definitely going to be for us to live in. It's definitely going to be the Glendale. And we're definitely going to make some changes.

Our main man Mark, took us through the Studio M and showed us what was a standard finish, doorway, cornice, handle, stair, carpet etc and what the upgrades were and how much they'd set you back.

Now you can go absolutely crazy in the Studio M and upgrade everything like crazy. Mark told us the story of one customer who built the Imperial 54 and spent $1.1M on the house. ( The house costs $480K).

Now for those of you wondering, the standard finishes are really impressive in the first place. Things like the depth of the Caesarstone in the kitchen might look nice initially, but seriously how long do you look at whether it is 40mm thick, or 20mm thick? And either way, it is ten times better than a laminate surface.

Fancy Schmancy

Normal

We went through there making a mental note of what we wanted to upgrade and what we could live without. Powerpoint outlets for one. Who cares whether you have a basic powerpoint like this one on the right, or whether you been suckered into spending $400 more and going the fancy schmancy ones like on the left?

So there are things to avoid. They warn you that in the electrical meeting, where you decide how many power points you want and how many data points, and what types of lights. The standard is one shitty green (efficient) light in the middle of the room. Now of course they show you the spec houses where it is lit up like the MCG, and make you want 14 down lights in every room. All good except these cost $180 per (LED) light. 

They've brought out these LED down lights recently to replace the standard down lights, and these bad boys have a life span of 25 years.

After the lovely studio tour, and some more chatting about the final plans of what we wanted with the house, we decided to go down to Officer and look at some of the spec homes.

The Glendale 34

So we've decided on the Glendale 34. Now the fun part. Everything else.

The Luckiest Girl in Caulfield is absolutely wetting herself at the prospect of spending five hours inside Metricon's Studio M and picking every single thing, from what colour the hinge should be on the laundry door, to the type of splashback in the kitchen and everything else in between.

As long as I get a pool table in my man cave, well then, I don't really mind what shade of tile decorates our laundry.

We're heading out to Metricon again this weekend to have a chat. I have a few questions, such as, if you look at the floor plans, can we extend the master bedroom over the garage and utilise that space? Can we close off the sitting room at the front of the house and turn it into a 5th bedroom? Who under the age of 90 uses a sitting room anyway?

The indicative pricing for the Glendale is $242,000 for the house, and a hidden $50,000 in "site costs". What this means is anyone's guess. They require a soil sample, which I am sure will find some rubbish jargon which requires an administrative fee of $12,500, because hey, why not?

Then the rest gets spent on all the upgrades. How a driveway is an upgrade defies me, but if you're going to pay for the house, you're hardly going to bail on the driveway. Just more and more ways to extract a few extra $$$ out of you.... Stay tuned.

My McMansion - Investment or Home?

So the biggest debate I am having now is whether this McMansion will be an investment or my home. And as Michael Caton says... You can buy a house, but you can't buy a home.

I purchased the land for such a cheap price, it would be very tempting to just put a simple 4 bedroom house on the land and flick it.

You can have the 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom "Delta" for $160,000 or spend $480,000 on the 5 bedroom  5 bathroom "Imperial 54"

This weighs heavily in my mind when choosing how much you want to spend on the house. The house might cost $300,000, but then there's connection costs, site costs, it doesn't include the driveway, there's only one light in each room, and so forth.

If I'm planning on living here for the next 10-15 years, than surely a higher investment now will pay off over the long run. Maybe not $480,000 worth, but definitely something in between.

June 26: First Meeting @ Metricon

So today, the luckiest girl in Caulfield and I headed off to Metricon to have our first meeting.

We met with a sales consultant, Mark, who was incredibly friendly and helpful. During the week I had already emailed him a copy of the title, so he could start planning what houses could fit on the house, and raise any potential issues with us.

He came armed with plans of the different types of houses, beautiful images of the facades, prices for absolutely everything, and an answer to all our questions. I found it especially interesting talking to him as an investor and his experiences, as he pointed out a lot of tips, and gave us a heads up about things we should definitely put in versus things we could look at putting in after the build.

We went through every room, and all the different options, coming up with more and more questions as we went. Houses were discarded after their costs blew out, and we ended up deciding on the Glendale.

And by deciding on the Glendale, that's where we are at right now. This could change. I love the Riva, the Tribeca, the Burleigh and the Addison. It's a big big big decision. More to come...

Lions and Tigers and Bears... Oh My!

Metricon, Henley, Simmonds, Burbank or Porter Davis? Oh My!


Which one? Why? But does it include that? How much extra is it for that finish? Can I change it? 

So so many questions. Zero answers. Yet!


One thing I have to say is these companies have fantastic websites. Especially Metricon. You can refine your choice of homes, by $$$, by lot width, by number of rooms, and by number of bathrooms. It helps narrow the somewhat overwhelming choice pretty quickly.

But just as soon as you narrow the choice down to 3 or 4 of the stunning stunning homes, another 18 questions pop into your head. Is a $300,000 home really a $300,000 home? Or is it $300,000 for the shell, and then you need to add for carpet, add for a driveway, add for a garden, and so on and so on.

So am I really looking at a $240,000 house, plus the extras, and then it will amount to $300,000 by the time I'm all finished?

I'm going to make an appointment to meet with Metricon to find out some of the answers, and will report back.

In the meantime... what's your experience? Who did you choose? Why?

18 June 2011: Going Once, Twice, Sir not even $1,000 more? No? Sold, to the young couple to my left!

"There's a 5% chance that we'll end up buying this property today", I told my wife. Partly to temper her expectations, partly to alleviate any disappointment she might have to soon face.

But, as luck would have it. Every single thing went our way. From the auction date being recorded incorrectly on domain.com.au, to the current economic climate, to the fact that there was only one other bidder.

In one of the quickest auctions I've ever seen, we were the proud new owners of a four bedroom house on 460sqm.

Now to knock down and build.... our very own Metricon McMansion.