Land Ho!!

We visited Caddens and Mulgoa Rise today just to see what our two favourite estates are doing. By doing so, we were able to suss out a bit about their next releases. 

From Caddens, they were planning for an April release of their next stage but this has been hampered by the recent weather (lots and lots of rain.) From what Erin indicated, it may now be possibly a May-June release. 

Their next release will mostly be smaller lots so it may not be what we ideally want as it will be more difficult to place a single story house in a smaller lot for the space that we are after. We are still open to building a two-story house so this remains an option. 

There was not a strong indication as to whether any other improvements will be done to Caddens Rd (westward past the Caddens entry.) This will be a big plus if it is planned for because we may plan for the kids to walk to and from school if possible. Without sidewalks on low visibility areas of the road (the road is quite hilly), I would think twice about letting my kids walk on that road, let alone myself. 

At Mulgoa Rise, some of the land from the two previous releases have been returned. Perhaps some of the people who reserved them did not get their finances through on time, they have got a place somewhere else, or are just not interested anymore. One of the lots pointed out to us was Lot 523 of stage 5A. 

On paper, this lot looks strange and it is difficult to see how you can fit a nice house there. The lot is a pentagon shaped corner lot and it amounts to 561 square metres. We will be looking at the house booklets that we have from the builders that we have visited so far to superimpose some of the models that we like. There seems to be enough play because of the bigger area, but there might need to be some design changes to accommodate the little cutoff at the corner of the lot. 

We also visited a couple of display homes. Obviously our well-liked Adenbrook Homes where we wanted to ask if one of their models can fit that lot. We also visited Lily homes and saw a 4 bedroom, 1 story house that seems to be the right size for our family right now. This just reinforced what we are after in terms of space of not too big and not too small. 

We are also waiting for our finances to become official. From the notifications from our broker, it should go ahead fine and that we should expect it within the next week or two. Although we expect a delay from the Easter break. 

Waiting for the Bank

I've been standing here
Waiting for the bank on a Friday 
Laundry on my back 
Ultraviolet rays 
Like I'm posing for a shot in a blog-azine
What the heck does it mean? 

So here we are narrowed down to 3 estates (after hearing what we consider as a negative about Jordan Springs). We are now looking at Landcom's Caddens and Thornton as well as Mulgoa Rise. At the moment, there are no new releases at both of Landcom's estates. There are some available in Mulgoa Rise but not the size/shape that we want. Here are some views and opinions that we have about the three estates: 

Caddens

• very close to our kids' school (It is practically a walk via Caddens Road to get to my kids' school. But there is a section that is undeveloped, that is, there is no sidewalk, so it will be difficult to let a young kid walk to school on that road.) 
• quite hilly land (We may need extra for site costs and levelling.) 
• planning is done very well (There are enough parks, a shop area and the sidewalks, lighting look very well done.) 
• land sizes are decent, enough for needs 
• pricing is rising rapidly (what my friend said about staging the releases to give the illusion of scarcity is being proven true with any estate, so far) 
• demand is very high (The last release ran out within 1 week. We didn't think it was going to run out within the week seeing as the previous release, the larger lots took longer to get sold.) 
• proposed road access will improve if they go ahead with all their plans (With two access points already connected to Caddens Road plus additional plans to connect out to the UWS campus and out to the old suburban area of Claremont Meadows to the East, at least you have some options to get in and out of the area.) 

Thornton 

• very close to transport and the Penrith CBD 
• land is quite flat 
• land pricing is high 
• land sizing is quite small (If building on your own, the frontage is often a problem. Our only consideration here is to get a good sized Courtyard Home.) 
• planning is done very well (There are parking controls which is especially needed for a denser type of area as they seem to have zoned this estate. Perhaps this is due to its proximity to Penrith station and CBD.) 
• will need to brave the multiple traffic lights of Parker Street during school pickup hours to get the kids (We have considered this as this is one of the big reasons for moving further out West. Even back when we were still looking at Jordan Springs, we had to do a timing run from the Northern side of Parker Street and it came up quite negative because of the "luck-o-the-lights".) 

Mulgoa Rise 

• quite far from transport (There are proposed bus lines through the estate and existing bus lines from the next estate, Glenmore Park) 
• land is flatter than Caddens 
• land pricing is moderate (You can get a fair sized land for ever $ you spend.) 
• land sizing is decent (It is difficult to find anything smaller than 450 sq. m.) 
• planning looks well done 
• on the edge of the suburbs (You're either looking at reserves or farms which border on the estate. It will definitely be a quieter area, at least until the other farms choose to develop. 
• some areas are BAL rated (There was one house and land package we looked at that had a BAL 12.5 meaning it had to be protected from ember attack from a bushfire. May also need additional insurance to get covered for fire.) 
• easy M4 access (We judged that the South side of The Northern Road seems to have easier access from the M4. This is an advantage if we want to say drive to our relatives in Blacktown and Kellyville or if they want to visit us. We can probably attribute this to the smaller amount of traffic lights in this direction.) 

At the moment, we are leaning well towards Mulgoa Rise due to the balance in pricing and what we can get for every $ we spend. With a competitively priced estate, we are lowering our financial risk while still getting what is necessary for our lifestyle. Knowing how we have always prioritised our needs, we think this is the obvious choice for our family. 

For those who know, Landcom now does this ticketing system for their land releases. This helps to prevent people from camping outside the sales office in anticipation of reserving their land on a first come first served basis. We missed the last release at Caddens thinking of the slow movement of bigger land sizes based on their previous releases. 

They recently had a release of Terrace homes in Thornton. When we had a look at their open homes about a month ago, we deemed them insufficient in terms of the living spaces that we require. We did not line up for this release so we have no idea of the movement of this release. Besides, there might be a different level of demand for the Courtyard home that we are after. 

Mulgoa Rise has a different policy in terms of getting people to reserve the land that they want. However, to enter into this commitment, we probably require our finances to be complete. So again I have go back and keep...

...waiting for the bank.