Written by
Jan 7, 2025 8:56:00 AM
Buying a new home is a significant milestone in your life, filled with anticipation, excitement and usually a few nerves.
There’s a lot to consider, so here is a simple guide to walk you through the process of choosing and purchasing your new house and land package.
If you want to understand the process further, the Sage Sales Centre is a great place to start as the team will provide the answers to all your questions and may save you a few steps in doing the research yourself.
Make a list
The first thing is to decide what’s most important to you – is it location, lifestyle, budget, amenity, future growth, rental appeal?
Often this will depend on your stage of life – are you planning a family, do you already have one, do you want great transport connectivity for work or recreation, space for kids to run around, or are you retired and looking for a change?
Make a list of the things you want from your community and your ideal home, in order of what is most important to you.
This will make it easier to compare communities as you can cross-reference what they offer with your list and quickly decide if they are worth considering or not.
Do your research
It’s important to find out all you can about the developer, the project and the local community. Questions to ask and research include:- What other projects has the developer delivered?
- Do you have confidence that the developer can deliver a quality community?
- What amenity is close by?
- Are there transport links?
- What is planned for the area i.e. infrastructure, schools, healthcare etc.?
- Is living close to nature important to my lifestyle?
- What are the local employment opportunities?
- Is the area well positioned for future growth?
Choosing your homesite
You’ve settled on a community, now you need to choose your block. Here’s what you need to consider:
- Size and shape – this may be determined by your budget or lifestyle requirements. It’s important to check the width of your block, particularly the frontage, to ensure it will accommodate the home and garage you’re envisioning.
- Orientation – the way your block faces affect things like sunlight, breezes and energy efficiency. If you’ve already got a clear idea of your floorplan, you’ll need to take great consideration regarding your block’s orientation, or you might get an early-morning sun-filled bedroom when you prefer a sleep-in!
- Outlook – do you want your backyard to overlook bushland, or would you prefer your front door opened to a park? Fortunately, at Sage, clever design ensures you feel immersed in nature no matter where you’re located, but no view is the same so taking a site tour is the best way to get a feel for where you want to be.
- Location – would you like to be walking distance to the children’s playground, or close to the nature reserve? Decide which amenities you’ll use the most and how far you’re willing to travel for them.
Home design
When choosing a community, make sure you research the rules around home design, so you know how much flexibility you’ll have, and how much input you’ll get in the finished product.
At Sage, we have a variety of house and land package options with trusted builders that fit within our design guidelines, giving buyers plenty of choice while creating a cohesive feel in the estate.
Here’s what you need to think about:
- Now and forever...or just for now? Is this a stepping stone in your property journey, or do you need to design a home that can adapt to your changing needs over time?
- Must-haves – write them down, order them by priority and cross-reference with all your design options.
- Budget – the above process will help with this, then make a ‘wish list’ and see how far you can stretch your money.
Sign on the dotted line
One of the advantages of buying a vacant block or house and land package is you won’t be drawing down on your entire loan amount upfront.
Typically, you’ll settle on the land initially (and pay mortgage repayments on this) with the staged-build payments (known as a construction loan) to follow as your new home rises from the ground. These build payments are outlined in your contract with your builder and usually reflects when major build milestones are met.
Once you have chosen your community, picked your homesite, and started the design phase of your home, there are two steps to finalising your land acquisition and home construction process before you can move in, and they are:
- Land settlement – a legal process where land ownership transfers from the seller to the buyer once the land construction phase is complete and titles are registered. You will be required to pay the balance of the agreed sale price of your lot, assisted by your various financial and legal representatives. For more information we have prepared a blog on preparing for settlement for more details.
- Building – the building process can be quite a lengthy one, so open and ongoing communication with your builder is key during construction. Some of the stages include site preparation, slab down, framing, roof, lock-up, fit-out, practical completion and handover.
To learn more about the process of buying a home and land package, download our free eBook here.
Moving in
You did it! You’ve come so far and while moving into your new home is super exciting, it can also feel a little overwhelming when you start to think of all the things you need to organise.
We’ve created a handy checklist to make life easier – starting from six weeks before your move, up until moving day.
You can find the list here on page 26 of our Buying a House and Land Package Guide. In fact, this entire booklet is very handy during your research and purchasing phase. Download it and use it for reference to help make the process easier, and find more of our guides and resources for homebuyers, here.
