Holding Deposit Taken

In August, we got serious about finding a block. The house had been sold and we had a few weeks to move out. On September 1st we took a spin out to Vantage Point, Elderslie (lovely!), before heading to Oran Park, knowing that a couple of weeks earlier they released a new stage. We didn't go with intentions to buy. We had done this many times before...go to the sales office, take a look at their computers to get an idea of price and see which lots are selling quickly etc. 

In the time that we had been (seriously) looking at land, we had a better idea of what we wanted. I wanted a decent yard, but I also wanted a light-filled house. I didn't want to pay an insane amount of money for land, and because of our requirements, corner blocks came into play. They seemed fairly reasonably priced as well - works for me. So we spoke to Craig in the sales office and he took us out to see the 3-4 blocks we were interested to see. We were pleasantly surprised to see these blocks were quite flat. One of them was without retaining wall, sewer, substations...the stuff we wanted to avoid but wouldn't ruin us otherwise. Here's the street we were looking at:

Oran Park Town Centre (Sales Office) in distance.

That evening we talked about little other than the block we preferred. This stage of Oran Park seemed to be selling fairly quickly so if we wanted it we would have to make a move soon. We decided we'd wake up early on Fathers Day and put down the holding deposit. For Oran Park they take a non-refundable $500 deposit which gives you three days to change the block if you decide you prefer another, and I think thirty days to sign the contract to purchase the land. (And they give you a couple of golf umbrellas. Who doesn't need those!?) I always liked stickers as a kid but this sticker is probably the best I've come across:

The contract for the land may as well have been written in Spanish. There were many parts that were incomprehensible. Get yourself a good lawyer who knows which parts of the contract are most important!