subject: Finding Land For a New Home [print this page] Finding Land For a New Home Finding Land For a New Home
The lucky country: a wide brown land, full of open space and opportunity. No wonder our forefathers made "the quarter acre block" famous. Except, nowadays, our cities have grown far beyond their original planned limits, and finding good quality land for sale is difficult.
Try typing some commonsense search items into Google with the name of your preferred location, like "land for sale sa" or "land for sale Adelaide" or "house and land packages Melbourne" and you will find a heap of links come up, but when you click on them not all of them have much land, if any, left for sale.
Finding the right block, in the right location, is affected by overall demand. And overall demand for quality housing sites is very high. It is estimated, for example, that Victoria needs an extra 40,000 dwellings a year to cope with demand. That's just for people who want to build somewhere to live ... it doesn't take into account the demand generated by those who want to make a property investment.
Land developer's websites are a good place to start to narrow down your search. But websites are not always updated as often as they need to be, and many people feel the best way to find the right block is to drive somewhere and physically have a look.
You do really need to physically "eyeball" anywhere you might want to live. Definitely. But another way to cut down search time is to look at house and land packages from the major national builders. It's in the interests of the developers to keep in close contact with these companies - most blocks are sold with a home design already "on the block", from a leading home builder, so they tend to get the pick of the best.
And the builders, of course, can't do anything unless they work "hand in glove" with the major developers, so they're also always keeping abreast of what's around, and snapping up good deals.
If you like the look of a particular package, but the house design isn't quite what you want, many of the larger companies can also "package up" blocks for you with a variety of different house plans, widening your choice. You set a budget, and get them to tell you what's possible. House and land packages also usually have the advantage of a fixed price, held for a period of time, offering you peace of mind, and no price shocks down the track.
And the best advice? Start hunting for land long before you want to move. It can take a long time finding the perfect new land estate for you and your family
