We bought dirt.

Owning your own home - it's the great Australian dream, right?

Well, our dreams certainly materialised into the 14m x 28m (392 sq) lot we now own 25km west of Melbourne's CBD in Tarneit. Our home will be nestled within the aptly named "Haven Estate."

haven / noun:
a place of safety or refuge.

synonyms: refuge, retreat, shelter, sanctuary, asylum, place of safety, place of security, harbour, oasis, sanctum

Fittingly, this humble lot will become the foundations for our first home. 

So, why did we choose to live out west, over the West Gate Bridge and into the abyss of misconceptions, preconceived degradation of social hierarchy and consequently closer to the sewerage capital that is Werribee? Well, we have a few reasons:

Reason #1: Because we're not gluten, coeliac, wheat, dairy-intolerant enough to purchase a property in the thick of the hipster movement taking over Brunswick, Fitzroy or Collingwood. We're also not fans of drinking deconstructed coffees or thinking everything is ironic. 

Reason #2: We enjoy space, open plan living and detached dwellings - so, as quaint as owning an old Victorian terrace house would be, we prefer to have a yard that is bigger than a toilet cubicle and a home where we cannot hear the bogans next door having sex through our bedroom wall. 

Reason #3: Unfortunately, we don't own a Mercedes GL class, Audi Q7 or BMW X5 which would qualify us to own a property in Toorak, Middle Park, Canterbury or even Malvern. And really, who can afford a $3.2m home these days? We'd also prefer not to pay $56 for a latte at our local cafe. 

Our final reason is simple - affordability & location. 

The Estate - Haven

Haven Estate isn't a 'future' master-planned development, or a 'large-scale estate.' It's a community of just 300 homes. We decided on Haven Estate based on the fact that there weren't 1,000 stages of builds with over 20,000 homes in the development. There are only six build stages and our little patch of dirt is scheduled for stage four of construction which is anticipated for settlement in November this year! We are hoping to be right in the thick of the build this time next year - if not fully completed!

Another pre-requisite for us was the estates proximity to public transport and locality to shopping centres and Hungry Jack's.

Let's be honest, the burgers ARE better.

Tarneit's new train station is only 1.5km from Haven which is a short 10-15 minute walk from where our home will be built. Leakes Road also leads directly onto the Princes Freeway for a 30 minute trip to the city or 45 minutes in the other direction will land you in Geelong and the Surf Coast. 

There's also a Woolie's less than a kilometre away and a new shopping precinct soon to begin construction opposite Tarneit Train Station which will be dubbed 'Tarneit Central.' The new 25,000sqm sub regional centre will be anchored by a national supermarket, national discount department store, a discount supermarket and approximately 42 speciality retailers, alongside two 'mini major' anchor tenants and six kiosks. 

We're both pretty chuffed with the location of what will (soon to) be our new residential postcode.

Stay tuned - up next on the blog we look at our journey to finding the perfect builder and of course, the house we decided to build! 

- Az, Jamie & Bella x