...and the winner is

It looks like that if we want to build it will be close to 12 months from when we start to when we'll finish. All the paperwork required to get to the "6 month build time" is what will slow us down. We spoke to a lot of the builders at Googong, well I guess their office/sales people, not the builders themselves to see if they had any houses that they were selling or were nearing completion with an aim to sell.
We now have a short list of currently two houses that we want to look closer at. One of them we've already seen, but it was the first house we looked at and we didn't know if we were going to be selling or not at that stage. The other one we've only seen the floor plans and the outside of but so far it is my preferred one. It is on a smaller block than the other and I'm not sure what is included, it does look a little smaller in some ways, it is just the location of it that really appeals to me. The smaller house hasn't even been listed on any real estate sites yet so we should be the first people to look at it and possibly the first to have a chance to put an offer in.
We're going to try and look at both of them next week, hopefully back to back so we can really get a good feel for both of them without any time in between. The larger one is on a fairly long street that could end up being quite busy and the houses behind it are yet to be built so could end up with a mcmansion looking down into the yard which would be upsetting. The other downside to the larger one is that there is no foot path on the same side of the street and you have to cross over one if not two streets to get to any sort of open space for the kids to ride their bikes or scooters or even throw a frisbee or something. 
The smaller house has the footpath out the front and is only five or six houses from a large open space and there are no streets to cross. I want my kids to have space to play and not have to worry about them crossing roads or anything. The house I grew up in backed onto a large greenway and had a footpath that ran all the way from our house to the primary school without having to cross any roads. By the time I was in third grade I was riding or walking to school everyday by myself. My kids won't be able to walk or ride to school, but at least they'd be able to go for a ride after school if they wanted. There would also be plenty of space for me to go for walks after work that would be more enjoyable than just walking the streets.
I think I said that I never wanted to move out to Googong, or at least that I was reluctant, now I'm definitely warming to the idea and that has surprised me.

Bomber
buying, not building