Titles...we have titles!

Yes you heard me right. *happy dance*
On Friday afternoon, Mr G got the much awaited phone call to say that everything regarding the land had been finished and titles were released. YAY!!!
So we called our financial advisor, who will send everything on to the bank so settlement can go through. For the $10k discount, as per previous post, settlement had to be made by a certain date, as we were getting close to that date we got another letter to say that we had 20 working days from title release to finalise settlement, there should be no hold ups from our end. So rebate is good, but our house price has risen about that much in the time we have waited, not sure now if the air-conditioning will come to pass....at least not straight away anyhoo.
After the great news on the titles we received an email of our title # etc, (whatever it is you need, wont get anything else until settlement) and rang Ultimate straight away to find out what we need to do to get everything underway, and discussed the promotion that we seen in the paper. (Which we cant get as the soil tests will take too long...instead he let us lock in prices. :) )
We went in for the meeting and spoke to 'J', who was very helpful and went through everything. We signed up for the soil tests, transferred payment, and have to wait approx 8 weeks for results. A long wait because of suburb we are building in. Our main concern with the long wait is that the price of house is going up yet again, and this one will take it over our budget, so 'J' was kind enough to lock in the base house price as long as the only thing that holds us up is the soil sample. Seeing as everything is done, and has been waiting for the past 10ish months for titles, I dont think we will have any hold-ups at all. I even got a pre-start booklet, (not meant to get one yet) so I can prepare the selections I need to, in advance, and not hold up the process any longer than necessary at pre-start and contract stage.
As this is a 'plus series' ie: investor/first buyer/more bang for your buck, type property there are some things that we cant do, some good, some not so good.
Some good points: *The roof tile profile that I liked best are part of the range *We can get shower screens as opposed to rails *We are putting in a dishwasher recess *They are omitting the paving (so we can put in liquid limestone) *They are letting us put a door on the main WIR and not installing the shelving *Obsure glass to bathrooms (we get to choose a style for that too)
These extra upgrades will not cost a great deal and should be nearly equaled out with the paving rebate.
Not so good points: *Even though the range is nice, we cannot choose the laminates/bench tops/tiles that I wanted....they have pre-selected colour boards that we have to choose from and there's no mix/matching from board to board. *The brick selection is pretty dull (even without the limit of only 6 different bricks). *Cant change the mortar colour *Cannot change the plan in any way *All drainpipes are painted same colour as house at the builders discretion. I wanted contrasting colour to go with the fascia. *Other things that I dont like can be changed after hand/over

Now this is not all bad mind you, we like the plan as is (we will put in our own stud walls later ;) ), and we didnt think it was worth paying an extra $20k to just to end up paying for changes to the plan. I guess the upside of that though, is being able to chose your own laminates and tiles, although I am sure other things, like taps etc, are still charged as an upgrade.

Everythings ready to go, what needs to be paid is paid, the bank, I guess is doing their thing for the titles, so nothing more for us to do, but wait....again.