Loan Approved

Our mortgage broker called us earlier today to let us know that our loan has been approved unconditionally by the bank.

To be completely honest, I don't really understand the part where the bank approve the loan conditionally or unconditionally.  The first correspondence that we got from the bank said that we were approved conditionally and provided that we can satisfy their list of requirements.




So we went and get all that are needed such as:

• The valuation of our current house
• The rental valuation of our current house
• The lease agreement of our current house
• A letter from my accountant

There was also a bunch of other things but our mortgage broker has taken care of it, which puzzles me even more??

Anyway I'm just glad that our loan application for both the land and the construction have been approved.  At least I know that I will have some money to pay for the house.  Someone once said to me, getting the loan is the easy part but paying it off is the difficult part... I couldn't agree more...

However for every good news, there is almost always a bad news.  I checked the status on our land registration yesterday only to discover that it has been delayed for another two months.

We were initially hoping that by this time that we have already settled on our land.  That was the scheduled date when we bought it.  Then it was delayed until January.  However the latest update said otherwise and we have to wait until February.

Looks like we have more waiting game and biting our nails while we're at it.

Developer Design Conditions

We hoped for an easy approval when submitting our plan to the developer design panel.  However they came back with two conditions that we need to comply so as to maintain the standard of the covenant I guess.  

When Metricon rang me earlier today I thought that there was something wrong with the landscape plan.  This was not the case though.  The conditions states that we needed to comply with the privacy requirements and they are:

1. Provide clear comfort glazing to the kitchen feature window, that is the long horizontal window behind the cooker (see the image on the right), and the window of the dining room.  
2. Reduce the height of the window in the first floor leisure room.

We had the option to do some shading device or awning at the completion of the build but we went with the comfort glazing option as we were advised that we can hardly see it anyway.  On top of that, I don't think that I will want to do the awning as it may look weird with the design of the house.

I have no problem with reducing the height of the window as I quite like the look and effect at the Metricon display house at The Ponds anyway.

Fortunately there were the only two that we need to discuss and agree on and we didn't have to pay any extra charge, which is a good thing nowadays.  I guess we can consider ourselves approved!! yay!

On another positive note, we were advised today by our real estate agent that we got a prospective tenant wanting to lease our unit.  They are a couple with 14 months old baby with good reference and job, as advised by the real estate agent.  More importantly, they are willing to pay the rental price that we asked for.  So we agreed to accept their application to lease our place.

We are quite happy that everything is progressing along as planned but at the same time we are also sad to learn that we are going to move from a place that we have made and called home for the last 5-6 years.  This is the place where our two children first set their little foot and play their heart out.  But nevertheless our little family is also growing and we need to move on to a bigger place to raise them.

This is a very special place for us and we had lots of memories here.  We intend to keep our two storey with two bedroom unit as much as we can.  Obviously we need to be honest with ourselves and sell the place as soon as we see some indications that we will be in financial trouble by keeping it.

This Christmas will be the last Christmas that we will celebrate in our little place as our prospective tenant will be moving in on 12 January 2011.  As for ourselves, we are moving back to the parents' place until the house is ready.

Land Construction Complete

I checked the status update of our land registration from the website and I saw that the construction has been completed on the 5 November 2010.  Unfortunately though we went away on our holiday and did not have the time to visit our land.

It's amazing to see the difference when we first set foot on Waterfall block about 6 months ago .  It's not like we only visited the land a couple of times.  Over the 6 months period we have visited a number of times but it just feels different.  A noticeable difference.

This is what it looks like 6 months ago:

This is what it looks like today (taken from almost at the same spot as the previous):

One thing that we did notice is that the big green electricity box that is situated on our neighboring block is not there.  Not that we are complaining of course.  We think that it is great that the box wasn't there.  That would only mean the restriction at the front yard of our block no longer applies.  YAY!!!  No more headaches trying to find a material with a certain fire rating!

When we visited our block, we met our first neighbors.  The couple own the land just right behind us.  I have a feeling that we are going to have some very nice people living around us.

Landscape Plan

To get the developer approval as well as Blacktown Council, we needed to submit our development application along with the landscape plan.  Well other than the landscape plan, I don't think that the developer needed to see the development application.  Only the council do, however in order to progress to development application, we need to get by this first.

We hired a professional service, recommended by Metricon, to come up with our landscape design and plan.  The company is called Eco Design and according to The Ponds Design Panel, they are one of the company that have successfully submitted a landscape plan that comply to the covenant rules. There were actually two companies that Metricon had recommend but we chose to go with Eco Design.  We have heard and talked to them before earlier in the year in one of the Home Show annual exhibition in Darling Harbour held between April and May.  We'll definitely be making our way back to the exhibition next year to search for some home improvement ideas once it is built.  Plus they have some nice give away at the show some times.

We visited their stand and quite impressed with their design.  There were obviously some other landscaper within the exhibition but in terms of price, Eco Design was one of the reasonable one.  So when they were recommended to us plus they are also one of the company that have worked with The Ponds design panel, we didn't hesitate to acquire their services and it was well worth it.

This is quite a big move for us, having to move from a two bedroom unit to a four bedroom house (potentially five bedroom if we rearrange the floor plan).  In all these years as a family, we haven't had to do any gardening type of work, let alone lawn mowing.  Thus we wanted a garden that is easy to maintain and waterwise.

I've told our landscape consultant that I am a big fan of modern Japanese themed garden.  But I think that some of the 'Japanese' like plant that we have chosen will break our rules of easy maintenance.  Some of the other plans that we chose were natives and recommended by The Ponds design panel.

Judging by the very long list of the plant schedule, it would appear that it's going to cost us a fortune!

Some plants that were chosen for us and some that we chose ourselves:

External Color Selection

Concrete roof tiles:
Bristile Roofing - Classic - Luna Eclipse

Bricks:
Austral Bricks - Symmetry - Earth
Mortar - Flush - Natural

Gutter:

Colorbond - Monument

Fascia/Downpipe:
Colorbond - Dune

Aluminium/Windows/Lining:
Colorbond - Dune

Eaves:
Dulux - Limed White Quarter

Front Pillar (feature wall of the facade):
Render - Dulux - Rusted Crimson

Fibre cement sheeting / cladding (@ the back of the house):
Dulux - Log Cabin

Garage door:
Gliderol - Tuscan - Caoba Dawn

Entry door:
Corinthian Doors - Infinity - INF6G - Merbau stain with translucent glass
Imagine this door with the timber stained with the color to the next.

 

Driveway (paved):
Austral - Everyday Life - Grey

Contract Presentation and Acceptance

On this day we had our contract presentation.  Like the tender, this too went well.

We finally get to see more working drawing of our house plan including the elevations, external and internal.  Although it is not final but we are just glad to get to see them!

We also get to see the latest version of the building price.  This is much lower than the number we initially saw during the tender presentation by far!!

We accepted and signed the contract pretty much on the same day it was presented to us.  We've gone through the contract at least twice and our presenter was really good  in explaining the stuff that we didn't get the first time.  What I found interesting was there was a line in our contract that says how much they are making out of us.  I don't believe that there many contract or quotes that actually have that line.  Not sure about other builders but hopefully they do the same!  At least this way, we can decide if we are willing to pay the mark up price of the builder.

We also had the external color appointment on the same day.  Apparently, we needed this to submit to the design panel and council approval.  One thing we forgot to do is to get a landscape plan done for submission, well to be perfectly honest, I wasn't aware that I need it.

Although there is no community levy charged on us but there is a standard guideline with our building and landscape design.  I guess with having a standard in the area can bring the property value higher.

On to the next bit.... External Color Selection!

Final Tender Acceptance

After a few correspondence with our tender presenter, we finally accepted our tender today.  We made some minor changes to the original tender that was given to us.

We took out the Metricon complete package that includes:

• Site cost allowance 
• BASIX
• Floor covering for the entire house
• Concrete slab to outdoor room  
• Paved driveway and entry
• Roof sarking
• Security alarm

The list above is in fact very enticing to us.  For a price, the complete package would allow us to move in to our brand new home immediately upon building completion.  However we need to be completely happy with everything that we are getting as part of the package.

We went to Di Lorenzo to inspect the category 1 carpet and tiles that we will be getting, should we go with this package.  The tiles collection at Di Lorenzo was amazing, however being category 1, our selection is quite limited.  The lady that guide us when we get to the store, said that we are allowed to select anything from the store but there will be an additional charge, if we are to select anything that is over our allowance limit and depending on our selection there may also be an extra labour charge as well as under lay charge.

In a perfect world where we have lots of money to spend, this may be fine with us as their collection of the tiles were very good.  So we considered a number of scenario if we were to go with the complete package.

In the end, we decided to have solid timber for our ground floor and carpet for the stairs, initially, and the first floor.  As Di Lorenzo doesn't have that many selection with the timber, we decided to take the Metricon complete package out.

As a result, we will then need to pay separately for the site cost.  BASIX is not applicable to us as we are in the recycled water area, so in the tender this was actually a credit to us.  It was quite considerably a huge amount too!  How I will miss seeing this credit item in the tender :).

For the final changes of the tender we, here is what we decided to keep:

• Site cost
• Concrete slab to outdoor room
• Roof sarking
• Security alarm
• Paved driveway
• Increased aluminium stacker door height to match the height of timber bi-fold door

We were advised that we could have the security alarm from an external provider.  However as the nature of the product is electrical and anything that run inside the structure of the house, I'd rather to have this done by the builder.  I believe installing this at a later stage could end up costing us a lot more.  For example air conditioner, which I will post another entry on the subject.

So there it is, one more step to having our dream home.

Bank Valuation

Our loan broker has just gave some news about our land valuation.  The independent valuer of the bank has valued our land $5,000 more than the purchase price!

I guess we have made the right decision :)

Gain $5,000 from the land in just 4 months without doing anything at all.

Tender Presentation - Part 1

We had our tender presentation this morning and as we expected the grand total (not including color upgrades) was a bit more.  Not that we were surprised by that at all.  We already expected it when we submitted our variations list, including changes due to the covenant and design guideline.

We were hoping to take some of the variations out and see if we can do some of the improvements ourselves.

The tender presentation went really well.  This is our first time doing a project home and our presenter was really good, professional and thorough when explaining things that we didn't understand.  For one, there was a lot of building terms in the document but our presenter explained it really well.  We were impressed and learned a lot about building from the session.

There were one consideration that we had to make with the design plan of the house.  As part of the Reflection promotion package that we mentioned in my previous post, we receive a Bi-Fold solid timber door up to 2400mm, which is a three Bi-Fold solid timber door.  We initially thought that this door was to replace the aluminium stacker door leading to the outdoor room from the dining.  To our surprise this is another door that we need to consider it's placement.  In the plan, it is placed on the side of the Rumpus room, which in a way ruins our plan to have an enclosed Rumpus room.

This might be something that we have to live with.  The other issue that we have was the height gap between the two doors are actually quite noticeable looking from the outside.  Hopefully our presenter can find a solution for that one.

On another note, in relation to upgrades.  We have added a few more wishlist to the house variations:

• Upgrade the entire kitchen to look exactly like the one in the display house at The Ponds;
• Driveway as part of the landscape;
• Security alarm; and
• Roof sarking

We can't have the storage room under the stairs anymore as the articulation to the wall affected that area.  So we'll need to come up with another storage solution but looking at the proposed floor plan, I think we should be fine.

I don't think this is the final list.  Hopefully by color selection appointment time, we have better control over ourselves.

MI2: The Sequel and Bricks....

After few busy weekends, we finally made our way back to our block of land at The Ponds on the weekend.

It has been a while since we last visited the area and it was good to see some progress that has been happening there.  We can see that the kerbs are already in place in our block!  YAY!!

We thought that there will be another delay with the land constructions due to the wet weather as of late.  We are happy to see the progress thus far and looking forward for our tender presentation now.  We still have our finger crossed about getting the land registered on time in December...

Bricks

Before visiting our land, we also made our way to Austral Brick.  The standard inclusions that we got for bricks from Metricon was category 1 and 2 bricks.  So we make sure that we checked them out first.

Our original selection was the Orpheus color from the Whitsunday range.  However after inspecting our brick selection a lot closer, we didn't really like the color very much and instead the Carlisle color looks more appealing.

As we choose a facade that is modern looking, we wanted to have a modern colored theme as well.  After inspecting all the category 1 and 2 ranges, we thought that none of the colors actually matches what we wanted.  Especially when we discovered that the bricks were actually painted and the color does not go through into the bricks.  Photos below:

Orpheus Color	Carlisle Color

Carlisle and Orpheus from afar

After looking and investigating all our options, we are thinking to upgrading our brick selection to category 3.  We thought that one of these bricks would look perfect for our brand new home:

 

Metropolis Series - Topaz color

 

Symmetry Range - Earth

We really like the Earth color as it will suit our color scheme perfectly, however to upgrade to this category will take an extra $7000 for us.... So we are looking if we can squeeze the budget to fit this in.  It's going to be tough...

The Ponds 

Photos from our visit last weekend:

 

Kerbs on Waterfall 9 block and our little inspector on the job

 

What it appears to be the maintenance hole on our block and our little inspector is testing the strength of the cover

Update about something... at least...

It's been a while since I last updated this blog and I think it's about time to do so...

What a month it has been...  we have been pretty busy with our little family lately that we have neglected going over to The Ponds or even doing some project home thinking!  That's very naughty of us....

Yesterday we took our kids out to watch the Disney on Ice show at the Acer Arena - Olympic park.  We had a wonderful time and our son really loves them!  (Our little girl probably don't understand what was going on as she just turned 1 last Thursday!)  After the show the skaters (still with their costume on of course) hang out on the edge and call out for the kids to come over.  As we were sitting quite close to the ice rink, I took our son to go over the ice rink to shake their hand.  Well not all of them but at least he got to shake hand with Mickey Mouse!!

On the way back to our car we asked him if he enjoyed the show and he said yes.  We also asked him who was his favorite character; and he answered Mickey Mouse! hahahaha... kids are just so amazing :)  We are very happy to see that our kids actually enjoyed the show.... and to see them happy means a lot to us :)

Anyway to update what is happening with our project home...

In my very first post, I've written about how our home purchase at Auburn was a total failure and we instructed our conveyancer to cancel the contract.  As we have waited for more than 12 months we are able to cancel the contract without penalties.  We received an update from our conveyancer last week that the receivers and managers of the property has received our instructions and therefore have cancelled the contract as per our request.  We are now waiting for our deposit to be refunded to us.  Hopefully this doesn't take a full month again.  That's one of the good news...

The bad news is nothing has happened in our block of land.  No construction progress update or whatsoever.  Well it has been raining a lot for the last couple of weeks so they probably delay the work on our block again... This would mean that Metricon is not able to send site engineers to inspect the block in order to determine our site costs will be.

We got a call today from our SC saying that Metricon would like to fast track the tender process for us.  As we are not able to give them an update about our block of land, he wanted us to get a contour diagram plan that show the rise/fall of the land.  He said that by getting this, Metricon would take the risk and work of the contour plan to determine our site costs and if there is anything extra, Metricon will bear the cost... How very generous of them!!  Thank you!! :)

So I rang The Ponds office and asked them to provide me with a contour diagram for our block that I can send to our SC.  Hopefully that would speed up our tender presentation and we get to select colours and all the other appointments that we need to do.

A bad news that is followed by a good news can't be that bad I guess.... Another exciting moment of our lives!! :)

Build Variations

I don't realize until today that the only time to do our thinking and work on our project home are at late nights after the kids are gone to bed.  This is really getting a lot more interesting and we are now clearer on what we are up against... some heavy late night sleep!!  I thought I am through with the late nights when I graduated.... I guess I was too early to even think that....  oh wait did I have enough sleep when we had our children... hmm... looks like sleeping isn't a requirement anymore when you reach parenthood. :)

As the time goes on and whilst also waiting anxiously for our tender presentation, we thought that it would be sensible for us to actually start thinking of what our dream home is going to look like.  We never knew that it would literally takes a lot of detailed thinking, readings as well as researching into every corner of the home!

Till today, Metricon hasn't contacted us for any appointments yet.  Our sales consultant advised us that he hasn't been able to order site surveyors to our land as there is no kerb and gutter in place.  The weather factor also comes into play as there has been a lot of rain for the last few weeks.

In the meantime, we have more time to think about some "home improvement" ideas and there are also some changes that are required by The Ponds design panel.

Compulsory changes to the house design:

• 600mm articulation to first floor family sitting room wall to avoid over 14 meters of straigt wall.  We thought it would be sensible to do it on this part of the house as we would love a bigger living space.
• Generally a minimum of 450mm to all part of the house.
• Render to front pillar of the house.

Upgrades/Changes:

• Shower to the powder room
• Microwave tower
• Closing off the study room with 2 cavity sliding door.  We thought it would be a good idea considering that we have two kids and we can't just leave cables lying around and the study room will have plenty of it
• Opening of the wall between the study room and the sitting room.
• Internal access from garage
• Storage room under the stairs
• An extra shower head in the ensuite
• Two sets of pot drawers next to the cooker in the kitchen
• Extra pot drawers in the ensuite
• Higher wardrobes ceiling to 190mm in the master bedroom only
• Daikin ducted air conditioner 15kw (6HP), 12 outlets, 2 zones.

This study room wall opening seems like a good idea and it's quite cheap to do but I wonder how much is the plantation shutter going to cost??

What we get from the Reflection package (worth up to $70,100 of upgrades for $4,888):

• 90mm white ant resistant structural T2 wall and roof framing
• Bi-fold timber door, stained (up to 2400mm)
• Caesar Stone benchtop to kitchen, laundry, ensuite, powder room and bathroom.
• Baumatic Designer Italian stainless steel upright cooker with 5 burner gas cooktop
• Pivot front entry door - WIN6G includes upgraded 'pivot' entry door frame
• Framed mirrored robe doors to wardrobes
• Downlight pack of 20 in addition to the standard no of light points provided
• Upgraded ceiling height to 2550mm first floor
• 2 solid timber doors with translucent glass
• 2340mm high internal passage doors
• Laundry fitout with inset tub, 800mm base and overhead cupboards pluss 400mm broom cupboard
• Upgraded tiling to 2100mm to ensuite only
• Baumatic stainless steel dishwasher
• Contemporary stainless steel balusters (internal staircase)
• Choice of Baumatic stainless steel rangehood 900mm
• Remote-controlled garage door
• Horizontal feature windon to kitchen with square set finish
• Baumatic stainless steel microwave with trim kit
• Stainless steel back to back door handle (Gainsborough Horizon style 750mm)
• Timber stained treads (2 at the bottom of staircase)

To have this horizontal window when cooking seems pretty cool to us! :)

Still to do:

• Floor coverings.  We are thinking of going timber for the wet area and carpet for the first floor
• Driveway
• Landscaping
• Fencing. Brick fencing to the front and mailbox, maybe colorbond fence for sides and the back of the house.
• Timber decking to porch and outdoor room.  A friend of mine has already offered his help to do the work, all I need to do is to get the materials and help him do the job. Oh and dinner for the family :) the last part is not hard at all :)
• Windows coverings
• Security alarm

Generally we are happy with the Tribeca floor plan itself.  So if the tender comes back with a higher price than we expected that we don't mind not having some of the upgrades that we thought about.  We still need some funds to get furnitures don't we?  Although getting the furniture part will probably happen over the period of time but we still need to hold our horses with upgrades!

This is what we have requested our sales consultant to include in the tender.  Once he is able to order the soil test done, we'll be contacted to make our tender presentation appointment.

Until then, it's a waiting game for us...  Rain please quickly go away...

Mission Impossible: Up Close and Personal

Sneaking in...

Thanks to the info that we got from the people at HomeOne forum, we discovered that we can actually sneaked in all the way to our land! How cool is that!

After making sure that the rain has stopped (it has been raining for the whole week!) or at least no rain while we were on the mission :). We managed to walk all the way and took some photos of our to be land! :)

Taken from Meander Crescent overlooking Waterfall 9 and Spring Street Looks like they have started putting in the kerb and gutter

Taken from the corner of Spring St and Copper St At least they started to build the road on this street

Taken from Copper St.

Making our way to our land

Walked pass a manhole and thought that 

"Would this be the manhole on the back of our land will look like?"

This is a series of photos taken with different angles and view that we thought where our block of land supposed to be. 

As you can see there is still a puddle of water from the rain on that block.  I was advised by Landcom that the construction was stopped for the whole week due to the rain.  This is bad news for us because it would mean that Metricon won't be able to send their site surveyor to do the soil test and determine our site costs. :(

Oh well, what some rainy days we had here....

Mission accomplished.... over and out...

Contract Land Exchanged

I went to meet our conveyancer on the 25th May 2010 with signed Contract of Purchase paper from Landcom.  Both my wife and I are very excited with the future that lies ahead of us.

We made only a minor change to our contract.  That is instead of giving us 14 days notice before the land is registered and we need to settle, our conveyancer asked for 21 days of notice and Landcom agreed!

I paid our 5% deposit of purchase price and paid a little part of the conveyancer fee on that day.

On 26th May, I got a call from our conveyancer confirming that the contract has been exchanged.

Another step to owning our dream home!

This is my house!!!

On this day, we finally decided that we are going to put some deposit money as well as signing our lives away with Metricon to build our dream home.

It was the Tribeca 36 with Metro facade that we are going with.

The House

The Floor Plan

We made our appointment with one of Metricon's sales consultant at Kellyville Ridge display center but we were late getting there as my son had a stomach bug and was throwing up during the trip.

After nearly 1 hour late for our appointment, we finally arrived.  We verified all the standard inclusion list again; did a walkthrough of the house as we didn't do that the first time; and finally we also wanted to confirm that we are getting an extension to our tender expiry period as our land is not going to be registered until December 2010.

Our sales consultant made a call to his manager to confirm the availability of the manager sale and confirmed that we'll definitely secure our tender price for 240 days.  The default tender expiry period is 150 days and that will only get us until October of this year in which it will not work for us.  So having 240 days for the tender expiry days will help us quite a lot as Metricon charges 0.5% of the total value of contract price per month if we don't go into construction within 150 days.

Some may think, why did we sign the request for tender on this day and not wait until at least our land is registered?  Well the answer is, Metricon will have their prices increased by at least $10k on the Monday 24th May.  By putting in the deposit on this day, it will guarantee us today's price and not having to deal with the price increase.  Also one of their promotion package which is called the Reflection Package, and this package will get us most of the stuff that we wanted, was going to finish at the end of the month.  The promotion was the main factor that we decided to sign up on this day really.

Maybe they tricked us into it or it could probably be a sales pitch to put some pressure on us.  Having said that and knowing the facts, at the end of the day, we were quite happy with our decision. :)

One step closer to owning a brand new home!

House House House... - The Dream Home

So now that we know that we are going to get a double storey house, the question is which one?

After countless number of trips to The Ponds builder display village and Homeworld that seemed like to go on forever, we were finally able to shortlist a number of house design that we like.

1.  Metricon: Riva 34 - Metro Facade
The design gives a lot of private open space area and it covers only about 28% of the total area.  We didn't really like the facade of the house but, in general principle, it's really the floor plan that we really liked.  From what we can see from the geosite image, it would appear that the house won't go anywhere near the manholes as well.

We were a bit disappointed when we discovered that the rumpus room at the back of the house that is on display at their Kellyville Ridge center was actually an upgrade.  In order to "add" that room it will cost us around $25k.

Our sales consultant was very patient with us throughout the questioning session :).

2.  AV Jennings: Atrium 285 - Capri Facade
I must say that the house that is on display at The Ponds builder village is really nice and a very lovely home.  The consultant also advised us that the display home was full of upgrades in it.  The only concern I have about Atrium was that the house was originally design for a corner block.  So if we wanted this house, we'll need to make some modifications such as moving the entrance to the study room whilst also extending the study room so that we can actually have one.

Comparing to the Riva from Metricon, we like the facade of Atrium better.  It feels more homey.  However there will be extra costs depending on which facade that we choose.  The only problem in this is we will not choose the traditional facade.

The price for the standard range would also fit our budget perfectly and way under.



3.  Metricon: Tribeca 36 - Metro Facade
This comes in at the very last minute.  After spending most part of the day with one of Metricon's sales consultant, we thought that we have what we have come  for and all of the informations that we need to make our decision.  However we can't help but to have a last sneak peek at the Tribeca.

Maybe it's because we have spent most of the days going through all of the display house at Metricon in great details that we were finally able to spot that the Tribeca isn't very much different to the Riva.  I mean it has the same elements of floor plan but Tribeca have an extra study room and rumpus room.  All others are pretty much the same.

So we made an inquiry about the price for Tribeca 36 (the smaller version from the display center) with Metro facade and the difference was the cost of building the rumpus room for the Riva.

Tribeca 40 - Coastal Facade on display at Metricon display centre at The Ponds

Which house did we choose? Based on the above, it is not a secret that we will be going for the Tribeca 36 with Metro facade.  We did seriously consider of going with AV Jennings with their Atrium 285 design and also Metricon was a bit pricey and we will be stretching our budget.  However at the end of the day, after considering factors such as the standard inclusion list, promotion package and the quality of all the wares that we are going to get, it was Metricon's that we like the best.

And there it is, after a good 3 months of researching and looking at the display centers, we finally found our dream home...