Building a house is surprisingly slow. We were told 9-10 months from start to finish. We're at about 4 months now and haven't even chosen what colour we want the damn thing to be! We're expecting this to drag on for ages, and then at 9.5 months a truck will just turn up with a house on it without warning and we'll be running around like chooks with their heads cut off trying to get finance.

We own our land outright, at least.