We were first home owners when we built. We got a landscaping package (front garden only) included in the price, but we had no driveway, no fences, no paths around the house. We had to take a loan out on top of our mortgage to do the driveway and front paths. Thankfully my husband worked for a company where we could get panels for the fences, so all we had to do was buy the steel posts and rails. Our back paths came nearly 10 years later.

We also built on a corner block because it was bigger, but we think that our house was actually built the wrong way.. Not 100% sure on that. Our water meter is down the side of our house within our fence line. So to get a water meter read we have to let the people into our back yard. I normally get them to leave a card and phone it through myself.

Our suburb only has footpaths on one side of the street. It was meant to be our side and we were aware of that before building commenced, but some time after we moved it the council came along and ripped up the front yards of people living the other side of the street and put their paths on that side. The people across the road were not happy as they had a beautifully manicured yard right down to the road, thinking they weren't the ones getting the paths.

Oh we also wanted to connect gas but it was going to cost us $600 to connect the pipe, so we told them to shove it and a tap that was on the side of the house we wanted to move to the front yard, and then ended up costing us a huge amount as well.