First Home Buyer’s $20,000 is Extended Until December!

June 30, 2017

Welcome to this week’s North Harbour Blog. The big news for us recently has been the announcement that the $20,000 First Home Owner’s Grant has been extended until December 2017!

The Grant offers first-home buyers $20,000 to purchase new houses, units or townhouses valued at less than $750,000. It is a one-off financial grant only available to those buying their first home in Australia who meet all the eligibility criteria aimed at helping First Home Buyers get onto the property ladder.

Eligible recipients must be:

– at least 18 years old
– purchasing a new property under $750,000
– an Australian Citizen or permanent resident
– receiving the grant for the first time

Queensland Treasurer, Curtis Pitt, said 4,900 applications worth $98 million had been approved so far, with more to be approved as house purchases by applicants proceed, demonstrating the success of the scheme. He added that extending the grant would further drive construction and economic activity.

“The Palaszczuk Government recognises how difficult it is for first-home buyers to get into the housing market. This is one of the most effective ways of helping families to get a start with a new home while simultaneously creating construction jobs and spurring on the economy.”

So, big news if you’re a first home buyer! Our sales team is ready to help you make the first step onto the property ladder – click here for more information.

New North Harbour Website!

It’s been nearly two years since we first opened our Sales & Information Centre at North Harbour and our beautiful community is now home to over 500 residents.

As North Harbour has grown we now have a lot more to showcase so we have developed a brand new website, www.northharbour.com.au. The website includes information on sales, upcoming events, our proposed open space and parklands, amenities and proposed Queensland Heritage precinct as well as info on our environmental restoration projects and much more.

The website will expand as the development grows – if there is anything you’d like to see added to the website please send your feedback to .

The Abbey Medieval Festival

We’re in the middle of the school holidays and getting ready for one of the biggest events in the local calendar – The Abbey Medieval Festival this coming weekend, July 8^th and 9th.

Our community and heritage partner, The Abbey Museum of Art and Archaeology, hosts this huge event which celebrates all things medieval! Their team of jousters and re-enactors are deep in training in order to be able to wear the extremely heavy armour and hold lances in their battles for glory. The members of the Abbey Medieval House Troupe are preparing a veritable cornucopia of costumes including a plague doctor, along with staged scenes, storytelling and short cycle plays.

The Festival is host to myriad stores selling medieval wares from all around South-East Queensland. Peddlers travel from far and wide via many forms of transport across dangerous countryside littered with bandits and wild wolves. Well not so much the last part but that’s the benefit of progress. And what progress it’s been! The Abbey Medieval Festival is a recreation of the hubble and bubble of medieval life right down to the food vendors and stalls. Many of the amazing rustic wares we see at the festival are sourced locally and created with rustic techniques and ingredients. However, chances are the rustic meal you’re looking forward to was, to some extent, sourced from a grocery or department store.

The rapidly approaching festival provides a chance to appreciate just how far society has come since the middle ages. One example of how our lives have changed is how we eat and exercise. Exercise and diet were a demanding priority to the knights of old, to which their lives depended on.

While often presented as chivalrous and benign, the knights of the middle ages were one of the fiercest fighting cultures of all time. As imagined, medieval peasants did not need to work out as they were engaged in farming and trades while those of higher social class trained by riding, hunting wrestling and even lifting large stones. Knights were the premier fighters of their time having been trained since they were boys and constantly testing themselves in full armour – especially at tournaments.

There are no books to accurately explain how knights kept fit and although the training regimes were vastly different, the premise of the training is the same between the fighters of the Middle Ages and today – to stay in peak physical and mental condition. Since general survival is not as demanding, people today are fortunate that exercise is recreational and in a lot of cases are purely aesthetical and for stress relief.

Although there is plenty of room for it in the heart of the Northern corridor, jousting is unfortunately not a viable exercise option at North Harbour. However, the featured open spaces of North Harbour which add up to 1000 acres, serve as suitable areas to train. This huge area includes parkland, children’s playgrounds and exercise equipment amongst the proposed six parks (one is already open with another to be opened later this year). Extensive cycling and walking tracks will also be available to utilize for residents to keep up their cardio regime.

Furthermore, plans to build a sports complex with fields for various sports are currently underway. In the meantime, the Narangba Sporting Complex is ten minutes away and the Caboolture Aquatic Centre is only five minutes away. For water lovers, various canoe platforms are proposed in the area as well as a boat ramp within a ten-minute drive.

Retaining and preserving the historical remnants of the North Harbour site has been an important part of the North Harbour planning process, culminating in our proposed Heritage Precinct which we hope to create in partnership with local experts from The Abbey Museum. The area has been listed and protected on the Queensland Heritage Register since 2011 as a place of Queensland State significance and is proposed to become part of an outdoor leisure space with pathways and tracks enabling use by the future residents and visitors, enabling everyone to enjoy our slice of Queensland history.

North Harbour Sales Office & 35 Home Display Village is open seven days a week, 10am-5pm. For more information on purchasing a block or to book a tour of the Display Village please contact us.

To keep up to date with the latest news and info on North Harbour including information on our proposed Qld Heritage Precinct sign up for our email and SMS updates and find us on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/northharbour/