Searching for the ideal block to build you dream holiday house on needs to be carefully considered.
The block hunt started in the late 90's. During our few times a year visit to the southwest, we'd stop in various real estate agents, grab a for sale list and and go for a drive. The areas we visited were narrowed down to the triangle formed between Nannup, Manjimup and Pemberton.
We looked at everything below $AUD200k which in the mid to late 90's could get you something really nice, anything from a choice 2000 m2 town block to 40 hectares acres untouched bush. As you'd expect the types of land were all the extremes: sloping, flat, trees all different kinds, water, dry, cleared, semi cleared, close to towns, isolated, with house, without house or with something that vaugely resembles a house...
Many moons later we found a 2.2 hectare block (2.2 hectares = 22000 m2 ~ 5.5acres) no house, heavily wooded with Karri trees, slopy, about 2km out of Pemberton. The trick then was negotiating a price...
Below are samples of some of the blocks we looked at.
About 15kms out of Manjimup, half cleared half wooded, our, well my, favourite for about a year.
A partially cleared sloping block out of Quininip.
Between Manjimup and Pemberton, a very steep block with a large dam at the base. Someone has since started developing it.
Off the Nannup-Bagerup road, parkland cleared.
8kms out of Manjimup, cleared and bordered by forest.
Beautiful 30 acres of karri forest about 5kms out of Manjimup.
Lovely parkland cleared karri lot in a subdivision near Pemberton.
Another lot in the same subdivision.
Our eventual choice - a sloping 5.5 acre karri forest block 3kms out of Pemberton.