I must admit, I’m cringing a lot when I read stories about housing affordability at the moment.

After six months, we’re almost through the paperwork process of building our third home and I can tell you it’s been anything but affordable.

And that’s before even one brick has been laid.

We sold our house at Chancellor Park earlier this year, thinking we would follow the smart money and build a home to flog off.

Then the real estate market decided to come off the boil.

But after the lengthy process we have gone through to get to pre-building stage, I must say I’m in no hurry now to sell and build again.

The problem with building your own home is the enormous gulf between the listed price of the building – and what it will actually cost you when it comes to building it.

It’s not just the builders that are to blame – it seems every step of the way someone has their hand out to take some money from you.

Taxes, development charges, fees for this and that.

And the local council is certainly among the takers.

While I’m all in favour of environmentally-friendly buildings, it’s costing me a small fortune to be green.

It seems one water tank is not enough for own home – it needs two. Add an extra $5,000.

And while I thought the block had a nice gentle slop on it, the council has deemed it too steep for anything but a split level home. Add another $10,000 – cheap compared to the $20,000 the builder could have charged, I’m told.

Throw in little luxuries like air-conditioning, a slightly bigger kitchen, retaining walls, landscaping etc, a driveway, some more fees, charges and taxes, and you’re looking at $100,000 more than the advertised building price.

I must admit, I nearly hit the roof (if I had one) when I first saw the letter from the council saying we couldn’t build a straight slab construction.

But after speaking to a friendly bloke at the council, who explained that if we didn’t do a split level home our retaining walls would overshadow our back bedroom windows, I could understand where the council was coming from.

Gone are the days, apparently, of huge cut and fill housing developments.

You’re meant to use the natural slope of the land to its full advantage, even if it means it might cost you a small fortune in the process.

In the more vertically-challenged neighbourhood we currently live in Woombye, some poor folk have spent more on retaining walls than I spent on my first home.

It was not that long ago, we bought our first block of land at Bli Bli just up the road from the fairytale castle for the princely sum of $30,000.

The house cost us $50,000, so all up our total outlay was just $80,000.

Fast forward 10 years and we bought our second piece of dirt for $55,000 after foregoing the spa-size pool they were throwing in at Chancellor Park for another $5000 off the price of the block.

Our four-bedroom home cost another $76,000 – we built in the middle of a price war among builders – leaving us with a manageable mortgage of $140,000.

Another 10 years later, the exercise to build only a slightly bigger home becomes far more expensive.

Our land set us back more than $200,000 and our new home will cost anywhere between $250,000 and $300,000 – leaving us with an incredible asset I’m told – and an incredible mortgage to match.

Last week, we finally got to do some of the fun things – like choosing colours.

Somehow I think it’s going to be a long few months.

Church should stick to its faith
The stoush over a renegade Catholic church facing an ultimatum from Brisbane Archbishop John Bathersbyto toe the line or face closure throws up some very interesting questions.

In a three-page letter delivered to parish priest Father Peter Kennedy on Friday, Archbishop Bathersby called the 700-strong parish of St Mary’s South Brisbane “an authority to itself”.

The parish has received repeated warnings for a number of years after operating outside the accepted practices of the Catholic Church.

At St Mary’s, unorthodox masses are conducted, women can preach and homosexual couples are blessed.

But Archbishop Bathersby has drawn the line at a small statue of a Buddhist monk praying, which was placed inside the church.

While there would be many who advocate the Christian church needs to be far more accepting and less judgmental, the reality is that if the Catholic Church, as an entity, is paying for the building, surely it has a right to ensure its own beliefs are adhered to.

While churches like St Mary’s should be applauded for opening its doors to all who want to worship there, if it is calling itself a Catholic church it should follow the teachings and style of a Catholic church.

After all, the parishioners are quite entitled to set up a new church, under their own name.

I’m sure there will be plenty of supporters.