Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Aug 11, 2013 10:41 pm Hi, My wife and I are thinking of building a 2 storey house in Lightsview (on a 12.5m block). This will be our first home that we are building, so we dont really know what to expect. But from reading the forums, it seems that most (if not all) builders are very bad with variations and estimate in footing costs. We have spent the past few weeks driving around town to look at display home and have a chat with various builders to get a feel of their service and pricing. Would be great to hear from people on this forum for any experience they have with their builders in SA, especially if it is within the Northgate/Lightsview area as I heard the area got bad soil and they are also really strict with their encumbrances. Thanks in advance for anyone with information. Re: Building House in Lightsview (Northgate) SA 3Aug 14, 2013 11:12 pm Thanks Lucinda, Oh yeah, we went to St Clair a few times to look at their display home. That area is also very nice, lots of development there. I guess any general builder's recommendation in Adelaide metro area helps. Who are you building with at the moment? Are they any good? Re: Building House in Lightsview (Northgate) SA 4Dec 09, 2013 6:06 pm Hi Kank, My partner and I are currently in the process of building a 6m terrace house in Lightsview (slab should be down within 2 weeks). It has been quite a long road for us, after purchasing the land in May 2012 we signed with Sekisui, who were initially really good and we were very happy with the entire process. We went through the entire process with them, finalising selections and obtaining all required approvals but our bank valuation came in under and we were unable to reach an agreement which satisfied the bank and Sekisui, so unfortunately we had to walk away and begin the process all over again! We have now signed with Sterling, and the process has been slightly different, although so far (as with Sekisui) no complaints at all. Given that the valuation came in perfectly and the work has begun we are very pleased to finally see something happening! We actually found getting builders quotes was really difficult. We would meet with builders, provide our plans and maybe we would hear from them, maybe we wouldn't. One builder asked us how much we wanted to spend per sqm, another wanted to see other builders quotes to compare, one sent us someone else's plans, about 5 never got back to us. We were also surprised with the amount of 'smack talking' that the builders talked about each other which was quite off putting. This is the first house we have built as well, so maybe this is common? The area obviously doesn't have very good soil and the footings are very expensive, and we found that builders quite often underquoted the cost. Our footings/site works are approx. $20,000 and we found that most builders quoted us around the $10,000 - $15,000 mark. I would just keep this in mind when you are budgeting/getting quotes. In regards to the encumbrances, I would say that the greatest frustration has been the approval time. Both our builders appear to have quite a good relationship with Lightsview, and we met the vast majority of the encumbrances at the initial stage of providing the plans. I don't feel that the encumbrances were too prohibitive on the house that we wanted to build. However, my understanding is that there is only one or two people, who are responsible for all the lightsview approvals. From memory, both times we have submitted our plans it has taken 3months+ to get approval. I would definitely recommend that you continually stay in contact with your builder/Lightsview to find out how your plans are progressing (ie contact them at least once a week). I hope this helps you! Re: Building House in Lightsview (Northgate) SA 5Jan 06, 2015 3:29 am my builder quoted the price very accurate. we paid no variation at all, even on footings. we paid some on "upgrades" but upgrades are not variation. e.g upgrades the laminate material, upgrades the tiles, upgrades the carpet....etc basically they are selections, so the builder's range might be silver, gold, platinum we chose gold, and anything we picked that is outside the gold range, we pay for it. Our builder came back with the upgraded cost, listed individually, so we can decide what to go for. We too were very scared about under quotes, that's what everyone scared about when they first building their homes. This is the main reason why we pick our builder, you can call me cheap-ass but my builder worked differently to other builders usually other builder quoted you on a hand sketch, that is not even engineering approved. Once you happy about their sketch, then they ask you to pay the deposit, so they can move on and give you another more accurate quote, that is what the extra cost coming from. I and my partner doesn't like this kind of games, so when we met our builder, he said the way how he works is, you give him your budget, he then drew the proper plan that you like and can be build properly, then once we happy about the plan, he then go to quote properly. Once we happy about the quote, then we sign the contract and pay the deposit. So basically we don't need to spend any money to get the architect drawing done. And the quote will make us more comfortable, we can instant decide if we can afford or not, can we upgrade or not? no need to worry about hidden cost. My house looked more traditional rather than modern, the reason was because we gave him lower budget first, that's why he draw our house more traditional, we then upgraded 3~4 times on the interior material. Hope this help and good luck, I have heard lots of stories on many builders, some were happy with their builders with no variation, and some were very unhappy that the variation is more than 500k!! 7.5M Dual Frontage terrace @ lightsview SA /viewtopic.php?f=31&t=58754 moved in - April 2014 furnitured - August 2014 home theatre - September 2014 Game room - December 2013 moved in - 09 April 2014 Re: Building House in Lightsview (Northgate) SA 6Jun 24, 2017 8:16 pm Hello all, We want to purchase a property on lightsview. But we are a bit scared. We like this suburb only because it is close to the city but is it enough? What are the advantages that lightsview have? Good on you for having a go I am the opposite of DIY (so will pay a builder) - our vibe is industrial/simple so current thinking is 150mm concrete and then internally is… 3 3162 Hi Everyone, One of my favourite parts of a build is when the temporary fence comes down and the home begins to reveal itself. It also means we are on the home straight… 103 372509 Building a fence now will help limit people dumping rubbish and soil on your property. Many houses in suburbia on small lots have fences up before a build. I moved into a… 1 4649 |