What SHOULDN'T I get my builder to quote on?

I'm looking at building my first home with McDonald Jones homes in Muswellbrook (Hunter Valley), NSW. I'd like to find out from people with more experience what I shouldn't get my builder to install while the house is being built. Basically, the items that I can get done easily after the home is built for much less cost. So far, I'm going to get other contractors (or myself) to do after the builders have done the hand over:
Driveway
Turfing
Ducted air con (during the build, not after)
Carpet
Tile
Blinds
TV Aerial
Clothesline
Flyscreens
Is there anything else that I should consider getting done by other contractors after the house is built? At this stage, I'm not yet sure about deadlocks or downlights. I heard that getting downlights installed by a third party is usually much cheaper, but is it a lot more hassle after the gyprock and stuff goes in?

Hi, We're about to commence our 3rd house-build and have learnt so much each time. Others may disagree but here's my 2 cents on this subject. I would never get the builder to do the following; driveway or any concrete/paved areas; turf; landscaping; fencing; letterbox and the biggest of all RENDERING. It seems these days that many project home builders are including things like letterboxes, TV antennaes and fly screens in the basic house price and I'd keep them in if they're already included. I would not be paying the builder's contractors 'cash in hand' to do these jobs later. Sure they'll charge less than if you'd gone through the builder as there won't be the builder's commission added on but they'll still sting you eg. $100 for each ceiling fan or TV point or $300 to paint one feature wall, is just highway-robbery. If you know tradies who have nothing to do with the builder, get them to do it. I know electricians like to do the work before the gyprock goes up but for the smaller things I'd wait.

On our previous two builds, we found that we would have been better off just going with the builder's carpet and tiles. The reason is this; when you say "I'll get that done myself" you'll find that they only give you a very small credit back for not getting their tiles/carpet, etc. this is usually because they can get it cheap. eg. by getting your own carpet, they may give you a credit of $2000. But, after you get it done yourself, I can guarantee you that you will end up paying more like $4000. There doesn't seem to be much of a mark-up on carpet and tiles from what we've found. However, there does seem to be on things like driveways, landscaping, fencing and the biggest of all RENDER. Here's our experience with having one of our houses rendered;

Cost of rendering and painting if we got builder to do it (two storey house by the way) $15 000. After we had moved in (and yes, we had a very basic, ugly face brick for a couple of weeks) we got quotes from local renderers to do the job 'cash in hand'. End result - our render job cost us $5000 and the painter we found charged $3000 including paint. I'd rather that 7 grand in my pocket than the builder's.

Cheers.