Browse Forums General Discussion 1 Apr 17, 2009 4:28 pm Hi everyone My wife and I want to get a place to live of our own. We only want a house, not an apartment. We have some questions and if anyone could help answer them it would be appreciated (including other first home buyers lurking). Now I keep seeing everyone saying new house and land packages (display home style stuff) are more expensive than buying an established house elsewhere. And also the fact these new volume made houses are cheaply made. That's true. They are cheaply made. I saw one of our internal room DOORS for $39 at Bunnings. A full wooden door. We are renting a new house and can see the cheapness a little. Some are worse built than others. Question 1. For that reason (quality and price) I am shifting away from house and land packages. However could someone give us the low-down if we are just misguided or not. I only like these new houses because they are modern and the neighbourhood are new. Question 2. We are also interested in possibly buying land seperately and getting a builder to build on it. Could someone tell me if this is cheaper or not this way, and which kinds of builders to avoid and which to look at? Are private builders better than volume ones like Hickenbotham / Weeks and Mclan / Fairmont Homes etc? Where do you get private builders? Question 3. Is building in general cheaper than buying a house? Significant pitfalls etc? Question 4. Where can we get information to find under-valued suburbs? Whats the process one undertakes to discover this info? Is there a service out there that gives you this info on a silver platter or something remotely similar to deduce your own conclusions? posting.php?mode=edit&f=1&p=206095# Question 5. Because we are self-employed for less than a year we can only take a "Low doc" home loan, which means we need a 20% deposit, which is too much for us. If anyone can tell us of someone that will help us out please do, PM or reply to this thread is fine. Thank you appreciated. I've tried eChoice and a few other brokers. Same story from all - low doc. I should make it clear we do not hugely care about future value of our house, we just want one as we just cant stand having to handball $1000 per month away when we could be paying off a mortgage for our own home. We don't want to live "far" (Smithfield / Gawler / Munno Para) hence Salisbury (which is mediumish) which is where new estate homes are being built at the moment. If you can answer even one these questions please feel free to share! Re: BUILD OR BUY IN ADELAIDE? Plus more q's.... 2Apr 17, 2009 7:40 pm IMO buy if you can find a house that is the right size, right layout, right location and right price. If you can't, then look to build. Small builders will tend to be more expensive but service is more personalised. I think that buying will be "cheaper" than building. Definitely much less hassles. Downside is that you will probably compromise on a number of things, and it's not new (worries some people more than others). Volume builders use various contractors - some good, some bad. So, customers using the same builder can have vastlyl differing experiences. Keep monitoring the build, and seek advice from this great forum. Chris Re: BUILD OR BUY IN ADELAIDE? Plus more q's.... 3Apr 17, 2009 9:35 pm Thanks for the info Chris. What makes you say buying is cheaper than building? I always always under the illusion that if you built, you were getting the "raw" deal done for you, and because its a hassle to wait 6 months to get built, it would end up being slightly cheaper... my theory which is probably wrong. Re: BUILD OR BUY IN ADELAIDE? Plus more q's.... 4Apr 17, 2009 9:45 pm I guess a downside to building your own house is that you'll need to spend A LOT of time monitoring the build, going over the estimate, sourcing your own appliances and stuff if you're not happy with the package. If something does go wrong, the onus is on you to get it sorted. I personally feel that as a owner-builder or at least with a house & land package, you'll need to know a little about building to be able to avoid getting fleeced or to spot major mistakes. So ultimately it comes down to how much time you're able to spend on the house. However on the other hand, you can have exactly what you want, the type of layout/appliance/wiring/powerpoints... it's going to be your dream home! Hope this helps! Re: BUILD OR BUY IN ADELAIDE? Plus more q's.... 5Apr 17, 2009 10:23 pm If you don't consider the hassles of building, and if you don't consider the opportunity cost for progress payments, etc, and you don't consider the value of the land (old houses tend to be on much larger blocks), then yes, building is cheaper. Consider this scenario (rather limited scope I know): You see a new house just developed by a builder and on the market for sale. Right next door is an empty block (identical in size) for sale. Do you think that you can purchase the block and build an identical house for the same price? Don't think so. Even if you can, you'll still have the headaches to go with the build. However, as I qualified in my original post, the comparison is pointless unless you can find something established that you like. I'm building because after 1 year of looking for an established house to purchase, I couldn't find a house that is the right size, right layout, right location and at a reasonable price. And it's not because I'm picky, I'm not. All the houses I looked at didn't come close to my target, often failing on 1-2 criteria, and wasn't real good on yet another of the four criteria. By building, IMO I'm compromising on the "reasonable price" criteria and get to enjoy the headaches Chris home loan tips 7Apr 18, 2009 4:00 pm tentlivin Question 5. Because we are self-employed for less than a year we can only take a "Low doc" home loan, which means we need a 20% deposit, which is too much for us. If anyone can tell us of someone that will help us out please do, PM or reply to this thread is fine. I am afraid it's actually worse than that. If you have been self employed only for 1 year you may even have a tough time qualifying for low doc right now. Re: BUILD OR BUY IN ADELAIDE? Plus more q's.... 8Apr 23, 2009 11:34 pm Anyone able to answer Question 4: Question 4. Where can we get information to find under-valued suburbs? Whats the process one undertakes to discover this info? Is there a service out there that gives you this info on a silver platter or something remotely similar to deduce your own conclusions? Re: BUILD OR BUY IN ADELAIDE? Plus more q's.... 9Apr 25, 2009 4:24 am tentlivin Question 4. Where can we get information to find under-valued suburbs? Whats the process one undertakes to discover this info? Is there a service out there that gives you this info on a silver platter or something remotely similar to deduce your own conclusions? Adelaide is not big. So, talking to people who lives around that part of town is probably the best way. But first, you need to have some idea where you like to live (North, South, etc). In the inner south area, I think that Ascot Park, Edwardstown, Parkholme are good value for money. Not far from the beach, not far from the city, train services, reasonable shopping, etc. I only know of RPDATA (professional service). Not exactly sure it gives what you want. Check out their website. Chris 1000000% definitely add insulation. I have in my home and it makes a big difference minimising sound transfer. Insulation is pretty cheap and definitely worth it 2 6173 We are building a house that was planned to be clad in Hardie Linea, our builder has now requested to swap this for BGC Nuline Plus. They look fairly similar and he has… 0 553 I am building in claymore NSW and this is shown in the building envelope plan. … 0 10017 |