Browse Forums General Discussion 1 Mar 29, 2010 11:28 am I am about to sign on the dotted line with my builder, and am now freaking out as I've been told by a few people that the builder I am using is quite expensive. In addition, I've been looking at some of the tender prices of the builds around our block and they do seem to be substantially less than ours. We are paying approx $250k for a 4 bedroom, 210sqm-ish house, single story, brick veneer. Basic finishes but including driveway, tiling on patio x 2, a/c, alarm and floor coverings. We also need a dentention tank. The site is OK - has a slight slope (about 2m) so we are having a large step down through the house. We did a bit of shopping around, and other tenders for our block came back a little more than our builder. The comparative tender prices that I am looking at are from the local council DA database - I suppose its difficult to know what costs have been included on here, though, for example they may not include site costs etc. Sorry if this is a little muddled!! TIA! Re: Cost of House 2Mar 29, 2010 12:28 pm The cost of our house was $241k (base price of $193k). If you search for my thread...actually I'll put it in my signature there is a break down of all the stuff we added in.
It doesn't include: any concreting, landscaping, fencing, decking, lightfittings to replace the chinaman's hat standard ones, window furnishings, miscellaneous things such as aerial, letterbox, clothesline (all the little things you don't think to budget for) which if we get it all done could be up to another $30k (I really have no idea, that's a very uneducated guesstimate) Re: Cost of House 3Mar 30, 2010 5:44 pm People tend to compare to the advertised price of a project builder, that don't take into account the extra they will add onto your contract, you have to do your homework, we got 5 estimate quotes and 3 full quotes for our build and they varied by $100,000 with similar specs. So def shop around. Cheer Lou http://take2-customdesigndownslope.blogspot.com 07-10-09 omg they have cut the block 14-05-10 we finally have the keys Re: Cost of House 4Mar 30, 2010 6:31 pm Costs will vary a lot between states - and if you're in a regional area, you'll find they're different to capital cities too. Your slope and the step down will add to the cost compared to a flat site and single level house as well. It's hard to compare to what other people paid...they may have more or less expensive inclusions, extra features (or not) or have used cheaper or more expensive materials. For instance, we paid $276,000 for our 322 square metre single storey house. That was a 2007 price, did not include any paving or floor coverings, but did include a few fairly pricey additions, like two big sets of timber bifolds, 2.7m ceilings, evaporative cooling, a fancy facade, upgraded roof tiles (what were we thinking? No roof tile is worth $5000 extra! ), raked ceiling in the lounge, a LOT of extra electricals, large solar HWS and some seriously expensive paint upgrades. Somebody else building the same house could have a price that's $50,000 cheaper - or $100,000 dearer, due to a whole lot of different inclusions, different site costs and so on.... get the picture? I remember getting quotes for an extension years ago and they varied from $30,000 to $80,000. That's a BIG difference for the same work. Like Lou said, shop around. Price isn't the whole story. there is a few calculators you can use if you just google it 7 7532 7 11931 We were lucky in that our old house was so small (86 square metres) compared to the new house, they were able to take enough readings around the old backyard house before… 8 37085 |