Melbourne - South East - Rough Cost ideas of Custom Build

Hi Guys,

New to the forum and new to building... my wife and I have secured our dream block in the South East of Melbourne...

Great views... sloping block (sloping up from the front) and the daunting fact we need to find a custom builder.

We're lost because we have a great draftsman, but no builder.

I want to engage the Draftsman to design our home... but I'm worried he'll design it A) and no builder will be able to build it or want to go near it or B) He'll design it and if we find a builder, they'll charge a fortune over budget.

We were considering just finding a one stop shop... such as Latitude 37

They offer a complete service... and they seem to be around $12-$15k per square we believe.

However, I've been told this can be a bit expensive and I could save by engaging a builder and doing some of the fit out myself and not being restricted by their options.

Anyway... we're lost and without direction

We are absolutely limited by budget. A decent budget... but still a budget.

Any one know of any good builders in the South East (Think Narre Warren) - that are happy for split level, custom builds and anyone that is affordable



I'm probably asking too much but we really feel lost

Thanks for your feedback guys

Congrats on the land. I don't know anyone in that area but how much spare time do you have that you can allocate to the build?

We are doing owner builder and for $12k a square have pretty much got everything we want off the top shelf. A builder would have charged us $15k as it's a custom build. Maybe ask yourself if your time and stress caused by the build justifies the $3k a square you would be saving? In my case it was a yes as I work from home and could manage my work around the build.

We went down the custom home build just over 5 years ago and a few things I would have done differently if I had my time again.

First thing we did was hire our own draftie to design a home to our brief. Positive was we kept tweaking until happy and owned the plan so we could tender out the build and choose our builder based on cost and confidence. Down side is the builder is not across the design as good as when they are part of the process. This resulted in a few extras that were not spelled out on plans when quoting and also becomes a chain of blame between builder, draftie and engineer when something goes wrong.

Also the level of detail some builders provide in their quotes is very vague unless you spell out every inclusion, so this can often lead to extra $$$.

The ability to do your own stuff is not favoured by custom builders as they are providing the warranty on the new home... you either engage them to do all of it or you go down the owner build road. You can obviously negotiate with some builders to build to lock-up or leave out a few finished items such as flooring etc but this won't save you that much $$$.

From what I have seen L37 build good homes and I would choose to work with them from the start. If you give them a ballpark budget then they should design to that on the basis they know what the cost to build will be. Also for good level of finishes ie. timber floors, stone bench tops in kitchen and bathrooms including 2pak cabinets, 2.7m ceilings, square set, quality doors and hardware 15K per square is about what you would expect to pay, so base the size of your home on this.

Hope this helps somewhat and good luck.

Thanks for your input! I actually really appreciate it

This is what we're worried about as its our first build ever and our dream home

We're on a strict budget and as my wife says, we have a champagne taste on a beer budget!

In other words, I'm thinking we could save money by fitting it out ourselves... But your suggesting perhaps just letting a good builder do the whole thing start to finish!

Last thing I want to do is get in a heated and drawn out arguement with a builder so we're tempted to go with a bigger group opposed to a smaller one

Again, costs though and we like the L37 but not sure if their overpriced

Hi Haji

Absolutly yes... Saving $3k a square could be $150k for us and I'd love to see that money go to landscaping

When you say owner builder, are your organising the ENTIRE build or just some parts??

I'm intrigued and want to learn this side of things, like you I work from time and absolutly are prepared to be hands on as I have the time

Hi Haji

Absolutly yes... Saving $3k a square could be $150k for us and I'd love to see that money go to landscaping

When you say owner builder, are your organising the ENTIRE build or just some parts??

I'm intrigued and want to learn this side of things, like you I work from time and absolutly are prepared to be hands on as I have the time

Other than drawing the plans, yes, the entire build. I have a few friends who are tradies of various types so that helped a lot as well. Check out my build if you need more info. We're 2-3 weeks away from moving in.

$150k is an excellent saving, most people's full time wages x 2. If you're willing to do the research, I would say go ahead and you will enjoy the process. It was and is rewarding for me although stressful at times which is usual. Note that not everything will go to plan and there will be times where you wish you had some knowledge about an issue that will arise.

Really? That's a 50 square house, which is 465 sqm! That's over double the size of the average new build in Australia, which is already the largest in the world. You certainly do have champagne tastes. The house will obviously cost more to build. But it would also cost more to heat & cool, adding to your bills. Also more to maintain, & take longer to clean.

How many in your family, better be a small army! I don't believe anyone needs such a huge house. Sounds like keeping up with the Joneses to me. Even if you choose a well orientated energy efficient design (passive solar), & choose energy saving devices (like reverse cycle AC for heating, & solar PV), the embodied energy - the energy used to produce all the materials for your build - will be huge. Which has a huge negative impact on the environment.

http://www.yourhome.gov.au/materials/embodied-energy

"energy4anarchy" sounds about right. I suggest you greatly reduce the size of your house, which will be good for your budget, & better for the environment.

As for the block, what is the degree of the slope? This will greatly effect the cost, & also the design. Whether a split level slab is chosen, or whether you build with post & beams.

There are some builders that specialize with designs for sloping blocks.

There is a third option more suited to you I believe, get a project manager who will organize quotes trades work etc, your basically owner builder with a experienced builder directing you, also he will get better prices and know the better trades, you can also help out by doing some jobs like site clean, final clean, labour jobs, much better way if not in building industry and will save almost as much.

There is a third option more suited to you I believe, get a project manager who will organize quotes trades work etc, your basically owner builder with a experienced builder directing you, also he will get better prices and know the better trades, you can also help out by doing some jobs like site clean, final clean, labour jobs, much better way if not in building industry and will save almost as much.

Well on difficult slopping blocks you want to make sure you have a good handle on the optimized alternate engineering solutions and their associated build costs otherwise the costs could easily blow out +25%
Having A good designer/architect and Cr@? contractors means Bugger@!!l when you are confronted with with repair problems a few years later down the track costing +500%
Do allocate those scarce funds frugally and avoid paying large commissions..if you get my gist

Try Busby Homes

I am going to owner build my house as well and it is a steep block in Melbourne as well.
I think the first think you need to check with yourself your actual budget. Frankly speaking, you won't get even a rough idea of cost involved for your build since all sloping blocks are quite unique and there are many different ways to tackle it. You can have the same floor plan built with different materials and methods which can be doubled in cost. ie: split-level on slab, on stump or on pole can have big cost difference for a slope block.
Do expect a cost of at least $12k per square for a house with standard inclusion. You can easily drives up your cost to $15k+ per square.

I had some quotes before and all mainly around the $15k per square mark.. but that does NOT include site cost. With site cost, mine is well over $22k per square.

So if you are looking to owner build, you better do some homework on what you can do first. You'll need time to do research and to find out how much you can save. Just going to a draftsman without knowing much about you block is not going to end up in a nice way.

Good luck!

Thank you to all the replies here

Appreciate it

All the more reason radiuz why the owner or draftie should provide a comprehensive specification to all the people quoting so you can compare apples to apples on the final price.

Stewie

I can give you some cost ideas for security installations.

The problem you have is this
Sloping blocks + custom build= high cost per m2

Forget smaller builders as they have bugger all buying power and when things go pear shaped have no depth to fix issues and have no reputation to uphold.

Latitude 37 have been around for 10yrs now and have the custom experience even bigger builders can only dream off.

Project manager I had accurately gave options and costs for all site work, and often would actually do the jobs, I said I would prefer what he thought was best practices , but then we had to also consider price in whichgood trades gave much better pricing to project manager. Despite this I still learned so I knew what was going on and that helped keep stress levels down.

I don't agree with this statement at all.
They might not have the buying power but smaller builders will be very hands on because their reputation is everything. You only have to read all the complaints on this forum regarding the bigger builders and the dogs breakfast that some of their jobs are.

Stewie

Got to back up stewie as I found smaller hands on builder comes out cheaper as your build becomes more custom, could give many examples of types of finishings that volume boys charge like a wounded bull for, ,for basics volume boys cheaper but has you want nice things then they go through the roof , ,and more importantly is they are not set up for high quality , top trades best structural practice.,