Different types/levels/tiers of building companies

Hi guys, first time building, and looking for some clarification between the 'types' of builders there are. Finding it really confusing with terminology from companies I've spoken too, and can't really find an answer on google. I feel like everybody is trying to sell me their service without giving me real information.

Could anybody please clarify the following:

(I'm from South Australian so using SA building companies because that's all I know)

1. Project/Volume builder: the most common type of builder, display homes everywhere. Website with many different floorplans. The most affordable, with the poorest quality of construction. Markets themselves as 'customizable', but really you can only select one of their template floorplans with very superficial customization. Unable to design a truly unique floor plan for you? Only really able to build on flat square/rectangle blocks. What most people build with?
Been quoted from $900-1500 per sqm. So companies like:
- Weeks (https://weeks.com.au/)
- Rivergum (https://rivergumhomes.com.au/)
- Metricon (https://www.metricon.com.au/) - I think they market themselves as a more premium volume builder? But even their signature line is all templates?

2. Custom builder: a builder that builds 'custom' to your idea/floor plan. Has no templates? Able to customise your floorplan into a build. Has an inhouse designer/architect. Able to build on a variety of blocks.
Usually start around $2000 per sqm. So companies like:
- Scott Salisbury (https://www.scottsalisburyhomes.com.au/)
- Latitude 37 (https://www.l37.com.au/)
- Samuel James (https://www.samueljames.com.au/)

(these two I figured, but the rest is confusing):

3. Spec Builder: what exactly are they, how do they market themselves, and how do they differ from project and custom builders?

4. Premium Builder: are these basically custom builders?

5. 'Bespoke/Boutique' Builder: found some that do not do -any- design work at all, but only work off architectural plans. Are these the highest 'tier' of builder with the best quality, or is it all just marketing? How do they compare to 'custom' builders - can custom builders do similar quality?
Been quoted at least $4000 per sqm. For example:
- Ikon Projects (http://www.ikonprojects.com.au/)

5a. If 'bespoke/boutique' builders are better, what's the deal with most of the HIA/MBA awards going to custom builders?

6. Architects - what is the benefit of going to an independent architect (and tendering to a 'bespoke/boutique' builder) vs. going to a 'custom builder' that has an inhouse architect (not designer). I have been told that 'custom builders' recycle their floorplans and aren't truly custom, and their architects design to that builders 'style' - and that they're not truly 'custom', and just a pimped out volume builder with better decorations. Is that true?

7. It seems people talk about custom builders being better than volume builders, but within the custom builder category, is there a big difference between different custom builders (especially ones that have awards)?

8. Home lottery homes - typically these homes are lovely, are these usually built by custom builders or achitecturally designed?

I've been told display homes are generally built with better trades to the best quality, and not really representative of a builders typical work. Well today I went to a display home of an award winning custom builder (starts at $2500 per sqm) and I was shocked to see this kind of quality:

https://imgur.com/a/CM6DCtg

Is this the best I should expect/representative of $2500+ per sqm work, or am I just too anal/OCD and have unrealistic expectations of perfection?

Thanks for all your help!

Hello,
To those thinking about building their first home, their forever home, or investment property…. Think twice before picking Rivergum as your builder. Rivergum will seem like the ideal choice at the beginning, but things start to get out of hand once you sign the documents and put a deposit down. I warn you as I thought things could be avoided if you are diligent and do your research. Currently Rivergum does not care about the way they treat their customers, and it shows. I have reached out to a whole community of new homeowners and in the matter of minutes I got so many messages about peoples horror stories involving Rivergum. Please do yourself a favor and pick a different builder…
Reasons to NOT build with Rivergum:
1. What you get told by the sales associate is different than what gets told to you after signing documents.
a. We were told that we should have always had a lawyer present with us recording all of our conversations. Because clearly trusting the information a representative of theirs tells you is not enough. You are required to have every bit of information written out by them for Rivergum to go through with what they promised. Unfortunately, the sales associate left Rivergum in the middle of our process and we were left to fend for ourselves. So if you want to build with them make sure you hire a lawyer for all your appointments with Rivergum pre-signing documents.
b. You may also want to hire an inspector to go through your house as many of the other homeowners I spoke with had STRUCTURAL errors in their build. And that did not surprise me because Rivergum is WAY understaffed and they are building too many houses at once to put any care into your home.
2. The locations as to where you put your lights or you power points or anything really in your house is… pointless. Why? Because when it comes time to build your house they will decide where all of these things go. They will move them wherever they want without that telling you, but god forbid you decide the day after selections you want to add in a power point or downlight. You will incur a $1,000 fee and the fee for the added things. But hold on it gets better. They make you feel like you are indebted to them because they will so graciously tell you “as a gesture of good will” we will remove the fee. It’s sickening how they make you feel like they are so gracious in not charging $1,000 that would literally require no extra work to them….
3. They also never answer their emails. So, if you have a question or if you need a response as you are trying to coordinate tradies after handover. I hope you have a month and 30 emails ready to send so that you can get a response. This will become your second job. Making sure that they are aware of your emails and that you are in the loop of what is going on with your home.
4. If you thought oh maybe you can be more diligent in your walk throughs… well, you thought wrong. We had to pay $800 for a conduit system for our solar since Rivergum would not allow other tradies on site while the frame was bare so that our solar providers could run their cables through. So instead, we paid $800 for pipes to go through the house for our solar people to run wires through after house is built. Through all our walk throughs we asked about the conduits and we were told if it is in the plans, it will get done. We emailed the main office confirming that it was done as our site supervisor didn’t give us much confidence and they too said it would get done. We asked every walk through and sent emails to confirm. They never did it. Instead, we had the hassle of having tradies come to the house during work hours 2 days to do what we paid to get done in first place. So, they are allowed to break their contract with you but when you want to make a minor change you’ll incur a $1,000 fine, or not but you sure as hell will hear about how giving they were to you.
5. Are you thinking maybe you were not speaking to the right people? Welllll…. When you email the founder, managing director, national general manager and things still get messed up then you know they really do not care how they treat their customers.
6. What if you hold your last payment and make sure they do everything right before they get their money? I thought so too… They will actually start charging you interest every day past the due date because they just can.
7. Do you have a maintenance sheet of things you found wrong in your house? Well expect to wait 3 years for that to get done. Or make it your second job to send their maintenance team an email every day to get it done. Why? Because Rivergum did sooo many botched jobs that their maintenance team is probably overloaded with work and your house is at the bottom of a VERY long list of wrongly built homes.
Maybe you know exactly what you want from the beginning, down to EVERY single detail or you don’t mind that things get changed or you don’t care if your house doesn’t come out the way you envisioned. Then yeah Rivergum is the builder for you. If you at all care about customer service or your home then save your money and go somewhere else. The headache you get from Rivergum’s incompetence is not worth it. Rivergum could avoid 90% of their issues if they had more employees to even out the workload. Their employee turnover rate is shocking and their communication with their tradies is non-existent. Whatever you think you could do to avoid these issues is never going to work because Rivergum has a systematic issue within the company that not you or me will be able to solve. So, you are doomed from the very beginning. I mean begin by asking how many homes 1 site supervisor, 1 customer service advisor has at once for you to see why they are so many issues and add in bad communication and there is your recipe for disaster. GO ELSEWHERE!!!!!

I just had a stroke reading this!

Sounds like a typical horror story from a volume builder. Reading all of them almost scared us away from building our first home, and made us realise that picking a right builder is probably the most important decision we'll have to make during the whole process.

Who did you end up picking. We share your concerns.

Deleted Post

i think they meant it's a poorly formatted wall of text. hard to read > stroke.

Would you care to share who you ended up going with?

Hi guys,

We ended up going with an independent architect.
Architect works closely with a number of builders and whilst we will tender with all of them, we have one in mind that we would like to work with.

Thanks @Intripidlol

Do you have an idea of the price / m2 estimate this is going to cost you? (and what included / excluded)

architect is costing ~60k
still in design stage
budgeting 1m for construction
house ~300 - 330 sqm
est. $3333 - 3030 per sqm - this was completely within reasonable for all the inclusions we wanted pre-pandemic. I'm unsure given recent exorbitant inflation if we are able to construct what we wanted pre-pandemic.

this includes architect and complete construction (foundation to landscaping and handover).
- very close to passivehaus standard
- triple glazed throughout
- smart home
- lift
- solar panels etc.
- no pool

this excludes surveying fees, council fees, arborist fees etc.

hope this helps

Thanks @Intripidlol, appreciate the details

intripidlol Interesting. We're attempting a similar thing (similar size, close to passivhaus standard, ~340sqm). We found that 1m was not enough for this - at least 20% to 30% more required. We're in Sydney though, where I imagine everything is more expensive.

Good luck! I'd be curious to see how your build goes

Thanks for your insight, that leaves me curious to ask a couple of questions?
Completely understandable that building in Sydney is more expensive, used to live there so I get it
Is that 20 to 30% more post pandemic? Because our budget was for pre pandemic prices... with the increase I'm not even sure if our budget can facilitate our build anymore.

What kind of inclusions/materials are you guys going for? We found that there are typically luxury materials in this kind of budget that would eat up budgets such as full marble etc. Which we actually don't like.. most of the materials we are going for in the build are more robust, and not 'luxury'

Also no appliances are included in our build, supplying them ourselves out of building contract

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Post pandemic. We're close to starting our build, but haven't executed yet. The pricing was done about a month ago.

Inclusions aren't crazy - nothing really extravagant. Standard appliances, stone countertops, standard materials (hebel veneer). The big unusual items are triple glazing, an HRV system, and guarantees of air tightness. Its a double storey building.

I'd guess that post pandemic you'll need to increase that budget - if we had built this 2-3 years ago we'd be paying probably 30% less.

whoops!

if you're still working on pricing from 2 years ago, you're in for a bit of a shock.

Some inputs from my experience:

1) 90%+ of architects are useless overpriced buggers, you better go with a good building designer and learn about good passive solar designs yourself, so you can recommend and choose best orientation and positions for your rooms;

2) if your triple glazed windows come from Europe, expect 6 months lead times and $2k per sqm (for what it was less than $1.5k in 2019);

3) do not just invest into insulation materials (which are still relatively cheap), invest into quality insulation installation, infrared camera and blowout testing. Most of the insulation issues arise from the bad installations, not from the quality of material (which will still be deteriorating over time);

4) consider thermal mass to the important areas, so go either partially RBV/full brick or invest into phase change materials. I personally decided to go with frameless ICF-based system for my build, but not so many builders around who can build with it.

5) consider low power small duct aircon system (e.g. Airsmart), it is much more energy effective and if you build your house right, you won't be using it often;

6) performance of solar panels will deteriorate significantly once they got covered with dust and debris (which may happen within few months depending on your area). Consider investing into lithium batteries as your back up option.

7) strongly consider slab insulation. In fact, if you follow Swedish Insulated slab paradigm, you can save a lot of money on earthworks and concrete as well as potential piling but you would have to spend them on a quality XPS insulation under your slab. This is a very shallow floating slab (100-200 mm footings only), so it doesn't require any piles or deep footings even on H2 soils. But good luck in finding decent structural engineers who are familiar with the concept and will approve. Also, to some recent local vendors charge for XPS insulation as wounded bulls, although it is really not supposed to cost more than $15 for 100 mm thick sheets;

8 ) consider wireless systems for your smart home. They are quite reliable those days, X times cheaper and there was a cool vendor on this forum, they make their own custom switches. Also, keep in mind that you would rarely want all your switches and outlets to be smart, usually only in living areas, master bedroom and master ensuite will be more than enough.

Yeah when I first started approaching this build I had budgeted 1m for construction and it was completely within reason, however with pandemic prices inflating once we were in the middle of design it's pain a huge pain in the behind

We haven't had our final quote yet

Don't think you can approach certified passivehaus without an architect, at least in Adelaide anyway. Also think it's a bit disingenuous to call 90% of architects useless, most of the very high end builders I spoke to worked regularly with certain architects.

Blower testing and thermal imaging is pretty much a standard part of the process with passivehaus.

Thermal mass and solar orientation is not as significant (although still warranted esp. Solar for light orientation) in a building built to passivehaus