Browse Forums Building A New House Re: Who would have brought an established home in hindsight. 21Feb 25, 2009 1:00 pm Building hasn't started yet. However, we would have preferred to buy established. However, the house needed to meet our criteria - (1) location, (2) size/layout of house, (3) size of land. Looked hard for 12 months and couldn't find anything remotely close. So, when an old place, that met (1) and (3), became available, we decided to go down the building path.
I keep reminding myself of the above when building problems pop up, otherwise I would have gone insane already. Chris Re: Who would have brought an established home in hindsight. 22Feb 25, 2009 1:13 pm havingfun Re the stamp duty equation - yes, its a big whack on an established home - BUT, we buildees have to pay interest only on our loans during building - we're basically just giving that money to the bank with nothing to show for it!! very similar to stamp duty I would think!! (exept it goes to the bank and not the govt...) Yep us buildees have to pay interest only on the loan during construction. In my case though, the total interest payable during construction + the initial stamp duty we paid on the land, still works out to be $12000 less than if we bought an established home of the same value. And of course, we don't need the money up-front like stamp duty requires, we pay as we go Re: Who would have brought an established home in hindsight. 23Feb 25, 2009 1:27 pm I would say that the initial costs work out similar with both options, when you take landscaping curtains and floor covering into consideration.
The bit that gets me going about building new, is the treatment from the building contractor, thats what will make me buy established next time. Builders, if your reading this, many of your customers will build more than once.. so how about treating your customers right. Re: Who would have brought an established home in hindsight. 24Feb 25, 2009 4:52 pm Helyn HelsnGreg - that is a lot wrong with a house then only 4 years old - I'm sure that is not the norm, previous owners must of done things really cheap and nasty and not looked after it for things to be that bad that soon I put it down to ** workmanship from the builder (we would never build with RH). And the previous owners let a lot of things go instead of fixing them when the problem first started. Me and hubby always look after things and like to keep them nice. We have already done a lot of the fix-ups and completely repainted and now the place looks great. But I always feel like I am living in someone else's mistakes and want to get out of it and start again with something new Blog: http://bluemistkids.blogspot.com "Never be afraid to try something new. Remember, amateurs built the ark, and professionals built the Titanic." Re: Who would have brought an established home in hindsight. 25Feb 25, 2009 5:18 pm King willy Thanks for your replys. Seems a mixed bag. Some say yes some say no. I think it comes down to personal choice. The problem is the lack of any transparency or accreditation standards in the industry (apart from the variably followed building codes). There are master craftsman and there are weekend warriors. It can be sometimes difficult to sort out the wheat from the chaff. Some of the experiences come down to things partly out of your control or predictability - weather delays, a disorganised construction manager, unreliable suppliers, an inattentive site manager or obstreperous subbies. To mitigate some of this you need to be: a) Do some preliminary research of your builder - get as many references as possible. Not just 'my mate thought he was pretty good'. The time to ask the hard questions now. b) Disciplined about controlling costs - tempted to 'upgrade' c) Have your contract examined by a lawyer d) Be willing to devote a lot of time to the project - a co-site manager e) Be fairly clear in your mind what you will will and won't tolerate. f) Being firm but always keep smiling Whilst budgetary control is important, don't try to nail everything down to the lowest bidder or margin. It won't pay off. Remember you do get what you pay for. If you want to pay peanuts then expect to get monkeys. Thanks mate. Yeah good points! Leaning towards Option 3 to get a bit extra space in the cabinets but not going too crazy high (and expensive). Would require a mini… 13 39450 Bought in Nov 21 at the height of the market (classic). Good area, atrocious floor plan. BUT has land out to the left-hand side that we can extend out on (see second… 0 8729 |