Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Mar 29, 2009 1:25 pm hi everyone! i have just found this forum today and am hoping you can help me with your wealth of knowledge!!! my husband and i are beginning to toy with the idea of building our first home. we are currently renting and saving for the deposit. however...i have absolutely NO experience or any idea really of what it entails so here are my q's and im hoping you guys can give me some idea! 1. how much does it actally cost...i know its different in each situation but i am just wondering roughly how much do all the extras cost...coz there is such a huge gap between the 'advertised' price of building and buying an established home...so does all the flooring/painting/alterations/whatever really add up to that much??? 2. how do you finance it...ie do you have to pay full mortgage repayments while you are still building and renting - this is what scares me most!!! also (see i have no clue!), we have a car loan atm...can you just get one loan to cover everything so its only one payment a fortnight? 3. can anyone recommend a good perth builder...i know im getting ahead of myself here but i just like looking haha. we would be after a pretty basic smallish home, fairly cheap hmm i know i have more but i just cant think at the moment! ill ask more as they come to me! thanks in advance! Re: building our first home...QUESTIONS!!! 2Mar 29, 2009 1:42 pm [quote="daisy86"] 1. how much does it actally cost...i know its different in each situation but i am just wondering roughly how much do all the extras cost...coz there is such a huge gap between the 'advertised' price of building and buying an established home...so does all the flooring/painting/alterations/whatever really add up to that much??? Yes massively!! DH and I used to say whatever the builder advertises as the price add at least another 50% on top. Now we are building a custom home we are saying add even more then that. Everything will add up to a scary amount Seriously the main things you have to allow for are site costs - which can run into huge money depending on your block of land; upgrades to standard items - if you change bricks / tiles / laminex etc the builder will charge you for the change; flooring - is not always included by the builder. Some builders advertise packages which can be helpful when starting out and not being able to afford to purchase separately. 2. how do you finance it...ie do you have to pay full mortgage repayments while you are still building and renting - this is what scares me most!!! also (see i have no clue!), we have a car loan atm...can you just get one loan to cover everything so its only one payment a fortnight? Whilst you are building you normally only pay interest on the amount of debt drawn down. IE your first drawdown may be to buy the land - so the following month your interest will be calculated on that amount; the next month you may have a slab poured so the builder will get paid for that - so the interest is then calculated on the slab cost plus the land; so on and on until the house it completed. Towards the end of the build you will pretty much be paying the full amount each month plus yes you need to cover your rent as well. Your car loan would not be able to be rolled over into the construction loan unless you had enough equity in the land / build to cover that debt as well 3. can anyone recommend a good perth builder...i know im getting ahead of myself here but i just like looking haha. we would be after a pretty basic smallish home, fairly cheap Can't help you on that one as I am in NSW but good luck with your decisions and searches. Some things are worth waiting for. Re: building our first home...QUESTIONS!!! 3Mar 29, 2009 1:46 pm thanks for your help! also...we were looking at house and land packages..so when you say an extra 50% is that just for the house or house+land?? sorry these are the most basic qs i know!! Re: building our first home...QUESTIONS!!! 4Mar 29, 2009 1:51 pm I am in Vic and there are a few builders here who offer no progress payments whilst you build, National Builders Group is one of them. That might be an option if you are concerned about covering the interest during the build. Our house is 34.5sq and we added $50k in extras which included some structural changed and quite a few upgardes. Our site costs were an extra $10k aswell. You could do it for a lot less though (this is our 5th home, not our first). A house and land package is a good option as that would give you most of the things you need and it will make it easier to budget. A lot of first timers take this option. I would suggest allowing an extra $30k for all the extras after you build like landscaping, fencing, driveway, floor coverings (if your builder doesn't include that), light fittings, window coverings etc. Although a lot of these things can be done gradually as and when you can afford it. Blog: http://bluemistkids.blogspot.com "Never be afraid to try something new. Remember, amateurs built the ark, and professionals built the Titanic." Re: building our first home...QUESTIONS!!! 5Mar 29, 2009 2:11 pm hi there daisy, first timer here aswell! i am building a small house compared to a lot of other forumites - on 20 squares (186 m2) but there is only myself and 2 year old so that will be plenty! to give you an idea, the base prices of my house is $132,300.00. My final build price, including flooring, driveway, air conditioners, fencing, and a pergola will be approx $191,000.00. This includes approx $12,500.00 for site costs as most builders will only cover an S class slab and any extra slab, piering, rock removal or retaining wall requirements that are block specific are not covered in the base price. good luck and hope you make the right decision for you! 2014 - Prepping to build the Soho 4 with Plantation homes, industrial style 2009 - Built the Brampton with Coral Homes viewtopic.php?f=31&t=15399&start=280 Re: building our first home...QUESTIONS!!! 7Mar 29, 2009 6:35 pm Hi Daisy, we are in Perth too, and building through Ultimate homes...The house we are building is the 'plus series' range. As far as the basic stuff is concerned it all depends on what you like. We weren't able to upgrade on anything...we had to chose between 8 tile/laminate boards which we could not mix and match between each one. We had 4 roof tile choices, as well as most colourbond colours, I think 6 brick colours/styles, and various other options...all from the basic range. But although it wasnt exactly what we wanted, it does look nice. We have to do our own tiling in the laundry/toilet after handover, and there were a couple of other things we opted to do then as well. All up with our extras that we were able to have (shower screens/extra doors/p/points etc) we only spent 4k more. Add to that our site works and we added an extra 9k from the base cost, so not bad. We still have a lot to do though after we get the keys and are trying to save as much as we can until then. Basic smallish homes...try homebuyers, goodlife, impressions maybe even celebration homes to get you started. Cant say how good they are though. Homebuyers have newly built homes for sale, ready to move in....not sure on price though... the niche are doing house and land packages with a double the FHOG (conditions apply). We are very pleased with our builder and would recommend them to anyone. Re: building our first home...QUESTIONS!!! 8Mar 30, 2009 9:05 am Hi Daisy, welcome to the boards. 1. After my partner and I decided on the home we both liked we added around $20k+ to the base price just by including features from the display home that we liked, site costs (flat, sandy, level block) were $5k+ and we capped it all off with an extra $12k spent at pre-start. That doesn't include the majority of the lighting, painting, air con, window treatments or floor coverings! We have budgeted around $50,000 for the finishing touches, so as you can see, the advertised price and the eventual amount you spend on your home are very, very different! 2. Can't add anything to Kyton's comments - they're spot-on. 3. Hit the display villages, have a few around where we are (Harrisdale WA - SOR) most display homes also have brochures available; other homes by the same builder at varying price levels. Just keep looking and take pics, cos after a while you will start to forget which home had which features! Re: building our first home...QUESTIONS!!! 9Mar 30, 2009 9:35 am Hi Daisy, We're almost finished building our first home here in WA. Since were in the country (rural) our site costs brought the building price up by quite a bit (earthworks, septic tanks, leach drains, we had the builder do a pad for the water tank which we paid for separately and got installed). I think you could fairly say it brings the listed price up by $60 = $80k! (our total build is in the $400k vicinity, I think original list price was around $300k). But don't quote me on the numbers (Hubby is better at that) Other standard sort of additions was a few hundred or thousand for minor changes (like certain types of doors, more verandahs / paving). Apart from that I think we paid about $10k extra for the builder to tile throughout (apart from the bedrooms) and we budgeted about $5k to carpet the 4 bedrooms afterwards. We also paid extra ($10k? can't remember at the moment) for the builder to paint one colour throughout so that it's pretty much ready to move in to. So apart from a few changes and a few extras that weren't included, our place is pretty much stock standard, which we were happy with. Now we haven't budgeted (and probably won't have any money left) for landscaping or blinds, nice big rugs for the tiles etc. I think you just have to read carefully to see what's included in the build, so that you can compare fairly between builders. This is probably easier once you approach a few for a detailed quote and they give you an addenda. I found it hard not knowing all the specs and everything in detail up front to compare just while researching different builders, I guess you just have to go off their marketing! Re: building our first home...QUESTIONS!!! 10Mar 30, 2009 9:56 am Hi Daisy If I were you I would first go to the bank and ask them how much you can borrow, once you know that , go to some display houses and speak to the builders , have a look at the land and house packages and choose one that does not require you to make progress payments. It can be as simple as that. When looking at houses go for the one that includes things like carpets and lighting, fixed site costs, lot of builders offer these packages, try to get as much as you can from the builder. It sounds simple enough if you take one step at a time , and dont get pressurised by the builder into signing anything unless you have all the info and cost, be ready to walk out and take your time to think about the offer. In term of cost I would add atleast $20K on top of what the buider price is, but that also depends how much luxury you want in your house. Re: building our first home...QUESTIONS!!! 11Mar 30, 2009 10:28 am ^thanks thats great advice! and thanks everyone you have all been very helpful! in terms of luxury...this will be our first house to get us in to the market so to speak. i would be happy with basic everything pretty much! as long as it has aircon, blinds and some sort of floor that isnt concrete!! we would be happy to paint and landscape ourselves...and we just renovated the bathroom here so could even tile if we had to. hmm so much to think about! Re: building our first home...QUESTIONS!!! 12Mar 30, 2009 5:42 pm With a major builder we started off at $158,000 and walked away when the price got to $215,000. Not saying all majors are like this but a lot do suck you in with a low base. The builder we are building with, well we started at $183,000 and we ended up at $210,000 (oh and the house is 100 times better than what we were going with). This includes most things and a lot of upgrades, basically what we have left over to do is fencing, landscaping, driveway, window furnishings. We have the luxury of shopping around and getting quotes from various sources for things like benchtops, tapware, baths, spa etc - yes, some builders if you are lucky will let you do these things externally - therefore, you don't cop the big markups but there are other issues such a organising yourself, insurance issues and things like this. We estimate to have saved around $7.5k by doing this. We ended up looking at builders who include everything like carpet/tiles in their base price, when looking at 'as displayed' prices, you can get a great idea as to how much you will have to add on. Things like landscaping/window furnishings, you can always start off cheap & DIY - then when you have $'s slowly upgrade these things Re: building our first home...QUESTIONS!!! 13Mar 30, 2009 6:45 pm does anyone know of perth builders that include things like flooring in the base price?? i was looking at goodlife homes today and it said (or gave the impression) on their website that they did but then i couldnt see it on the list of specifications?? hmm i guess i really just need to go and chat to the builders, but at the moment i am really just trying to work out if this could be a reality for us soon or not so dont wanna get too excited and go and see people only to be let down Re: building our first home...QUESTIONS!!! 14Mar 30, 2009 9:06 pm Hi Daisy, We're currently building in Brookdale, a suburb that's joined to the bottom of Armadale, with *. Through the process I've gained some knowledge that might help... Step one is to work out how much you can borrow. Then plan to spend much less than that for two reasons (in my opinion): 1) Unexpected cost increases will occur, no matter how diligently you plan these things. 2) Financial conditions will likely change in the medium term and it's good to have some breathing space. Interest rates will eventually trend upwards again and there's some risk of a drop in house prices, or not, depending on whose commentary you're listening to. The WA government funds a low-cost finance company called Keystart. The main advantages of this program is that you don't pay Lender's Mortgage Insurance and you only need to pay $50 per week during construction (but your loan amount will probably be a little higher at the end of the construction process). The disadvantages is that the house you build is required to include floor coverings, driveway and window coverings (which is what you've indicated you want to do anyway). I've also heard they're bureaucratic and slow to get things done. Perhaps you should talk with a finance broker. We went with mortgage choice, who broker to Keystart amongst others (we ended up with rams because it suited our situation). Many builders catering to first home owners also have in-house brokers who can arrange finance for you, if you wish. Step two is to have a look at what's out there. Grab a copy of the Saturday newspaper. At the back of the New Homes section is a fairly exhaustive list of display homes around the metro area. I think there's one in the Sunday Times as well. Display homes tend to be found in groups or even deliberate display villages so it doesn't take much effort to see a lot of displays (possibly an overwhelming number of displays) in an afternoon. We visited displays in Wellard, Forrestdale, Ellenbrook and even Butler and Baldivis! There's plenty of other people in your situation wandering about these homes so you'll probably feel pretty comfortable. The salespeople range from useless to very knowledgeable and helpful and are usually just happy to offer advice. Most builders are happy to include the floor coverings and they can usually give you an idea of what that will cost on the spot. I know that Homestart include the floor coverings in the base price and some others as well but most don't. As far as some good builders go... We were fairly impressed with *, Ultimate Homes, Scott Park, Blueprint Homes, New Generation Homes. This is not an exhaustive list. Hope this helps! Hi Suku18 In NSW the statutory required insurances are: 1. HBCF ( Home Building Compensation Fund) - This is if the builder dies or goes broke. But this only covers 20%… 1 2666 You should check your detail drawings, it may show downpipe within brick pier. 14 14077 A quick update, we didn't have site start before Easter. Summit can't seem to give me a day when they are scheduled to begin, so I'm left with a vague "within 10-20… 4 26742 |