Browse Forums Building A New House Re: Reducing the cost 6Jan 06, 2008 7:59 pm Thanks everyone!
It's not that we can't afford the base price, thats not a problem, we just didnt want to have to spend that much!! It's just that the house includes a few things that we could do without, and i wasn't sure whether there was any negotiating on reducing costs from what they class as a base price. Re: Reducing the cost 7Jan 07, 2008 3:30 am Cooper Thanks everyone! It's not that we can't afford the base price, thats not a problem, we just didnt want to have to spend that much!! It's just that the house includes a few things that we could do without, and i wasn't sure whether there was any negotiating on reducing costs from what they class as a base price. You can usually negotiate on reducing costs by removing certain items i.e. underfloor heating, do the flooring, airconditioning and lighting yourself, etc. I know what you mean by not wanting to spend too much ... no one does. Ask the Salesperson if you can take out certain non essential items. You will probably find more inclusions later down the track that you simply MUST have!! Re: Reducing the cost 8Jan 07, 2008 8:18 am But be careful in trying to reduce costs by removing things.
For example, the Porter Davis/Eden Brae Windsor 46 - a great home but for all of it's 4 bedrooms there are ensuites and WIRs. The bathrooms themselves are worth about $5-7k of fixtures, fittings, tiles etc. However, if you ask them to remove a bathroom - you only will get $3k knocked off the price. So removing parts of the house may not save you as much as you might hope. Re: Reducing the cost 9Jan 07, 2008 8:43 am There us only two approaches I know that work.
One, make sure you are playing with two builders so you can price one against another throughout the negotiating process and don't be shy about it. The second way does not suit everyone if you are connected and get trades you can ask for a shell price and finish it yourself. This can be easier than you think and is a nice compromise the banks will normally finance against an owner builder situation. HTH Re: Reducing the cost 10Jan 09, 2008 11:12 am all you can do is ask we are doing the painting on our own house as my parents are painters that was worth $6000
we didnot like the mirrors in bathrooms and their fixs we are having no extras and no mod of plans as this all adds up we are doing own floor coverings and their price for carpert was over 5,000 and we could get it done for 3,000 builders have a 10% to 20% mark up on their items Re: Reducing the cost 11Jan 10, 2008 10:49 pm Careful, you may find that when deleting standard items the builder will only credit back cost only.
For example: The builder may charge you $60 (cost + gst + margin) for a standard light point when adding more. But if you were to delete a standard light point you would only receive a credit of $35 (cost only). Hence, deleting heating and cooling items doesn't always work as volume builders usually have a greater buying power than an individual. The credit that you get back may not actually save you anything if you cannot purchase it at a better rate. Most find that the credit they get only covers the purchase of a cooler or a heater not both. Food for thought. Hennig Re: Reducing the cost 12Jan 12, 2008 6:48 pm whats the difference if you donotwant their items or donot like them.We found that has not been the case with our builder I know they have a mark up their items it says so on the contract and my cousin is a builder everything is not always cheaper through the builder Re: Reducing the cost 13Jan 12, 2008 8:51 pm That's a fair call.
I agree, there are some items that we can purchase for as good as a builder - in many cases they are not offered in the standard house/price. But it's not really the nickel and dime stuff of saving $30 here and $40 there that is going to do the trick. To effectively reduce the costs you are more than likely going to look at the big ticket items (heating and cooling). I haven't seen too many cases where an owner has been able to delete out these items (credit of say $5.5k - $6k) and then be able to replace them for the same or less (supplied and installed). Sorry, getting off track of this string. Base price for many builders will not include complete site costs - unless you're building on a flat 700m2 block with an 'M' class soil, which is quite rare - due to the way developers are leaving sites. H 7 11870 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 36896 Fair Trading can issue orders to rectify and complete but once the matter goes to NCAT these orders are automatically vacated. You will have to terminate contract and sue… 21 29617 |