Browse Forums Building A New House 1 May 05, 2011 5:18 pm Hi everyone. Well I need to vent...and get some opinions if possible. Myself and my hubby have a block of land with a 1.9m fall, so we realistically expected site costs around the $30-35k mark realistically. We went to Jennings for and they actually said $20,000. We knew that this was a bit generous however. So our house was at $206,000 making the amount around $226k. Being first home builders I admit that we are a bit naive. We know that we'll need retaining walls and a decent cut and fill. However it took 3 weeks for our tender to come through (don't know if thats normal?) and I almost died. The final amount came in at $255,800 for a single story home. Needless to say this figure has blown us out of the water, and taken us over our loan limit for both house and land. Anyway we spoke to our developer who has said that the charges are extremely excessive and Jennings are trying to milk us for all our money and first home buyers grant. That makes me extremely angry!! They can do this??? A couple more points: - We took our soil test to another builder who said the same thing as our developer. They said based on what they can see, it would be $30k, at worst case scenario. - We told our rep at Jennings that we were walking, and she became quite aggressive. ("After everything I've done for you??") She refused to take no for an answer and said she's coming to us with a new tender. We don't want it, we just want our money back. - I'd be interested to hear anyones take on this. Are we being taken advantage of? Also would should be costs be for our fall? Thanks guys, sorry for the very long essay. I'd appreciate any input!! Deposit on Land: 26/2/11 Location: Summerfield Estate, Bacchus Marsh Finance Approved: 17/3/11 Deposit on House: 18/3/11 For the Peninsula 290 AV Jennings Re: $50,000 for site costs?? Are they kidding? 3May 05, 2011 5:37 pm It's really hard for anyone to give you an estimate of your site costs without knowing your soil conditions and the amount of retaining walls needed. We have around 2m of fall across our house site and our site costs came in just under 20k. That was not including any retaining walls as we did them after handover (this was only possible due to the size of our block as they could batten them back during the build). Just make sure you are comparing apples with apples when you compare site costs. Some may not be supplying full drainage and you may have to address that after handover. We have a neighbour that didn't have proper drainage put in.... a foot of water at least sits next to their house after a heavy fall. I'd get another tender prepared with another builder to get a proper guide. Lots of builders can tell you something will cost a certain amount of $... but when the documentation comes through that amount may be very different! Check out this thread about site costs and you can compare with others to get a guide. viewtopic.php?f=31&t=9017 I leave you to fend for yourself, figure things out yourself. Terrence Malick Re: $50,000 for site costs?? Are they kidding? 4May 05, 2011 5:43 pm We have a dead flat block and our site costs are around $25k ... due to rock and soil conditions. As PP said look at what's included too as we've got alot of drainage included due to poor soil quality, where as the neighbours don't (site costs were alot lower) and they commented on how boggy their block is everytime it rains. ~ trying to build our dream home by the sea ~ Re: $50,000 for site costs?? Are they kidding? 6May 06, 2011 6:31 pm Ours was half that and our slope is 3m. We are having steps through the house instead of retaining walls and drop-edge beams, so that kept the costs down. Another project builder quoted us 100K extra to build on the site, telling us we'd have to put a basement room at the back to eliminate the slope. Apparently he scared off the people who owned the block before us and told us that there was no way that we'd get approval going with any other builder at a cheaper price. I agree that it's time to run. When they get aggressive you know they've got something to hide. Land at Chermside At tender stage Re: $50,000 for site costs?? Are they kidding? 7May 06, 2011 7:55 pm Miry Hi everyone. Well I need to vent...and get some opinions if possible. Myself and my hubby have a block of land with a 1.9m fall, so we realistically expected site costs around the $30-35k mark realistically. We went to Jennings for and they actually said $20,000. We knew that this was a bit generous however. So our house was at $206,000 making the amount around $226k. Being first home builders I admit that we are a bit naive. We know that we'll need retaining walls and a decent cut and fill. However it took 3 weeks for our tender to come through (don't know if thats normal?) and I almost died. The final amount came in at $255,800 for a single story home. Needless to say this figure has blown us out of the water, and taken us over our loan limit for both house and land. Anyway we spoke to our developer who has said that the charges are extremely excessive and Jennings are trying to milk us for all our money and first home buyers grant. That makes me extremely angry!! They can do this??? A couple more points: - We took our soil test to another builder who said the same thing as our developer. They said based on what they can see, it would be $30k, at worst case scenario. - We told our rep at Jennings that we were walking, and she became quite aggressive. ("After everything I've done for you??") She refused to take no for an answer and said she's coming to us with a new tender. We don't want it, we just want our money back. - I'd be interested to hear anyones take on this. Are we being taken advantage of? Also would should be costs be for our fall? Thanks guys, sorry for the very long essay. I'd appreciate any input!! Nobody on this forum could reasonably estimate what your site costs are because we just don't have the information needed. My question is what costs have AVJ identified that make up the $50,000 cost you've quoted? How have they itemised these on the tender? Its unreasonable for you to take the word of the developer or another builder on this issue also. The developer has their own objective to save face and not look like they sold a block for price "x" which has now turned into a lot more cost. Of course another building company will say anything you want to hear - that gets you in the door and asking them for a tender. Do not believe anything a sales rep tells you and only rely on what is written. Its easy for a rep to tell you another company is ripping you off, but until they document more reasonable costs in a tender their word means nothing. Lastly, just a question about your overall build plans. The Peninsula 290 starts at $194,000 base price and with $50,000 of site costs (plus a little extra) your total cost quoted is $255,800 which is out of your budget. Have you factored in floor coverings, window coverings, fencing, turf, TV antenna, driveway, etc? Just hoping you've accounted for those. Building the Piazza 300 with AV Jennings / Sekisui House - https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=46023 Re: $50,000 for site costs?? Are they kidding? 8May 06, 2011 9:09 pm Hi Miry, Probably the best way to provide a perspective is to give you a little bit of an idea on what our experience was. At the time we signed the intial sales quote with PD, the promo included approx $10k of site costs which included slab upgrade, rock removal, ohs and local council requirements, termite protection, and connections to services. Our land had about a 500mm-600mm fall across the "building area". From the front boundary to the rear boundary was approximately a metre. Also, our initial soil survey indicated that we would need screw piles under our slab, which resulted in additional site costs of approx $20k over and above the "complete" promotion. After a second soil and site survey, this was revised down to just requiring piers, which saw us receive a big reduction in our additional site costs. Given that we had minimal site levelling and no retaining walls or fill etc this indicates that there is much more to site costs than just the concrete slab. We were lucky to be able to take advantage of the "complete site costs" promotion otherwise we would have incurred an additional $15k approximately. It's interesting that the developer has commented on the value of the site costs considering that the builder can only work with the land as provided by the developer. If the developer had provided a level site to the builder then perhaps these costs may have been avoided? Just our opinion. Our tender took approx 6 weeks, however, this spanned over the christmas period. Take away 3 weeks for the christmas/newyears break and we too experienced a three week tender period. It was a further 4 weeks to our contract signing. We were fortunate to have a sales rep who was proactive in including provisional costs in our intial sales quote. This was significant in setting our expectations of the total contract cost and hence we were able to avoid any nasty surprises. A big pat on the back to our rep! Also our CSC was always accomodating when it came to requests and changes during the contract process. It's hard to compare but information and understanding is everything as it contributes a long way to setting your expectations. Cheers, MelNRob Building Waldorf 44 with PD Feel free to follow our build progress - http://melnrobsknockdownrebuild.blogspot.com/ Re: $50,000 for site costs?? Are they kidding? 9May 07, 2011 8:50 pm Hi everyone, Thanks for all of your feedback, much appreciated. I now have a copy of the breakdown in front of me, so I will try to lay it out here best I can. We've had a bit of an update as well, our AVJ rep rang us this morning and has come back to us magically with a new figure of $229k. This, however is largely dependent on having the cross over and driveway re located to opposite sides of the block. The thing is now, I'm not sure if there is any trust there, and there still seems to be things that have been overlooked. And Simon, my Husband works at Bunnings so we haven't included the basics as we wanted to cut costs and do them ourselves. No floor/window coverings, driveway, turf. At the time of the tender the base price was $199,000, we added an Alfresco and some other minor upgrades. The breakdown in the tender seems evasive, and brief?? It doesn't give us exact figures for specific things (eg it doesn't even tell us how much the retaining walls are, or the steel beams for the garage. Here it is as follows: 1. $29,740 - Site cut and fill to desired levels as per site plan. - 100mm sewer grade pipe in liew of 90mm stormwater as per sit plan - AGI drains & Silt pits as per site plan -Double handling due to restrictive site access (*** This seems strange, there are no obstructions to our block) - Additional crane hire due to site conditions -Timber sleeper retaining walls with steel uprights - Brick retaining walls 2. $585 - Provide overhead laying of brickwork due to proximity of garage external wall to boundary No allowances have been made for tree root barriers and screw piles due to the absence of necessary documentation. Assumed as class H. (**No clue what this means.) 3. $9372 -Class H concrete slab (***We have been informed by the other builder that we in fact need a H2 Class Slab due to new regulations, and that AV overlooked telling us this) -Suspended slab -Bored concrete piers. 4. $2375 - Provide the following due to Local Authorities requirements: - Asset protection By Laws compliance. This is required to comply with the Local Councils Asset Protection By laws and their Building and Works code of Practice. Incl. Asset Protection Permit, Waste Management and Adequate Amenities. -Termite treatment including physical barrier slab perimeter and slab penetrations. Note: The area has been assessed at Bushfire prone land. Any requirements to comply with the Australian Standard for bushfire zones will be addressed once all documenation is made avaialble. Any additional costs as a result will be passed onto the Owners by way of variation. (**In the soil report the risk is "very low!) Rock Removal / Subsurface Obstruction $5,500 Provide a Provisional Allowance for the removal of rock/subsurface obstruction. Sekisui House has used all care to reasonably estimate the cost of the excavation and removal of rock / subsurface ob from the site the information avaiiable. However as the removal of subsurface / rock obstruction is difficult to quantify, we are unable to provide a fixed sum for the removal. Where rock / subsurface obstruction is encountered the Owner will be invited to inspect the nature of conditions and provided with copies of relevant invoices. If the rock/ subsurface obstuction removal contingency sum is not used in entirety then the balance will be credited to the Owners at the completion of the construction. If the contingency sum is exceeded and there are further costs an....(***THIS SENTENCE CUTS OFF AND IS INCOMPLETE!!) 4. Post Title Release Analysis $1230 - Second soil test -Final feature survey - Final Engineering Site Cost total $48802 Plus $7000 for our Alfresco. Grand total $255,102 is the accurate figure. So I certainly don't know what to make of it. I still think that if we go with the new figure there will be nasty surprises down the track. Feeling very uncertain about it all honestly! Thanks again to everyone, I know I am coming across very uneducated so thanks for your patience! I wasn't expecting you to give me an estimate on my block but now I at least have some feedback to compare with. Joles - Places Homes are the other builder we are talking to. Their Engineer rang to say that he is confidant he can do it for $30k locked! Once the soil test comes through it possible could go down. Again I know to take it as face value but I think we are going to bite the bullet and do another test through them. MelnRob - Thanks for sharing your experience! The PD Promotion was tempting however sadly they were a little above our price range. Yes when we spoke to the developer is was to ask about changing the crossover (which it is too late) and he made the comment. You're right there lol. Cheers guys...so tired!! Deposit on Land: 26/2/11 Location: Summerfield Estate, Bacchus Marsh Finance Approved: 17/3/11 Deposit on House: 18/3/11 For the Peninsula 290 AV Jennings Re: $50,000 for site costs?? Are they kidding? 10May 08, 2011 2:45 pm Hi miry, My site cost story!! We were initially going to go with simonds & brought land to fit that house. Had a rough estimate done by a rep & site costs were going to be 20k. Then changed our mind & decided to go with pd, loved the house plan more. Our sales rep locked in 20k for site costs! I thought at tender it would be 30k max. Get to tender & they tell me it's 50k. Yes I freaked out! But we needed a retaining wall which alone was quoted 20k! And we hadcalot of fill due to our drop! Arghhhh. The developer sales rep actually * to us saying it wasn't mire than a 1.5m drop. I have learnt alot about land the hard way! I won't ever buy sloping land ever again! Arghhhh if I ever build again! Lol Anyway after trying to negotiate pd down we end up paying 45k for our site costs! I have had people tell me they have paid 60-70k. At the end of the day though it's the houseplan/ design u love that will make u build with that builder. Mel Re: $50,000 for site costs?? Are they kidding? 12May 08, 2011 7:46 pm Wow thats some hefty site costs you have there..!!!! The Retaining walls required look like they cost a heap of money, everything else would be normal expected costs. Your site fall is up there.. Do they " Provision the costs " for the retaining walls? , this would mean it may not actually cost that amount when all is done and i believe you can question the cost and request proof of that cost by that contractors invoice ( not totally sure on that one? )also the builder would The $9,000 + for the extra concrete etc seems excessive but you are H classed which may mean lots of Bored piers & tons of extra concrete We got quotes from 2 Big builders ( M & also H ) and there was $ 32,000 difference.... ( after soil & Survey ) all the best Ger Re: $50,000 for site costs?? Are they kidding? 13May 08, 2011 11:06 pm Miry 1. $29,740 - Site cut and fill to desired levels as per site plan. - 100mm sewer grade pipe in liew of 90mm stormwater as per sit plan - AGI drains & Silt pits as per site plan -Double handling due to restrictive site access (*** This seems strange, there are no obstructions to our block) - Additional crane hire due to site conditions -Timber sleeper retaining walls with steel uprights - Brick retaining walls So that's the biggest sum. Ours was $1500 on a <500mm fall. You obviously want some clarity on double handling for site access, would want them to itemize the retaining wall costs, and ask to explore ways to architecturally contour the home to the landscape (such as a stepped slab) to reduce the need to cut, fill and retain. This would mean steps in your hallway, but could bring the site costs down by a lot. Quote: 2. $585 - Provide overhead laying of brickwork due to proximity of garage external wall to boundary Is there any completed or in construction dwelling on your garage side? If not this should be zero. Quote: No allowances have been made for tree root barriers and screw piles due to the absence of necessary documentation. Assumed as class H. (**No clue what this means.) This means they don't know how reactive the soil is so they're assuming it's a "Hazardous" build when they estimate the cost of the slab. The cost could change if the soil is more or less reactive than estimated. Quote: 3. $9372 -Class H concrete slab (***We have been informed by the other builder that we in fact need a H2 Class Slab due to new regulations, and that AV overlooked telling us this) -Suspended slab -Bored concrete piers. How big is your building area? I paid ~$7k for a H / H-D class slab on 32 squares. This seems high. They don't mention stepping the slab here, which I would assume would cost more but could bring down your item 1 costs. Quote: $2375 - Provide the following due to Local Authorities requirements: - Asset protection By Laws compliance. This is required to comply with the Local Councils Asset Protection By laws and their Building and Works code of Practice. Incl. Asset Protection Permit, Waste Management and Adequate Amenities. Asset protection is like $200 Quote: Termite treatment including physical barrier slab perimeter and slab penetrations. You might want to check if this is necessary in your area? It costs about $1000 to $1500. Even so, it adds up to less than the $2.4k they quoted for these items. Quote: Rock Removal / Subsurface Obstruction $5,500 Provide a Provisional Allowance for the removal of rock/subsurface obstruction. Sekisui House has used all care to reasonably estimate the cost of the excavation and removal of rock / subsurface ob from the site the information avaiiable. However as the removal of subsurface / rock obstruction is difficult to quantify, we are unable to provide a fixed sum for the removal. Where rock / subsurface obstruction is encountered the Owner will be invited to inspect the nature of conditions and provided with copies of relevant invoices. If the rock/ subsurface obstuction removal contingency sum is not used in entirety then the balance will be credited to the Owners at the completion of the construction. If the contingency sum is exceeded and there are further costs an....(***THIS SENTENCE CUTS OFF AND IS INCOMPLETE!!) Is it rocky? Is it a big piece of land? Developer can tell you if this is reasonable. I had $3k provision in my fixed costs on 825 sqm. Quote: 4. Post Title Release Analysis $1230 - Second soil test -Final feature survey - Final Engineering Should be about $600 The costs seem to high to me too. I think they reckon you're on the hook. Matt's Brando: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=46340 Started March 30th 2011 PCI July 15th Re: $50,000 for site costs?? Are they kidding? 14May 09, 2011 9:12 am Our block had a 1.3m fall across the build. Bentley gave us a fixed price, before the land was titled. The price we got, was the same price we had earlier got with other builders, same size house, same inclusions, for a flat block . We are very happy we took the fixed price, we have a retaining wall, piers, fill. Our house sits really good elevated on the block, it's nice to have a bit of a slope as it adds character to the house. If you are not happy, just walk away, at the end of the day, it's about you being happy. Re: $50,000 for site costs?? Are they kidding? 15May 10, 2011 9:29 am Yeah, does seem a bit expensive, but it really does depend on what has to be done. I am building with Bentley Homes, and our block had around 3m worth of fall from the Back left corner to the front right corner. Bentley designed the house so there would be a 1m cut at the back which needed retaining walls and then filled to the front. The garage was then stepped down 1m from the rest of the house, so our driveway is not steep. So our site costs included the cut and fill, all retaining walls and drains, upgrade to the slab, and pored concrete piers, as well as Driveway and front concrete stairs. And I don't think we paid that much for ours. Re: $50,000 for site costs?? Are they kidding? 16May 10, 2011 6:27 pm Our site costs were for approx. $15,000 in total ( demo / rebuild ), yesterday when excavating the slab beams, they found a couple of soft spots... thats gonna cost us about 5 grand extra for all the concrete. So even with Soil tests and all the geo technical gizmos, there is always the chance of an unknown problem popping up. Ger Re: $50,000 for site costs?? Are they kidding? 17May 10, 2011 7:03 pm I think we are going to be lucky... our land developer has a clause in our contract. They have classed our block as S1... if it is classed anything else we get compensated. Re: $50,000 for site costs?? Are they kidding? 19May 13, 2011 12:49 am Hi, We are building with them as well, in NSW. I just want to say your site cost is not high compare to ours. Ours is 45K for site costs (1 meter fall for the building area, no retaining wall included), 11K for BASIX and 30K for On Site Detention (underground water tanks, required by council). I think if you are building in NSW, you need to budget for BASIX for sure. For On Site Detention, it depends on the council. We got another quote from another major builder and the site cost came a bit lower. Builders tend to not list everything on their tender/contract and will hit you with surprises during the process so it is quite difficult to compare between different builders. My suggestion is to have a big buffer for your budget. Our basic house price is $165K and our budget is $350K (including drive way, floor covering, etc.), for a single story house, 285 sqm. Nothing fancy, no major upgrades except the high ceilings and added 10 sqm to the house. Another tip for you. If you are not in a rush to build, bargain hard. If you are not happy with any price, ask them to recalculate. Every time I asked, they came with a lower amount. They wanted to charge 46K for our underground watertank and after double-checking, it is now 30K. We signed with them last July and only submitted the application to council. We spent almost half a year bargaining with them, on different items. And then they always makes mistakes on drawings, etc. We like their house design so we just put up with all these. Good luck! Jessica That sucks! Hope it all works out. Good to move away from steel anyway for all your reasons, but it's also thermally poor. 16 17895 As is per usual for many of the past failed RWH regulations, it is probably traceable to a bureaucrat who's ego overrode the need to seek the appropriate expert… 1 1033 I am not sure whether Perth has its own way of doing things in regards to this. Most of Perth has class A (sandy soil), except for some areas near rivers or hills. 2 13107 |