Browse Forums Building A New House Re: Negotiating Site Costs - Anyone had any luck. 3Jun 27, 2011 5:29 pm First of all I want to preface this reply by mentioning that the big M do have a fairly rigid price schedule for most things, so these prices you've been quoted probably have been taken out of their contract pricing handbook and it can be difficult to get them to move on things. Sometimes the price you get for something (especially upgrades) is good (sometimes really good), other times it's not great, but all volume builders slip in their mark up so that's the price you pay for convenience. Camrw We have just spent the evening going through our sites costs for our build with Metricon. I was wondering if anyone out there has had any luck negotiating on price or were able to do any of the following things themselves instead of paying the marked up prices. Central construction area surcharge $7500 - becuase we are not building in a new estate but an established area I doubt you get much joy on this one as I can see how building in a built up area is a bit of a pain in the bottom compared to building in a new estate. Camrw Additional site cleans - $2490 - !!!!! Depends on what is on your current site - in a new estate the blocks are "scraped" (levelled out ready ready for site prep) by the developer, so I can see why they'd be charging you to do it themselves). To be honest the cost of removing the spoil here would be a big part of that figure, as all the top soil needs to go for starters. I would recommend calling up an an excavation contractor or two to find out what it would cost to get your block scraped and the spoil removed ready for site prep. If it is cheaper then you can figure out if it is worth the hassle of getting a contractor to do it yourself and/or whether the big M is happy for you to organise it yourself or not. Camrw Additional site cleans - $2490 - !!!!!Compaction to existing fill material $2100 (we thought that this should already have been paid for in the site cut and fill) You won't get any joy there I wouldn't think - because it is an old block that has presumably had a dwelling on it previously they will need to compact the soil inside/near the building envelope of your house (which presumably will be larger than the previous dwelling) before they do anything else. This initial compaction of a block to ensure that the sub-surface material is compacted/stable enough to support the dwelling is again something which is nominally handled by the developer of a new estate, so Metricon are charging you for having to do it themselves on your block. (the site cut/fill cost is the leveling out of the building envelope itself and is something different entirely) Camrw Cranage of materials $4980 Double handling $2890 (especially seeings as though there appears to be enough room around the house and so site restrictions dont really exist) You're more than likely stuck with the cranage charge given they need to be more careful with how they unload the trucks with your house's various bits and bobs on them. Not sure about the double handling - it's worth asking them about it. Camrw Provide crushed rock to driveway suitable for heavy traffic $1250 (thats alot of crushed rock me thinks!!!) Presuming it is something of road base sort of quality they are looking at that does look like a hell of a lot of crushed rock for a temporary driveway. Camrw Provide tree protection zone around council tree (wouldnt this just be a few temporary fences placed around the tree) $200 Yes it would be but long term hire of temporary fencing does cost a bit. Camrw Coloured tiger tailing to overhead powerlines $1500 (seems like a nice round number?) Welcome to dealing with power companies, whom I suspect have a monopoly over such services (that's more than likely not a builder imposed price there)... Some people apparently have nothing better to do than comment on other people's sigs. 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 13053 Is anyone building with Mojo and have a recent site cost tender 0 15929 Henley should give you some indication of site costs. Too many variable to give you any reasonable accuracy 1 1839 |