Perth builders - who/how to pick?

Hi,
We are at the same stage ourselves! It is such a hard decision.
I don't know if this will be of any use to you but we are going to a 'building a new home' seminar on Saturday at the Home Base Expo in Subiaco. Costs about 160 for a couple and goes through contracts and what to look for in a builder etc.
We thought it might help us so I thought I'd pass it on in case it is any use to you.
The website is www.homebaseexpo.com.au

Hi there,

Not sure I can help, but I'm in a similar situation and will be demolishing a house in the next month to build a new one. We have spoken to a range of builders, but and have almost settled on one. The reason we chose this builder is because they have a good reputation and one of their std plans suited the orientation of our block and they have made minor changes to suit our needs. The use of an architect is outside our budget.

As an absolute newcomer myself, advice would be:
* spend a lot of time reading this forum - very useful
* check what the cost of demo and siteworks might be - we got a rude shock.
* be very specific with what you want, all the way down to the number of powerpoints etc before you sign. our sales rep is keen for us to sign and we can always 'make changes at pre-start'. I'm told thats a very bad idea.
* check the progress payments on the contract as I'm lead to believe the last payment is quite low so the building company is in no hurry to fix outstanding faults if you only owe a little money.
* use a company like http://www.houspect.com.au/ for the house inspections - once building commences that is
* BARGAIN for price. Generally not the norm in this industry, but from everything I'm reading and from what our sales rep has actually said - there is room in the price for negotiation. IMHO - every builder has massively increased the price over the last 18 months and now the heat is out of the market and interest rates are heading up - so builders need more jobs. They are not keen to reduce their prices, but you will see more of them are offering free this and that.
* go to this site and read EVERYTHING- http://www.greenhouse.gov.au/yourhome/t ... /index.htm
you don't need to be a greenie to incorporate climatic principles into your design, though as everyone will tell you, it ain't cheap being green. But it's way cheaper to incorporate at building stage than retrofit.

I'm sure there are many others.

I would go to the above course if I could get there.

Good luck BT

Reputation is difficult to measure and to be honest I have no real basis to back up my previous post other than they build a nice display home, the sales rep is professional and helpful and I believe they have been the Perth market for over 40 years.

To be honest, we chose a plan, not a builder.....If you know what I mean.

LMGU - I'll PM you the name.

cheers BT

We've found the www.bestbuilder.com.au site really useful!

I was wondering how you were all going with your builds as I'm considering also whether to demolish an existing house and build two on a narrow block. Regards, L

OHMS & Li da,
Following from BT, I would also add that you need to find out how much it costs to sub-divide.
I have demolished and got approval to sub-divide. Not sure about other cities/states, but here in Adelaide, it costs over $20k to put this imaginary line down the middle of the block.
My new blocks are very narrow (under 9m wide), and ultimately had to build custom-designed duplexes.
Re choosing builders, find out as much as you can, and ask many questions, so that there are few big surprises.
Chris

My cost to sub-divide (over $20k) doesn't include demolition.