Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Sep 05, 2012 10:26 pm Have been surprised by how expensive some upgrades are - kitchen, LED etc Does anyone know how the pricing works with the suppliers. Does the main builder eg Masterton get a share of the profits of the upgrades or does this all go to the kitchen/electrical supplier. Reason for asking is that I want to specify a lot of upgrades and wondering if I can then get the main builder to provide a discount due to the amount of profit on all the upgrades. Of course, if all the profit goes to the supplier, this does not work. Hope this makes sense. Re: Project home builders and upgrades 2Sep 05, 2012 10:39 pm The main builder marks up all pricing from suppliers, i.e. builder makes profit on everything. ----------------------------------------------- http://pab34newdigs.blogspot.com.au/ ----------------------------------------------- Re: Project home builders and upgrades 3Sep 05, 2012 11:43 pm I assume the builder get's it at trade price though and mark's it up to retail Re: Project home builders and upgrades 5Sep 06, 2012 7:53 am free will I know someone makes big profits on the upgrades, just not sure if it is the main builder or the kitchen company, electrical contractor etc It's the main builder. The bigger the building company, the better the prices they get from suppliers due to volume. I know for a fact that our project home builder had at least 40% mark-up on our flooring. See http://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=59228&p=916043#p916043 ----------------------------------------------- http://pab34newdigs.blogspot.com.au/ ----------------------------------------------- Re: Project home builders and upgrades 6Sep 06, 2012 9:19 am Most small builders will buy at trade (which sometimes is only a 5% discount) mark up to retail and then add builders margin which is usually about 15 - 20% Large project builders, will mark up high above retail With one project builder (wont mention who as I don't want to have threats of legal action again) we were told there was a $1600.00 upgrade fee to go from the standard flush internal door to another door. I looked on the Bunnings website and retail price for the different doors were $20.00 difference. Flush was $30.00, decorate was $50.00. If there were 20 doors in the house the difference should have been $400.00, even with builders margin @ 20% makes it $480.00 - not $1600.00. However, we were told later, that that builder buys so many of the flush panel doors, their cost may be as little a $5 a door, and not as many as the decorative door, so their trade discount will be lower - so therefore in order to keep their profit margin the cost is higher to you. Still doesnt explain the difference in the cost of that upgrade. My advise is to work out what upgrades you want and see if you can get prices of them yourself. That way when you get a price you have something to come back to, whether you think it is of value, something you can do later yourself, or something you can discuss with the builder and try and get a lower price. Modified Fernside 38 Rawson Homes Blog: http://www.thehousethatmatandjenbuilt.blogspot.com Build Thread: https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=60501 Re: Project home builders and upgrades 8Sep 09, 2012 7:44 pm Our volume builder suggests we can operate directly with some of the trades. This includes tiles, plumbing, electrical. So they don't make a margin on those items. This is good cos is can be cheaper, but can be bad if you go crazy and things end up costing more than you thought. Re: Project home builders and upgrades 9Feb 18, 2013 11:32 am Anyone have experience in getting your own people (third party) to do the electrical work/aircon during the build stage with a volume builder? or is it a better option to go with a standard aircon system and then do the upgrade yourself afterwards. Re: Project home builders and upgrades 10Feb 18, 2013 11:44 am have you thought of buying your own and then getting the builders tradies to install. we did this with all the tiles including the wet areas and the builders tradie is installing Re: Project home builders and upgrades 11Feb 18, 2013 11:56 am Interesting, i thought about that too in getting my own materials for tiling and getting the builders to install. Therefore there would be a wider variety of choice and also may save costs Re: Project home builders and upgrades 12Feb 18, 2013 12:33 pm The project home builders we have been dealing-with will ONLY allow items that they source themselves. They claim it is for warranty reasons, the reality is mostly that this is a profit centre for them. So we would not be able to do this. A lot of custom builders allow it, though. It depends on the builder; our experience is in Sydney, I would be comfortable in saying "most project-home builders in Sydney won't allow their tradespeople to install items that they have not sourced". Ask the builder before assuming you can do this! Re: Project home builders and upgrades 13Feb 21, 2013 6:40 pm Do not upgrade anything that you do not have to with your builder! As mentioned the builder will always add their margin on top, usually with larger companies 20% It will be hard to know until you get through to the building stage, what your site supervisor will be like, but he or she needs to become your best friend! In our case we were able to secure the services of concreters, elec's & plumbers, We paid them cash to install downlights, additional outdoor lighting, taps, plumbed in fridge, driveway and paths. We supplied most fittings and would mysteriously turn up to the site on the day they are required (after a call from the site sup) to quietly drop them off and take away the fittings they were replacing. (later to be found on ebay). This was to the extent that we even provided our own kitchen appliances as the cost of upgrading those alone was more than we could purchase them for. And we still had the brand new ones in the box that we were able to sell later on ebay. I don't know if we got lucky with the bloke that we had to deal with on site, and obviously this only works if you are close enough to the build that you can arrange to get the items there on the day they are required, so you are not holding things up and lastly if some drop kick decides to damage your property during the build, these items are NOT going to be covered on the builders insurance!! Hi all, Been browsing project builders' website and saw Masterton with attached granny flat design Seeing bad reviews from masterton in this website/facebook, does… 0 18301 DIY, Home Maintenance & Repair That laser level looks lovely! We bought one for less than a quarter of that price off eBay. It worked really well for us and it's still going now, five years later. After… 1 16711 |