Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Aug 27, 2013 12:15 pm Hi all, first time poster here. My fiance and I are looking to buy a house, and are considering the building approach. It feels though like everyone we talk to - bankers, financial advisors, even friends - warn against the perils of building. Untrustworthy tradesmen, building companies going bankrupt, problems with the land, schedules etc. It makes me wonder if we are setting ourselves up for a fall by attempting to build our home, what are your thoughts? Re: Is Building Just Too Risky? 2Aug 27, 2013 12:49 pm At the end of the day there is a lot of things that can and do go wrong with building due to the fact there are lot of of Variables and people that are associated with the build. But by the same token this is what can make it rewarding. When you mean build do you mean owner build because that a whole other story? If you go through a major builder there are usually much better with deadlines etc as they are a very process oriented company. But this can mean that when you want to make changes (Both Major and minor) they make you pay for it. Given the state of the market value wise you are going to save money if you buy something established. This is because in most cases, curtains Landscaping and concrete have already been done for you, and you can see the finished product straight away. If you find an established house that you love buy it. Otherwise build Re: Is Building Just Too Risky? 3Aug 27, 2013 1:03 pm I don't know about risky but stressful and at times even frightening (possibility of budget blowouts etc), definitely. The upside is the end result is exactly how YOU want it. I am yet to decide if it is worth that yet though lol. I have had many a moment where I wished I had just brought a house and done it up how I want it but when I move in to our beautiful house I may change my mind Building the Leabrook with Fairmont Homes in Mallala, SA. Building contract 24/3/13 Council Approval 18/6/13 Selections 29/6/13 & 1/7/13 Site works 21/10/13 Slab 7/11/13 Re: Is Building Just Too Risky? 4Aug 27, 2013 1:09 pm Just to clarify I don't mean build a house manually myself. I mean go through a builder like Burbank or Henley. How far away is your house from complete tasha? Also it would be helpful to know the amount of time investment in coordinating and facilitating the building. Is it a lot of work initially, and then periodically at each building milestone thereafter, or is it quite constant? Should we expect to be up at all hours pouring over contracts, codes, catalogs and so on or is that just during the earlier stages? In terms of risk I should clarify too: People have told me stories of how when they surveyed the land they found large rocks which were required to be removed, costing them tens of thousands extra. Of building companies going into bankruptcy and of issues post build like the house having cracks appear all over the walls and the builder not doing anything about it. Things like that as they can be quite devastating. Re: Is Building Just Too Risky? 5Aug 27, 2013 1:26 pm There are a lot of things that could go wrong in a build that people are happy to bring to your attention but I think it always pays to ask if they have actually done it themselves and if so you often find that the discussion moves to what to look out for rather than just cutting the idea off entirely as too risky. This will be my first build but I have owned a number of houses in the past. Despite getting all the reports done, I have still had to get some underpinning done, repair poorly renovated places, had to pay a mountain of upkeep and be stuck essentially with what has been presented to me or get it renovated and face the same potential dilemmas as working with tradies etc. Buying an established home is more the norm but it does not mean it is without its risks. In the end though, the decision is yours but accept advice from people that have the experience to give and give it in a balanced way. http://camdenbuild.blogspot.com.au/ by invite only please pm me Re: Is Building Just Too Risky? 6Aug 27, 2013 1:31 pm Yes we also get the "doomsday" talk from every Tom, D!ck and Harry about building a house. It's rather tiring. Perhaps these words will come back to bite me as we're only just at signing contract stage but it seems like MOST (not all) of these stories are from ill-prepared, naïve people. Main groups of people who warn against building: - those who complain about stupid design flaws in their house but they were on the plans, people just didn't understand or didn't ask e.g. "our robes are only 40cm deep, our clothes can't fit inside, the bulkhead is so different to what we thought, there aren't enough power points". It's your responsibility to check the plans. - the (vast) group of people that moan about how the advertised price is not actually what you end up paying - I think you'd have to be pretty simple not to realise this. - you mention "problems with the land" - I think you'd be silly not to get a soil test and general siteworks quote before actually buying the land but some people do - builders going bankrupt - there are clauses in place with many builders these days to ensure the build is completed by another builder for similar money if this was to happen - similarly be smart in your contract - insist on a reasonable build time with penalties after etc. - people build to the absolute limit of their financial ability and then struggle when the odd extra expense inevitably arises during the build. I've even heard people say "we didn't really consider the floor plan when we built and it doesn't work very well". I mean really?!? Of course catastrophes can still happen but as I say, the vast majority of stories I hear are "user error". Prepare, prepare, prepare. We've been doing prestart for about 6 months now and still ironing out the details to make sure we won't have any nasty surprises. Fingers crossed. Anyway, that's my crotchety old lady rant. Hahaha. Go for it. Just take your time, be sensible, use common sense, and prepare for worst case scenarios. Build thread: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=65085 Re: Is Building Just Too Risky? 7Aug 27, 2013 1:35 pm In terms of how much work it takes.... A LOT. My estimate is 1-2 hours daily on most days of the week for the past 6 months. Gathering information, researching, checking plans and quotes, visiting showrooms/displays etc. And we are not even owner building!! But my motto is to be ultraprepared so that may be more than some. Build thread: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=65085 Re: Is Building Just Too Risky? 8Aug 27, 2013 1:55 pm You sound way too prepared EmyN. 1-2 hours every day for 6 months? Not sure what you're doing?!! ismithers: you sound like you are pretty aware of the situation and what to expect and look out for. We've had our ups and downs, still haven't even purchased the land yet becuase titles just keep getting pushed back. I'd like to also add, that when it comes to the design, there are so many things to consider and remember a few things might slip through the cracks. Some things you honestly might not even think of or realise until the house is actually built, however the reward at the end is a brand new house and like any house, most things can still be changed later if dire. Re: Is Building Just Too Risky? 9Aug 27, 2013 2:15 pm "Too" prepared??? HA! The exact point of my post, you can't be! Build thread: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=65085 Re: Is Building Just Too Risky? 10Aug 27, 2013 3:03 pm ismithers How far away is your house from complete tasha? After a bit of a hold up organising some things I should have a slab next month. EmyN "Too" prepared??? HA! The exact point of my post, you can't be! EmyN is right you can't be too prepared. My build is a perfect example. I don't put as much research in now but before we signed any contracts it became a bit of a full time job for me. I asked all the right questions, worried about all the right things, left plenty leftover in the budget for footings costs etc, reasearched for hours on end and still got stung! Although my situation is not a regular occurence it does highlight how things can pop up. Before signing our land contract we made enquiries on the ad for the land which said "all services available" and received an email saying there was water and electricity and we needed a special septic system (we are semi-rural). So off we went and brought the land, chose our house, went through all the motions only to find out a month ago... that the electricity was not available. Infact it is 200 metres away and only conduit has been laid down. Thank god we still have that email as proof of what the real estate agent said. In showing how you can never be "too" prepared I have to say I am still really excited about the build (after a few weeks of being mighty angry) and look forward to seeing it all come together. It is going to be really cool seeing our dream, our ideas, our style all come together and form a home. Building the Leabrook with Fairmont Homes in Mallala, SA. Building contract 24/3/13 Council Approval 18/6/13 Selections 29/6/13 & 1/7/13 Site works 21/10/13 Slab 7/11/13 Re: Is Building Just Too Risky? 11Aug 27, 2013 3:19 pm Yes there are some risks with building - many of which you can prepare for as Emy outlined - but there are risks with buying an established house too. The best thing you can do is research and put some thought into it. Re: Is Building Just Too Risky? 12Aug 27, 2013 4:06 pm What gets me is the patience you need. You have to wait 12 months for the result. The whole of the 12 months you are thinking about the build every day. As you approach the end then you have to think about selling your current home. Then organizing the finishing touches which are a lot to say the least. Painting flooring landscaping etc. However then you think of the end result. A beautiful brand new house exactly how you want it. It truly is an emotional roller coaster. If you want to limit mistakes, you need to watch the build regularly. Luckily for us we live a few km away so we visit every day - checking the slab, the bricks, the roof, the plaster. A few times I have spoken to tradies directly about concerns and they are more than happy to deal with them. So far so good with ours. May it continue. Re: Is Building Just Too Risky? 13Aug 27, 2013 4:06 pm There is risk in just walking out your front door in the morning. What matters is how you deal with it. Yes there are risks associated with building, but there are just as many but different associated risks with buying existing, renting, renovating, or running away from it all and living in a cave. As long as you go in with your eyes open, you do your homework, you ask the right questions, you ask for help when you need it, and you are prepared to invest time and energy into managing it all then it's no riskier than anything else. And remember, people are more likely to write up complaints than praise. Building is a long process, it is never without its hiccups, but don't lose sight of the light at the end of the tunnel. Completed a knock down and rebuild in northern Melbourne. Handover completed 27/09/2013 and now moved in. Re: Is Building Just Too Risky? 14Aug 27, 2013 4:57 pm I always look at existing house first but over the years have built three new houses and never regretted any of them. I got brand new houses that were exactly what I wanted. The Harder You Try - the Luckier You Get ! Web site http://www.anewhouse.com.au Informative, Amusing, and Opinionated Blog - Over 600 posts on all aspects of building a new house. Re: Is Building Just Too Risky? 15Aug 27, 2013 5:15 pm EmyN "Too" prepared??? HA! The exact point of my post, you can't be! +1 ismithers Also it would be helpful to know the amount of time investment in coordinating and facilitating the building. Is it a lot of work initially, and then periodically at each building milestone thereafter, or is it quite constant? Should we expect to be up at all hours pouring over contracts, codes, catalogs and so on or is that just during the earlier stages? It can be as time consuming as you want it to be - given the fact this is the single biggest investment that I've made (and likely to ever make) I'm completely fine with investing my time into ensuring it goes smoothly. The amount of time you need to spend can depend on where you are with your thinking - I'd done the research to know which suburb we want to buy land in, and we had visited display homes previously to have some ideas around the type of house that we might want to build, so we weren't completely fresh. Having said all that, we had lived in a 65sqm apartment for 10 years so the idea of building a 300+sqm house was pretty daunting. For us, the breakdown was something like: Initial research: every weekend for about 6-8 weeks, my wife and I would spend at least half a day and usually more visiting display homes. We visited pretty much every display home village in Perth (north, south, central, wherever) and narrowed our options down to 4 potential builders who did a style that we liked. This was possibly overkill but whatever... Time commitment: whatever you want to give you peace of mind. Pre-sales to PCQ: we sat down for an hour with a sales consultant at each of the display homes we liked and went through our customisations along with sharing details of our budget and block (for WA people, a copy of your Certificate of Title and land survey from Landgate is invaluable to help out with this). This was then taken away and quoted upon - with some back and forward to fit options within the budget, and ensuring customisations meet expectations. Before eventually signing the PCQ to get fully costed. Time commitment: with minimal variations to display options, I'd say it could be done in 2-3 hours per builder you follow up with. For us it was over the course of about 3-4 weeks and a lot more time thanks to the amount of customisation (our sales guy at 101 did 15+ revisions of our design) - and wanting to make sure we had some key things covered off initially. PCQ to Contract: this will depend primarily on how much customisation you do to the display home. From signing the PCQ to eventually signing the Contract was 4 months for us but we were fortunate in that we were able to do pre-start prior to signing. Time commitment: as long as you need to review the contracts and final plans, we did the initial review over two week nights. Depending on how many issues you identify (we had to go back and forth 3-4 times over items that needed to be included), this review may be repeated. Be super vigilant about changes to the plans since items can easily be changed/moved/missed off if you aren't on top of it. Be wary of receiving a proposed contract and then being asked to sign it the next day - I requested at least a week to give us time to review. Pre-start: I managed to get our pre-start done prior to signing the contract but often builders will insist on a contract being signed first as a demonstration of an intent to build with them. So for us the time was rolled into the above step. Time commitment: my advice would be a minimum of one weekend prior to the builder pre-start session doing your research to find out what the standard inclusions are, what their preferred upgrades are, and what sort of finishes you want. The pre-start session itself can be done in half a day to a day - depending on how prepared you are. For us it was two weekends visiting display rooms, a couple of appointments with tile places, a five hour session with an interior designer provided by the builder, lots of discussion/review between ourselves and then a few hours confirming it all with 101. There is a lot of value in knowing what you want in advance, and whether or not it is going to fit within your budget. Build: we're only up to the brickwork being done but basically we stop by a couple of times a week. I wouldn't trust the builder to advise you of exactly when things will occur, so if you are interested in knowing, best to keep an eye on it yourself. Time commitment: your choice - some visits are 30 mins a day. Usually once a week we'll spend at least an hour wandering around just looking at what has been done. I think over the course of the build it will depend on how much work is being done at the time as to how much time we spend during a week. There have been a few minor issues that we have had to meet our site supervisor for which is an hour of our time and probably once every couple of weeks. And that is where we are up to now - so in terms of staying up all night reviewing things, that was more at the contract stage and earlier, and isn't quite so necessary now. It can be stressful, and it can be scary but for the most part that is outweighed by the excitement of building the house that you want - the time we spend thinking about our house or visiting the block isn't negative or wasted for us, even if it is just providing quality assurance to what is going on, it's an enjoyable investment into our future home. Hope that helps. Demo + Build in Rivervale, Western Australia Moved in June 2014 http://rivervale.tumblr.com/ Building Thread Re: Is Building Just Too Risky? 16Aug 28, 2013 12:51 pm tasha_is_clueless ismithers Before signing our land contract we made enquiries on the ad for the land which said "all services available" and received an email saying there was water and electricity and we needed a special septic system (we are semi-rural). So off we went and brought the land, chose our house, went through all the motions only to find out a month ago... that the electricity was not available. Infact it is 200 metres away and only conduit has been laid down. Thank god we still have that email as proof of what the real estate agent said. Do you need power prior to building, don't the builders have generators etc? Sorry if that's a silly question, I'm not sure I'm following the line of thought there. This was during construction time? Re: Is Building Just Too Risky? 17Sep 04, 2013 12:53 pm There are so many reasons why building a new home can be your best choice. It's your dream, you make it the way you want it, and new homes that are built well take much less maintenance. You can design your home to take full advantage of orientation which saves heaps of money in the long run. New houses are also much better built, and you can incorporate features like double glazed windows (if it's a question of budget choose these over the ceasarstone bench tops any day of the week) that will give you a much more economical house for many years. There are often skeletons in the closet with existing homes, and they're not tailor-made to you. In terms of the risk, absolutely the most important thing is to find a builder you trust;this is the place to put a lot of research in my book. Do a search on the kind of terrain you are going to build on, in your area, make a list of builders and then start contacting previous clients, look on forums (especially for the big builders... I have a personal bias against volume builders because their pricing tends to be anything but transparent, and the good quality small-to-medium builders will give you a much better outcome at what is ultimately the same or even a better price.) Your builder can be like the "Sherpa" who helps climbers up Mount Everest. This is especially so with a challenging block, or a block with slope, but in my experience, holds equally true on the flat. Life is risky... why not build a dream or two? Re: Is Building Just Too Risky? 18Sep 04, 2013 1:47 pm We had Handover of our new house last week. Admittedly we bought our land almost 3 years ago, but we didn't look at building until December last year. We researched, signed up in Feb, started on site in May and are moving in this weekend. We have had a great experience so far and would reccomend building if you can't find an established house you like. I would say though that you have to do your homework, be thorough in the planning and contract stage and always keep yuorself up to date with the building progress, to ensure everything goes well. Build thread: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=65498 Deposit 17/02/13 Contract 12/04 Slab 17/05 Roof 06/06 Bricks, Lockup and Fixing 04/07 PCI 22/08 Handover 29/08 Moved in 07/09! Re: Is Building Just Too Risky? 19Sep 04, 2013 2:05 pm It's as risky as you want it to be. There are ways of mitigating risk. At the lower end of the risk scale, build a modestly sized home through CDC on a flat (FLAT!), established (Neighbor) block of land with no bushfire or flood threat, with a major builder and I can't see you getting into too much trouble. At the other end of the risk scale you have steep blocks with lots of fill, close to forest with unknown soil type and outside standards (DA required) as owner/builder. That is the kind of build I would have nightmares about unless I REALLY knew what I was doing, ie; done it many times before. I suggest you start small and flat and you can't go wrong. Re: Is Building Just Too Risky? 20Sep 15, 2013 8:29 pm Hey all, I was looking through some builder's sites at their offers, and noticed they offer structural guarantees but when reading the small-print I see they don't cover something called 'cracking'. A little more reading and it seems that after some years, people sometimes experience cracks appearing in their property, in the walls and ceiling. Is this common? What causes it and is there any way to ensure it doesn't happen? It will be neat but you won't have much freeboard. At least they are not weep holes. Are you in a high intensity rainfall region? The regulatory slope is only required… 3 8245 Firstly, if your house is still under builder's warranty (10 years in Victoria) you should have no need to crawl into roof space but let the builder handle it, unless you… 3 5633 Not sure if that works? I was told the issue is the headspace clearance requirement on step 4. My builder is proposing shifting the beam 310mm towards the kitchen...I'm… 2 2495 |