Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Oct 30, 2013 11:43 am Our build thread: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=69984 If you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain. Re: Hidden costs - how did you get stung? 3Oct 30, 2013 2:36 pm Thread: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=66299 Slab: 16/6/14 Frame: 4/7/14 Roof: 22/7/14 Lock Up: 20/8/14 Fixing: 26/8/14 PCI: 9/10/14 Handover: 20/10/14 Re: Hidden costs - how did you get stung? 4Oct 30, 2013 3:09 pm Our build thread: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=69984 If you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain. Re: Hidden costs - how did you get stung? 5Oct 31, 2013 10:26 am My build thread: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=70636&p=1161767#p1161767 Re: Hidden costs - how did you get stung? 6Oct 31, 2013 10:54 am Check out this e-zine article on Hidden Elephants! http://ezinearticles.com/?Are-Volume-Bu ... id=7813803 Site costs are the big one, especially on any challenging block, or land with slope. Most volume builders don't mention site costs at all in the initial marketing, which makes it very difficult for people who are trying to create a budget. I recently heard of someone who wound up paying over twice the initially advertised price. Do enough research that you are conversant with the process, so you can ask a lot of questions... and if the person you are talking to wont answer (or doesn't know the answers) then move on. There are a lot of top quality custom builders who will give you a much more honest appraisal of what your costs might be. Keep looking until you find one who will communicate well with you, because this is a pretty good indication of what your experience will be like further down the road. Re: Hidden costs - how did you get stung? 7Nov 01, 2013 6:18 am I can't speak for all sales people, but our sales person was very upfront with site fees. She gave is a very clear view of what she thought they would be from the very first meeting. We have a block that is around a metre lower at the rear. She looked at the slope on our block, looked at four other properties that had been built locally and gave us a site fee 'guesstimate' that was within $2,000. I think the volume builders know that the mystery box around site fees has been hurting them and we found them to be quite open on what the fees were and then listing out the elements within the site fee box. Re: Hidden costs - how did you get stung? 8Nov 01, 2013 7:50 am deluxes Fixed pricing should be what you are looking for, and builders should know what those items will cost them and pop them in your contract accordingly, no surprises. Well ... there is a caveat to this, you really do have to try to compare apples to apples, compare the builder with provisional costs to the builder with fixed costs for an end-product that's near identical. You don't want to pay an extra $50k for a house, to avoid a potential $5k blowout in provisional costs. I found it really hard to that comparison, BTW ... our whole house is a massive cost-blowout. Re: Hidden costs - how did you get stung? 9Nov 01, 2013 8:32 am Site costs on very new estates are problematic where engineers have yet to do a soil sample. Once they've done it for someone else in the estate they can make a reasonable assumption. But then there are always exceptions. We've had to pay for some extra hard digging on our block but thankfully no rockbreaking. The poor guy two blocks away further up the hill has had extensive rockbreaking on his site. The other thing to remember about inclusions is that the smallest non-standard item can become expensive if they supply it. That's because it's a one-off compared to builders being able to buy in bulk. If you don't like the inclusions, think about what you can easily change after handover, and what you can't, and make your choice from there. . . Re: Hidden costs - how did you get stung? 10Nov 02, 2013 9:47 am Thanks for all the replies. Lots of things for me to think about. I feel like I could read blogs and forums for a year and still have a gazillion questions! Our build thread: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=69984 If you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain. Re: Hidden costs - how did you get stung? 11Nov 02, 2013 9:51 am Matergabiae Check out this e-zine article on Hidden Elephants! http://ezinearticles.com/?Are-Volume-Bu ... id=7813803 Site costs are the big one, especially on any challenging block, or land with slope. Most volume builders don't mention site costs at all in the initial marketing, which makes it very difficult for people who are trying to create a budget. I recently heard of someone who wound up paying over twice the initially advertised price. Do enough research that you are conversant with the process, so you can ask a lot of questions... and if the person you are talking to wont answer (or doesn't know the answers) then move on. There are a lot of top quality custom builders who will give you a much more honest appraisal of what your costs might be. Keep looking until you find one who will communicate well with you, because this is a pretty good indication of what your experience will be like further down the road. Thanks for this link. This is exactly the kind of info/articles I was hoping to find. Our build thread: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=69984 If you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain. Re: Hidden costs - how did you get stung? 12Nov 02, 2013 9:35 pm CountryHome Matergabiae Check out this e-zine article on Hidden Elephants! http://ezinearticles.com/?Are-Volume-Bu ... id=7813803 Site costs are the big one, especially on any challenging block, or land with slope. Most volume builders don't mention site costs at all in the initial marketing, which makes it very difficult for people who are trying to create a budget. I recently heard of someone who wound up paying over twice the initially advertised price. Do enough research that you are conversant with the process, so you can ask a lot of questions... and if the person you are talking to wont answer (or doesn't know the answers) then move on. There are a lot of top quality custom builders who will give you a much more honest appraisal of what your costs might be. Keep looking until you find one who will communicate well with you, because this is a pretty good indication of what your experience will be like further down the road. Thanks for this link. This is exactly the kind of info/articles I was hoping to find. Bear in mind that's an advertisement and not independent commentary. It is propaganda written by a certain custom builder as a means of generating business for their company. The big bad volume builder is evil, poor quality, and untrustworthy, however the custom builder is your very best friend. I can assure you, there are more dishonest custom builders out there than there are big evil volume builders. When we talk about hiding things, there are certain people who are not up front, shall we say, about their association with said company, nor about their transparent spruiking for the company without paying to be an advertiser on this forum. Just saying... Completed a knock down and rebuild in northern Melbourne. Handover completed 27/09/2013 and now moved in. Re: Hidden costs - how did you get stung? 13Nov 03, 2013 4:51 pm Bluesuede The big bad volume builder is evil, poor quality, and untrustworthy, however the custom builder is your very best friend. I can assure you, there are more dishonest custom builders out there than there are big evil volume builders. Just saying... Wow- you must have had some bad experiences. Not all project builders are equal! We've built twice before with project builders and been completely satisfied with the whole building process from sales to handover. And we are doing it again. No complaints as yet and we are happy with the standard of building even though it's early days. Re: Hidden costs - how did you get stung? 14Nov 05, 2013 1:59 pm Treeseachanger Wow- you must have had some bad experiences. Not all project builders are equal! We've built twice before with project builders and been completely satisfied with the whole building process from sales to handover. And we are doing it again. No complaints as yet and we are happy with the standard of building even though it's early days. lol no - I was being facetious. That sentence you quoted of mine was an approximate summary of the level of the quoted article (and everything else said in the past by that individual.) there are good and bad builders regardless of their size. As an ex-architect whose sister and brother-in-law own a custom building company, I have just built with a large project builder and couldn't be happier with the end result. Completed a knock down and rebuild in northern Melbourne. Handover completed 27/09/2013 and now moved in. Re: Hidden costs - how did you get stung? 15Nov 09, 2013 5:38 pm We found our biggest blow out has been sewerage connection and on site detention requirements. These have pushed us out a lot. Also, its all the little tiny things that shouldn't cost more than $10 that the builder seems to have this excessive charge on that really really add up. Kitchen upgrades can really blow out your budget as well. But for us, as we are building in a $$ area, our rent whilst we are waiting for the build to happen has really killed us. So time is the biggest factor of all. (And apparently we have a sloooow builder) Re: Hidden costs - how did you get stung? 16Nov 09, 2013 7:08 pm To be honest, we didn't have any... Which I was glad about.... We got a fixed price contract, our sales person was up front what things were upgrades... We were going with a different builder and learnt very early on, everything in the display home is upgraded. With the first builder everything we wanted minus blinds, fly screens, security doors landscaping came over $300000. We built a bigger house, had the builder do most of the upgrades eg. Blinds, flyscreens, electrical. We paid for light fittings, landscaping and security post handover and still have lots of money leftover from the original building tender. The fixed price tender was peace of mind and stress free. That first builder has a habit of also charging additional after site start. So glad we find Eden brae! Built a Hawthorne 31 with EB nessjeffdreamhouse.blogspot.com.au Building an investment now with New Living homes... We are at nearly finished... Just landscaping and driveway to go! Re: Hidden costs - how did you get stung? 17Nov 09, 2013 8:12 pm For us, it was stormwater costs. We had an estimate put in our tender which ended up double that - still 'dirty' about it! My only other issue was lack of choice for some things eg. choice of 2 stone colours for the kitchen. If neither of them worked with your colour selections, you are forced to pay more to upgrade to another colour. Kerith - Building an Eden Brae Newport 40 in Sydney's North http://kerithsedenbraehouse.blogspot.com.au/ No the fireplace doesn’t work. It’s been enclosed. I’m not sure what was removed, as it was done quite some time ago - well before what I can see with photos online… 2 11584 Depends how much direct sun it gets. Is there any shading (eaves or trees)? If the sun hits a window directly it doesn't matter too much if it's double or single… 1 12662 9 24789 |