Knockdown and rebuild or renovate?

Hi All, hoping for some advice here... Recently paid $1500 for a draughtsman to do plans on a new home as my understanding from a builder was that a knockdown and rebuild would be cheaper than a full renovation (every room needs a makeover as well as an addition of lounge/dining and three bedrooms/bath/ensuite upstairs). Plans were based on "ideal" room size scenario and although we opted for about 35sq design internally it has come in at 40sq plus verandahs top and bottom for a double storey. Therefore quotes for a rebuild have come in far higher than anticipated ($720K so about $800K allowing for unexpected problems such as new septic and items not included).
As we live in the country on 80 acres, not Malvern, this puts the whole project way beyond capital value as house in current condition could sell for $700K and we could not recoup $1.5m. Only really looking at investing $500K. Happy to be flexible in design and reduce size, only criteria is that house has a "country" feel with verandahs and flow through indoors/outdoors.
So..
Who do I go to to talk about price of original concept of a reno (render, new roof, upstairs addition and new living/dining downstairs) and compare with price for another rebuild (smaller house/different design).... Builder did say that knocking 5sq off existing plan will only reduce cost by $50K.
I am wondering if Archicentre Melb would assist? Has anyone any experiences similar to this?
Also thinking of going to one of the "kit home" companies eg Country Lane for a price but I dont want to keep on paying $1500 every time for plans just to get quotes.
Totally confused at the moment so any advice would be appreciated,
Thanks!

That seems exorbitant I agree, it sounds like one of those situations where the draftsperson has gone all out and basically included everything you could ever want - did you give him a budget to work with? If you told him $500k then he should have stuck to that - made it smaller, taken out rooms, whatever. As you say it's almost a waste of $1500, that said doesn't the $1500 include iterations to the plans which could include a reduction to get the build to around $500k?

We had the same dilemma as you (although we were never going to renovate, just didn't like a lot of the modern display homes) and we didn't fancy the idea of getting plans drawn up only to take them to a builder and be told 'yup that'll cost 900k to build'. So we found a builder that had a plan we already liked, and modified it to suit us. Appreciate that being in the country you might not have that option though.

A friend recently investigated the kit home idea but was turned off it for some reason, I could try to find out why.

Our builder drew *rough* concept plans without charging a cent, but granted not all builders would do this. We had a flexible builder fortunately.

Lot of work either way. Are you going to do it - or help - ie handyman.

$800k does sound a lot.

Hi Cinder, many thanks for your response!
Well, the draughtsman was just as surprised at the high quotes as we were so not too sure of his reliability now. We were also quotes as a guide $12-$15,000 per square so thougt we would go for 35 squares as "ideal".
Have just visited your thread and Highview Homes which seem to have a lot of good and bad reviews, but dont they all? the good ones still seem to outweigh the others.
The 2storey seachange on the left of custom page was very similar to what we had except we continued the verandah to the front. Not sure if they would build in Yea but worth a visit in Jan. A couple of questions if you could help..
1. Do they require an upfront fee for design stage and give a price guideline?
2. Can you give me a price guide on your property and squarage?
3. Did you get 9' ceilings and timber flooring, these are on my wishlist?
I am pleased they will alter the finish from brick to "weatherboard".
look forward to hearing from you.

No Mike, we would be over capitalising with $800K. Places around here dont go for that much and if they do they have a lot more land attached than 80 acres..

Have you seen other work by this person. They may be very good. But - go and see their work and ask the owners what they think.

But I'd always go for the 3 quotes and see their work. Don't take cheapest quote etc.

Have you seen someone's place you like the look of - maybe ask them who did it - even if you don't know them.

Not much up here in the way of "new" weatherboards, the builders here do bveneer. Only weatherboards seem to be Harkaway and they are not flexible with design. We have constraints with a knockdown with a concrete water tank one end and trees the other which is why we opted for a custom build.
Anyway your advice is sound. The issue is getting something in draft design for builders to quote on so we can then modify. As said we have already paid out $1500 and now need to go back to square one and redesign completely something which is smaller.

Ask the builder where most of the money is being spent and see if you can maybe work something out. Sometimes it not size but the layout, maybe they could make some other suggestions to reduce the cost.
As mentioned get some other builders to quote and ask the same thing. Also if there are any volume builders just give them a copy of your plans and ask them if they can do it or modify one of theirs to make it similar.

I'll PM you.

There has got to be more then one custom builder around surely! I live in a country town and there are at least 5 custom builders and 3 volume. Have you looked to see if there are other custom builders who could give you a quote? Looked on true local at all?

Hi buildingdilemma

I don't know if this helps but we're in a very similar situation.
We bought a place and were planning to do a Knock down rebuild and for most of 2013 were talking to an architect to get a design done based on our shoestring budget. Long story but basically in December it was confirmed that it was going to be way over our budget to build even after some variations. The architect did come up with a pretty good design that should be in budget but by then we had started investigating volume builders.
So now we've paid for an architect to come up with a design, we've paid a volume builder for tender stage... but we're not 'sold' on the volume builder... so now circling back to an original idea of doing a gut the ground floor, leave most window openings to save on costs, build up one floor to add a couple of rooms and take advantage of a view and then render/clad to make things look consistent.
I suspect it's still going to be more than the volume builder but at this stage we're still waiting for the tender to come back (and suspect it will be a lot more than the original estimate as we're now going bearers and joists rather than a concrete slab).

So... I don't know and am in a similar situation as you are.

We're now talking to a couple of builders, one of whom came around today and will now be pricing up the upstairs component so we can do a rough guesstimate to see if we're in the right budget ballpark before we go and spend more money to design things up with either an architect or draughtsperson.

So if I were to advise you on what we would do...
1. get a quote or estimate from a builder based on some rough sketches you do on a renovation based on the existing structure -- the less structure you change the chances are the less it will cost (btw we have built in the country before and the build cost is a lot less than in Sydney or so it seems!)
2. Get a high level (free) estimate by a couple of volume builders. Surely some of them build your way?
3. Some of the franchised kit home/custom builders may be able to help like Storybook and Hotondo?

Let us know how you go... I'd be keen to find out

We're building on a smallish block in Sydney, so quite a different situation, but found it would be about 20% more to renovate rather than knockdown/rebuild with a volume builder. And that's 20% on an already quite big number.

Do you own the plans, so you can pimp them around a few builders?

To be honest, $800k doesn't sound massively expensive for a custom designed 40sq house. The reason we went Project Home was because we were quoted (well - estimated really, it wasn't a solid quote) $1m for a smaller 2-storey house. Actually it was ~$1.15m more but we had heaps of exxy louvre windows and hydronic solar under-floor heating so I've removed the cost of those to make the statement.

We did a half knockdown half renovation. What saved us money was by not significantly changing the footprint of the house so we had minimum ground works. We also managed to get all our quotes in a bit of a down period for building industry so that saved us money.

Is it possible that rather than adding a 2nd storey you do a ground floor extension or maybe add a pavilion design etc.

In most cases renovation will be well over the cost of rebuilding a new home. The problem with renovating is that there are so many unknown factors like what’s behind that wall? what’s under that flooring? what’s causing them cracks? Why is that door not closing? As a builder it is very difficult to estimate the cost for all the unknowns and that is one of the reasons the costs are so high to renovate.