Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Apr 27, 2014 12:27 am Hi all, We are in the process of securing a land in Heron Park and deciding on a builder. The land is in the right path as we've locked in a lot. With builder, its a bit more complicated. I would love to have your opinion on some matters below, I would greatly appreciate it as I have 'nil' experience in house building so I need some experienced advise.. 1. Would you recommend me to do internal painting, flooring, carpeting, air conditioning and brickpaving post handover using external contractors? The driving factor behind this consideration is cost.. but I'm not sure whether the cost saving is worth the time spent or risk taken in doing it ourselves 2. What clauses should I look out for before signing contracts? 3. We're contemplating between Celebration and Dale Alcock. Each with its own benefit. We like the Celebration home design, but we think Dale Alcock have better quality build. If you were me, what would you do? (I know this is personal, but humour me!) Please be gentle, my first post in the forum.. Will post build process as soon as we decided on the builder and has the contract in place. Thanks! Re: First build - needing some advise! 2Apr 27, 2014 1:14 am Hi, You have come to the right spot. firstly, when I look at a builder, generally for us a Project Build is the way to go. Look for a builder that offers "upgrade packages" as you can get quite a few nice upgrades for that price. 2nd.. look at the base price of the home, find a few designs/builders that are similar size and look at their base price. 3. Depending on the size of the house and land will depend on site costs but for example our current build our site costs will be over 50K but then its an average. Our last home we did a full package that included site costs, carpet and tiles and that worked out really well. If you are on a budget, thats ok too, but I would consider getting the builder to paint, carpet and tiles I would get both builder and external quotes and compare. There are some really really nice ceramic tiles out there, don't be pushed into expensive tiles, be smart about your choice, keep neutral about your choices so you can mix and match with accessories for colour. Consider what you really need now and what you can wait and do later. Also sometimes adding 20K to your loan now will not be a lot more per week in your weekly loan repayment but it can give you what you need. I am sure lots of people have advice, but when building you need to go to quite a few builders and remember you can play them off each other, ask about rebate for being a "smart build' i.e. you don't make any structural changes etc. Play them off against each other, it does work, considering this is your biggest asset in life, they people are "sales" people at the end of the day and you have to be the one that will be happy with price and quality. Good luck! Its lots of fun! Re: First build - needing some advise! 3Apr 27, 2014 4:28 am jsoetandi Hi all, 1. Would you recommend me to do internal painting, flooring, carpeting, air conditioning and brickpaving post handover using external contractors? The driving factor behind this consideration is cost.. but I'm not sure whether the cost saving is worth the time spent or risk taken in doing it ourselves I'm not a big fan of doing internal things as its easier to have everything ready to move in with no further disruption (see http://www.anewhouse.com.au/2014/04/diy ... -worth-it/) Outside stuff I always organise myself. 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: First build - needing some advise! 4Apr 27, 2014 6:36 am as above get as much done before you move in especially the painting outside stuff can be organized later. and check out the upgrades available from different builders. Re: First build - needing some advise! 5Apr 27, 2014 11:12 am Probably depends in your financial situation and how you want to do it? We didn't want to add anything to our mortgage so we paid for it all. For example, we were quoted $7k for painting through builder. I think you can organise someone to paint for you after the build for $3-4k. We did it ourselves using the best paint we could buy for around $1k. Theoretically if you do get these things done through builder your build time should be shorter (though we didn't find this) and then you can organise your trades to come in. We got out keys on 14/2 and moved in 8/3 - we got all of painting, flooring, decking, electrical work (LEDs etc) cleaning and paving (a lot of paving) done in that time. We could have done curtains too but ran out of $$. Our trades were happy to work around each other and we often had a few on the go at once. I agree that 20k on your loan doesn't add much to weekly spend but I know that it will take forever to pay that 20k back... And it will be a lot more than 20k once interest is finished with you but everyone does it differently and I certainly am a little green eyed when I see what some people achieve within weeks of getting their keys. You need I do what you feel comfortable with both money and house wise. Re the builders. There are lots of threads on here which make me think that the more money doesn't exactly means a better quality build in some cases. Look at the plans and what they both offer for price. I have heard good and bad things about most builders tbh. I would pick the plan I prefer better though I would see what celebration would give you as promos. Good luck! This is a hard part of the process! Don't rush it! Re: First build - needing some advise! 6Apr 27, 2014 12:34 pm Hi all, Thanks for the help! I think the benefit we have is we have no rush to move into the new home as we will be renting out our current place and stay for free in my in laws until we move in. I guess that gives us plenty of time to organise external contractors and make sure we are happy with our selections and our money spent. Thats a really good point asj25, the interest paid on the add ons may turn out to be more expensive than what its actually worth. I guess we have to cap our mortgage and pay the rest on cash if we want to upgrade certain things post handover. What Im also concerned is over capitalizing my home. But its so hard to keep spending low while trying to get what you want! Would love to know who you folks use to do the flooring, carpeting, paving, windows and painting post handover. If you have some referrals please PM me. Any more things to look out for please let me know. So grateful for this forum! My first build journey here https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=71028 Re: First build - needing some advise! 7Apr 27, 2014 2:06 pm Welcome to H1 forums! As a lot of people have said it really is up to your personal choice and financial situation whether to do these things post handover. I am a bit of a tight a**, however one thing I noticed when planning our wedding is the more you take on yourself to save money, the more you have to think about how much your time and effort (and SANITY!) is worth to you, vs just paying someone else to do it. Taking that experience and applying it to our home, we were initially thinking about getting things like lighting (downlights, fans, external lights etc), flooring etc done after handover, but then realised that the work alone in organising this (multiple quotes, tradies who wont work for less than $$$$ job, organising them all coming in, moving in to an unfinished house) was just not worth it. Also we really don't think that we would have saved a significant amount of money by doing it ourselves, so we have ended up getting pretty much everything we want done through the builder. Our other issue is that we bought the land when it was paddocks, so I can't imagine anything worse than having to wait as long as we have - will be 2 years almost from signing on land to when we move in - and then still having to organise things. In that time we will have saved the money for the builder to just do it and finish it all. As for those builders I have no idea as I assume you are in a different state, my advice will be to just choose the plan you like the most! Good Luck! My build thread: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=70636&p=1161767#p1161767 Re: First build - needing some advise! 8Apr 27, 2014 4:53 pm Hi There, We are in the same sort of situation as you...building a new house and most likely using it as a temporary investment until we move into it. Our building rep has been great and is obtaining quotes for all relevant things that can be done outside of the building contract. This saves us $$$ on the margin the builder would charge and also saves us the hassle of doing the running around and getting it installed. This will all be done before handover. We are saving cash by using Vinyl flooring for the living areas which looks the part these days. Also during the build we are buying things like the reverse cycle and dishwasher etc so that is ready to go in when the time comes. We're getting the soakwells put in before they pave, even though it costs a bit more it's less hassle down the track. In the end if you get a good builder they'll do the most they can to help you out. We spoke to every builder available and then narrowed them down...Dale Alcock was up there, sales rep was helpful and we liked the designs. In the end we went with the one that put the effort in, they also cost a bit more for designs but I would rather one that does it right with quality material then one that's cheaper and you'll have issues down the track. We're doing a fixed price contract so we don't have to worry about things changing down the track. I would suggest ensuring that your quote is inclusive of GST. Redink/W.A Country builders and a few others include most extras in there designs which will save you some cash as well. Hope this helps a bit. Re: First build - needing some advise! 9Apr 27, 2014 10:23 pm With Celebration we get to get bigger living and bedroom 1, and all house raised to 31c for an extra $4250, which I think is a great value. Except, we get bedroom 3 and 4 pretty narrow (2.7 x 3.6) as opposed to the DAH design. And the kitchen is slightly smaller. The more I think of it, the more I like the idea of having huge living area and bedroom 1. I'm just hoping the narrow size of bed 3 and 4 won't drop the sale value in the future.. Both sales rep are excellent. I'm just a bit worried what's the after sales service are like. As mentioned, I've heard bad stories from either side. Its just that there are more bad reviews for Celebration than there is for DAH out there. That point about GST inclusion is good. I will check. But I think its illegal in Australia to quote price excl. GST without stating this clearly. My first build journey here https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=71028 Re: First build - needing some advise! 10Apr 27, 2014 10:31 pm You can always make changes to the plan and see how they can make the rooms bigger. I look at the reviews and consider out of the thousands of homes they build each year there will always be a small % of unsatisfied people out there. Not to mention one branch of the same company may be alot better then the the company as a whole which is being reviewed. Re: First build - needing some advise! 11Apr 28, 2014 2:15 pm Can I get your opinion, is it actually a lot of benefit from having 31c throughout the internal house VS 31c only on living? I see Celebration have the edge for giving 31c throughout at a really good price, but is it actually a lot of benefit for having this throughout the house? My first build journey here https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=71028 Re: First build - needing some advise! 12Apr 28, 2014 3:26 pm In my opinion there is certainly benefit to having higher ceilings throughout. It makes all the rooms feel a bit more spacious, particularly those rooms that have a smaller floor area. Also, in bedrooms it allows you to have ceiling fans without feeling like you're going to get an unwanted hair cut.... Re: First build - needing some advise! 13Apr 28, 2014 5:14 pm If we build again (which is unlikely!) we'll have as much of the stuff that prevents you from moving in (e.g. flooring, paving and painting) done by the builder. Other things (air conditioning, feature lights, window treatments, garden etc.) can come in time and won't prevent you from living in your lovely new home. In my opinion, it's worth the extra cost to avoid the extra stress. Also, when you have contractors coming through afterwards you're responsible for cleaning up after them - for example our floor guys have damaged door frames and painted walls. It's an unavoidable side effect of them having to do their job, but if was all done by the builder we wouldn't have to even worry about it. Instead, we'll be repainting door frames and touching up walls! Building with Dale Alcock Homes in Aveley Our thread: https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=63880 And yes, my pants are indeed fancy. I am looking for someone who might have tackled a similar issue as me. I have a few rendered interior walls, the surface condition is hardly flat. I can see all the bumps… 0 8290 hi guys. Please be nice. First time home builder in Qld. I would like some feedback please on whether I should build my granny flat first before my main house at the… 0 5239 Soak wells and electrical run in happening this week! Summit has told me they will relocate the laundry plumbing after the walls are completed. I'm actually pretty happy… 13 36699 |