Browse Forums Building A New House 1 May 15, 2014 10:49 am You may have seen my earlier thread about financing a KDR. My husband and I are very early in the process of a KDR and we're not finding many real life stories about the process. So if you're doing/have done a KDR; - How far into the process are you? - What problems have you encountered that are related to the KDR process? - What did you find easier than brand new builders may have? - Any advice or hints you could give somebody who is just about to undertake the process? - What parts of the process did you organise yourself? (eg. demo, finance etc) - What kind of timeline are you looking at? Feel free to answer any or all, or add things I may have forgotten to ask about. Follow my Coral Daydream 28 build: https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=72384 Re: KDR - tell me your stories/problems/triumphs 2May 15, 2014 12:37 pm We're currently waiting on our new build to start. We purchased the house in August last year and one of the first things we did were get demolition quotes. We got about 6 different quotes and all included different levels of service (i.e. some required us to organise the disconnection of the sewer, some wouldn't include tree stumps, some didn't include asbestos removal, some didn't include the costs of disconnection). One of the quotes included everything and in comparing all quotes was the cheapest. We booked the service in December and it was completed by the end of February. We could have pushed them to complete quicker, but we were in no real rush as our builder still wasn't ready to start. The demo company provided all of the paperwork for us to fill out and the appropriate council forms. It really was straight forward. The demolition process was quick. They stripped the house of useable products and then used machinery to bring down the rest. They raked the site and removed all tree stumps and grass. They probably finished the job in about a fortnight (maybe even quicker). We got really luck with our service provider and they were great. They damaged a neighbours fence and even fixed it, even though their contract clearly said we were responsible for fixing any damage that they caused. In hindsight we might have waited until our builder was a little closer to starting. That said, there was no one living in the house and we weren't using the property. We didn't really push our builder to give us an exact time line either. My thread on our build will give you a better idea of timeline, but from concept to the start of our new house is likely to be 11 months. Organising our demolition was probably a 4 month process from quotation to completion (obviously this timeline will be dependant on your location and how busy these companies are). Our timeline on organising the build of our house may be a couple of months longer than reality. We had a number of issues relating to our site that required extensive discussions with numerous builders. We had enough cash to finance the demo ourselves, so that part was pretty easy. The builder offerred to do our demo but would have added around a 20-40% margin, so it was an easy decision for us. Our build thread is here: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=69563 Re: KDR - tell me your stories/problems/triumphs 3May 15, 2014 2:06 pm We bought our place about 8 years ago. We were negotiating with the RE agent while at the Wine & Jazz Festival at the Normal Lindsay Gallery at Faulconbridge ... which is apparently on this weekend, so it must be very close to exactly 8 years. We did a minor reno to fix some rotting floorboard issues & also replace the 50's bathroom; with full intention of doing a complete reno down the track. However it didn't take long to realise that by the time we installed a new kitchen, replaced all gyprock, replaced exterior wall coverings & insulated, replaced the roof, extended, added at least one other bathroom & built a garage ... we'd pay as much as for a knockdown+rebuild and be stuck with a compromised half-50's floorplan. - How far into the process are you? We've been talking to the electrician today, they're wiring & marking-out before the plasterers come in (probably next week) - so it's nearly waterproof, would be if the windows were installed. - What problems have you encountered that are related to the KDR process? As noted in that other thread about financing, not buying the entire house+land package means we were doing things afterwards; some builders will do the whole lot, but many won't do driveways or landscaping. So that involves separate financing to a completed turnkey house. There's also the need to coordinate moving out before demolition (preferably at least), the need to demolish in the first place (no starting the day after contract signing), if you're going through council there might be a need for the house to not look out of place in the neighbourhood, needing to move out & then back, I'm sure there are others. - What did you find easier than brand new builders may have? Being able to rent 3 doors up. - Any advice or hints you could give somebody who is just about to undertake the process? I don't think there's anything special or worrisome about the process, relating to KDR. You'll work it out. Prolly best to worry about the house build itself, that's the biggest bit! - What parts of the process did you organise yourself? (eg. demo, finance etc) The builder is building the house itself including approvals; we're doing driveways & landscaping & tree-removal approvals, we organised demolition. We did finance (via the lender we already had the mortgage with). We did chase-up stuff like appliance models (Choice was used), we had the house redesigned a little for winter-sun-summer-shade reasons. - What kind of timeline are you looking at? Basically, add a month to a new build timeline, to allow the need to demolish. Any extra council investigations or chasing-up of information is done while you're in the paperwork stage with your builder, so it doesn't extend your timelines. We had our initial tender very late 2012, which was for the base house with a couple of the extras we were going to want; but at that stage we were just asking whether things were possible to be done rather than getting solid prices. We probably didn't have prices for everything 'til June 2013; took a while to finalise the mortgage, so we didn't actually sign 'til September. We moved to the rental October, demo started a week or two later, and the builder started onsite last November. Looking to be finished the build probably August-September this year, then probably another month while we organise driveways & landscaping & a few built-ins etc. Re: KDR - tell me your stories/problems/triumphs 4May 15, 2014 2:21 pm Not sure if you've seen the dummies guide to demolition in the general discussion area. viewtopic.php?f=1&t=51180 (hope this works, if not its about 3 pages in). There is some good tips there. Can't help with your questions, but good luck with it all Re: KDR - tell me your stories/problems/triumphs 5May 15, 2014 3:04 pm a lot of people on Somersoft forums (property investment) are KDR afficionados. One thing ive gleamed from them when ive read their topics is to ensur eyou know who is responsible for capping sewer points. You dont want the new builders to flood the sewer with concrete as has happened with others. GL Creator of superduperonium, expert at expert things, nobel laureate, can hold my breath for 10 minutes. We were lucky in that our old house was so small (86 square metres) compared to the new house, they were able to take enough readings around the old backyard house before… 8 37077 The biggest challenge will be if you take out a loan and then run out of money - you'll have an incomplete security and lenders do not like this so you can get stuck.… 2 18896 Hi, I am looking into doing a KDR in Melbourne and am contemplating using Kialla Homes. I am looking for feedback on them from others who have built with them. 0 13437 |