Bigger house vs Extras?

MrsLBuild · Jul 08, 2014 9:41 am

Hi all,
We have a block of land in the new estate 'Sanctuary on Alma' at Dakabin. ::smile::

We have a limited budget and want to be realistic about what we can have. We have $210,000 maximum price for the house build and ideally we would want it to be more around $190-200k. We know there are always things that come up during the build and don't want to be short.

We have been looking at builders for a while and will start having some real conversations with them now that we have the land.

We are starting to get confused about where we should be putting most of our money...do we get the bigger house and keep it basic (leave off the blinds, screens, extra, etc) or do we get a small house that includes all the extras (turn-key type packages)?

We love the Longbeach by Plantation, it's base price is $206k. When we got the quote which includes flooring, site costs, etc, it is now $233k.

This will be a long term house for us and our 2 kids. So I am starting to think we should build the bigger house and put the extras on as we go. Or we find a similar plan with one less living area and get some of the extras...so confused, don't want to make a big mistake ::sad::

Any advice?

Thanks!

adgn · Jul 08, 2014 10:37 am

I went with bigger house but its a bit depressing when you dont even have a proper laundry, etc.

Takes years to fix up to a comfortable level.

If i went cheaper then i would've been happier up front but depressed that the house is a bit small for my family as they grow up.

At least i know that when my kids are teenagers that they'll be comfortable in a big house whilst we slowly build up things when we can afford it.

E.g took 9mths before we even put down grass in the front/back yards, took 3mths to put nice vertical blinds and some plantation shutters; in lieu we had black builders firm as blinds when we first moved in ::wornout::

Oh yea the next thing on the list is the laundry which will be around $2k for something at least workable.

The next thing on the list is security screens which is about $2k for large sliding doors and double front door.

The list goes on...

PolkaDots · Jul 08, 2014 2:46 pm

Hi MrsLBuild, and congrats on the start of your building journey... it surely is daunting, isn't it!?

with our build we have put everything into getting the floorplan right. We currently have 2 small children and are working on our third ::wink::

Decent sized rooms and lots of storage, as well as still having a decent backyard were a must. We're building a single 4 bedroom, plus study and rumpus room home, we will have just under 6m (x16m) of backyard.

We are happy to go standard on a lot of things that we can upgrade when we can afford it, but there are a few things I'm considering upgrading now because you can't do it after, like upgrading wall insulation and adding soundproofing to some walls.

My suggestion is to look at different builders and their standard inclusions. This is what we did and we found that actually doing a custom build, came in about $10K cheaper then going with one of the big builders (this is WITH a driveway).

We actually took a design from a big builder that we really liked but changed a few things to suit us, which the bigger builder wouldn't do or were going to charge $$$ for. Small things like making the main bathroom bigger (I have 2 girls) and the laundry wider to allow for a linen/ broom cupboard on the wall opposite the trough and cupboards. AND i got to choose my own facade so my house will not look like every other on the block!

Anyway, good luck and definitely take your time with this planning stage