Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Oct 24, 2014 12:07 am My husband and I bought land in Pt Cook, VIC which will be titled around May 2015. We are in the process of shortlisting a couple of builders to create our new home. However, we are not living in Australia currently, and will only be moving there in approximately 1-2 years time.
We are grateful if anyone had similar experience and can share with us your journey, the special requirements, your challenges, the complexity of the project and joy of building from overseas. Looking forward to hear from you! Re: Building a house from abroad 2Oct 24, 2014 7:28 am I think it would be ridiculously difficult to get right. Choosing all those things you need to see in person is the first thing, and making sure it's correct is another. You'd want a really comprehensive inspector involved, someone who doesn't just briefly eyeball things but spends a lot of time going through the contract & comparing the result ... Good luck! Re: Building a house from abroad 3Oct 24, 2014 9:03 am Hmm sounds like me. So I live overseas currently and am 5 hours from where my house will be built. First it took a while to find a builder that was flexible, secondly getting the design and layout to what I want took a very long time together with literally 1000 emails. Lastly, you need many trips to check things out and pick finishes etc. My journey started 3.5yrs back and I will be breaking ground next week. My prestart took 5 full day visits (custom house with every item not builder spec), it is doable and it comes down to what you want. Forg is correct about needing to have an inspector or some one who can keep an eye on the build. Good luck and strap in..... its one hellava ride Re: Building a house from abroad 4Oct 25, 2014 1:38 am Thank you Forg and AussieMark! AussieMark > It's comforting to hear that someone else is going through the same experience. Will be so grateful for any tips and guidance from you! Unfortunately, it is not possible for us to be based in VIC within the next 2 years. We'll have to make the best out of our situation. We are planning to fly to VIC 3-4 times to attend the important meetings. We were told that we can make a deposit based on initial quotes to secure the cost, and broadly split the trips to cover (1) selection of materials over a week, (2) signing of contracts and (3) Handover. Perhaps, 1 or 2 more trips are required. Hopefully that can cover the necessary and we can do others remotely. Will be grateful if anyone can recommend a reliable inspector who can take care of the frequent checks and comparisons and we will be asking if the builder can provide someone to babysit our build and update us at every stage. Re: Building a house from abroad 5Oct 25, 2014 9:01 am Depends also what materials you are building with. I actually designed the layout on a free program called sweethome 3d so I could get a sense of what the house would look like and the relative sizes of everything. I found this invaluable as it allowed me to visually explain everything I wanted. For example, drawing kitchen layouts for cupboards, making fridge recesses, spacing things so layout is balanced etc. It also let me visualise colours too. My approach was very different to the standard approach. I paid a PPA 3 years back, got all the planning approvals and everything and then prestart followed by having all drawings perfected. This was all incorporated into the contract that I signed so I could keep tabs on spending. I wanted to get all of the costing done and not left to prestart as the usual approach means you are very emotionally invested by the time the costs come back. This is not to say I did not get taken on a number of items but on balance I still think I am getting a fair deal. It will work out about just under 20k per sq and the finish level will be above display home. The emails are pretty hard for the design phase and I actually went through a number of sales persons until finally it was easier to deal with the Operation Director as he understood what I wanted and we were mostly on the same page. Where are you overseas?? Re: Building a house from abroad 6Oct 25, 2014 11:59 am We are in Singapore. I will check out the design software, thanks. Hopefully my work allow me sometime to put my ideas out onto a visual draft. Excuse my lack of knowledge, what's a PPA? Based on your note, i supposed you went with a custom builder? Re: Building a house from abroad 7Oct 25, 2014 12:47 pm I am in Singapore too... I can give a number of tips... pm sent. Re: Building a house from abroad 8Oct 26, 2014 1:33 am Wow how great can that be! Give me some time, will be shooting questions your way!
Re: Building a house from abroad 9Oct 26, 2014 2:27 am Yep I sent you my contact details in a PM. Speak soon... Ciao Hi All It has been a few weeks since my last update. The build has been progressing well. No major issues to report. The scaffolding was dropped today, gyprock will be… 96 356941 Building a fence now will help limit people dumping rubbish and soil on your property. Many houses in suburbia on small lots have fences up before a build. I moved into a… 1 4390 No idea about the driveway question, but your price for a house that size including landscaping seems very good! 1 6158 |