Advice sought:
- Thoughts on the design/orientation? (Pic Below)
- Thoughts on the builders?
- general feedback about costings and price increases as you go through the process
- general feedback of anything you think is relevant!
I have recently decided to build in the inner north in Canberra and am choosing between a volume builder and a custom builder. I'm a first time home buyer/builder and have read a whole bunch of forums with a heap of useful advice, so would appreciate it if you could provide any of your thoughts on the below.
Two Builders:
Builder one:
- Rawson Homes
- Eden 27 - Likely expanded by one meter in length and width - making garage bigger too and adding additional linen cupboards. Picture below (have not included upgrades - but the general layout wont change, it will just be expanded)
- Status - paid 1.5k for site survey and soil tests/awaiting quote (non refundable/but happy to walk away if I am not happy with contract/pricing etc).
- General thoughts so far - Best volume builder in terms of customer interaction and consistency. Spent some time with other volume builders in the area and wasn't very impressed - mainly as individual sales people contradicted themselves in regards to pricing and what was achievable. Rawson (Rad - out at Googong) made pricing and additional allowances pretty simple to understand/also feel like he has our best interest at heart - either that or he is just that good of a salesman. All in all we expect to pay roughly 450-500k for our build once we have added all the things on that we want to add. We are trying to keep it around 450k so we can get landscaping completed at a later stage.
- Concerns:
Quality of build. Right now our interaction has been very good from a sales perspective, we have viewed display homes, but we're concerned that attention detail will be lacking. I have also read that people think that these homes look cheap etc.
Site issues: We are building in a developed suburb and have site "joys" that we have to content with (more below) . Concern is that a volume builder wont be best positioned to deal with this.
Orientation/Design. We are concerned about getting natural light. Our fear is that using a "cookie cutter" design wont take into consideration the solar orientation and we will live in a dark house - natural light is important.
Cost: We have already getting quoted for a number of "luxury" and "prestige"" packages and left allowances for electrical etc - but we are concerned about going into the Rawson colour studio and finding that the selections are inadequate, and we have to spend another 50k to get something that doesn't look cheap/tacky.
Builder two:
- Classic constructions
- Custom design - need to pay $5k to sit down with an architect to get the most out of the site, draw up a design and get an initial quote.
- status - considering paying 5k and kicking off this process.
- General thoughts so far - They seem to have good reviews and I was impressed with their display home and their sales representative (Peter). My gut feeling is that they can potentially do what we want, but we wont have the budget to do higher end finishes. I also believe they will get more from the site and be better (more invested) at resolving site issues and dealing with bespoke problems. Whereas at Rawson's I am just a number.
Concerns:
- Starting this process - I am already at the quote stage with Rawsons, starting this process will cost 5k and likely in excess of 3-6 months to design; in which time I am paying rent and a mortgage (land only - so not too bad).
- Cost increasing - Sales agent thinks they can do roughly what I want and showed me some similar designs and their contracts which seemed to prove they could. My concern is that I spend 5k and they say "yeah its going to be too tight, maybe you should settle for a build without a study, or maybe 3 bedrooms instead of 4" - by that stage I've spent 5k. If I walk from Rawsons I'm loosing 1.5k, which I'm ok with; but 5k is starting to push my limits for an exploratory understanding of what is possible. I am also concerned about running out of money when we sit down with the interior designer - additional prices outside of contract. I feel like we will be able to achieve the physical building, but have no extra money to upgrade anything from the standard inclusions - therefore have a cheaper feeling (but better orientated/designed/built?) house.
The Design:
General desires:
- Looking to keep the cost under 500k for the house, driveway and some basic landscaping
- Looking for:
- 4x Bedrooms [ul]
- master at the front of house away from the other 3 rooms
- master to have a large WIR and a good sized en-suite
Site Challenges/"Joys"
- Block size is limited - 633m
- Slope - 1.5 m slope away from the road. First .5m is within the first 6 m of the property - therefore a slope of ~1m for the build area.
- Regulated tree at front - limits moving driveway to the southern side. We like the tree and have no plans on removing it (we also doubt we could get removal approved from the council)
- Power pole at the back northern corner. We are therefore perusing a design that gives us some stand off distance from the alfresco to the power pole. Otherwise we feel like we will be having a bbq 5m from an ugly giant mental pole - not ideal
Many thanks!
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