Things you arranged outside of the builder

Hi Guys,

Soon-to-be first time home builders in Perth and we are leaning towards a smaller custom builder. I've spoken to the builder and he is happy to provide access to tradespeople of our choice for things like flooring and painting. We also intend to do concrete and landscaping ourselves. What other things should we consider doing ourselves to save the "builder's margin"? Where did you save and did you save a lot?

Thanks in advance

wardrobes, solar, air con (if you wish), landscaping, render,
Things like alarms are easier done while building as the wiring is quicker
Flooring is double edge sword

Thanks for the reply. Can you elaborate on your flooring comment please? We chatted again with the builder yesterday - he prefers to do the wet room tiling but suggests it would be easy enough for us to do carpets and the main flooring. He also suggests they do the painting so there is never any dispute down the road if cracks appear etc

Personally I would get the builder to do the flooring. It’s is a hassle as a some trades may have to return to fix skirting joinery kickers etc.
I did everything turnkey including driveway And front gate through them. Simply due to lack of time on my part

1. Floor: Tile, Timber, Carpet
2. Painting
3. Air-con
4. Additional Lighting and power point (electrical work)
5. Window Treatments
6. Landscaping
7. CCTV Wiring

Problem with flooring is that the builder will quote carpets and they will be the cheapest they could find. There is a lot of choice from expensive timber to engineered timber, stick-together hybrid planks, glued vinyl planks, tiles and "stones". Once you know what you want, you can ask the builder to quote and a retailer to quote with the precise area and model no.

It took us a long time to know what we wanted and we stuck to 6.5mm timber-look-alike hybrid planks with a 1.5mm plastic underlay. Cost of about $8,000 or about $56/m2. Trevor's Carpet in Perth wanted to be paid in full on the day BEFORE installation as people no longer pay up after losing jobs and legislation allows defaulters to keep the carpet, so they did not get my job, besides, once told of a competitors quote, they dropped the cost by $10/m2.