How much did the building cost per sqm for owner builder

Hi all,
I was wondering if you can share how much did it cost for you per sqm to build your house as owner builder? We are going to build a double story house in sydney and with getting all the quotes from sub contractors, it seems to cost us 1440 per sqm. We tried to reduce the cost as much as we can but seems we can’t get anything lower than this.
If you have any tips how we can save money would appreciate your advice. I know we can do some labouring jobs like cleaning the site and helping the subies. Did you paint the house yourselves and was it easy? Or any other jobs? Thanks.

How did you manage to work out the cost?

There are lots of little things you will have to supply and additional cost.

Brickies, chippies and Tilers will not supply material

Unless you have OB before or as a builder you can account for all these costs, i.e mortar, sand, bricks, doors, windows.

Even experienced builders get it wrong so I'm trying to figure out how you got your budget.

I'm owner building my 2nd home. The difference between standard cheap build and nicer or custom build can be more than double (without builders margin) so you have to compare apples with apples.

My role is to mainly project manage, order material, cleaning up the site.

Very little construction of the house itself with the exception of timber flooring and helping chippies install doors, windows etc.

As for painting, if you want a quality finish, pay someone to do it.

You can save money as a OB but only if you build a nicer than normal upgraded home. Your project builder can build you a basic bare bones house cheaper than you could as a OB.

I have a friend who's a builder and also, OB his own investment and got it down to less than $1000 sqm. Of course, being a builder and having a lot of connections saved him money.

Unfortunately, we're not in the same boat - my husband and I are not tradies. But what I've found helpful is having a project manager, who's cut down 20 - 50% of material and labour costs due to having so many connections and repeat work. So it could be worth investing in one.

Things that we're doing ourselves with a few tradie friends and our project manager include:

1. Insulation
2. Skirting boards
3. You can paint yourself but we're opting to pay someone. There are some very cheap tradies. My sister-in-law paid $4000 for a double storey house 2 coats including materials in Lane Cove, great quality job too. So we're deciding if it's it's worth doing ourselves or just getting the guys to do it.
4. Keep getting quotes from different companies.
5. Clip-in floor boards. If it's an investment property, I would opt for timber laminate you can get these cheap from $15-20psqm rather than tiling. We're still opting for timber floorboards which are waterproof for $25psqm, which is still much more reasonable than tiles.
6. Go to Harvey Norman VIP nights for appliances, we've saved 20% off all our small appliances and large plus got $800 worth of gift vouchers which we put back on the invoice. And they hold products for 12 - 18 months!

Painting a wall yourself is fairly easy as long as you do your research first. I painted the inside walls of my house myself while letting the professional painter do the outer walls and doors, door frames etc. It was however very tiring and also if you want to paint your inside walls yourself, I would suggest you still hire a professional to make sure that all the plaster are smooth and ready for painting. That bit is actually much harder than doing the painting.

Some good advice from diybuilderdee, however I don't agree with the above.

Sorry there is no way you can get a quality finish paint job for $4k including material for a double storey house.

Qaulity paint will cost more than $2k alone.

For a double storey house, you're looking at a min of $10k.

2 coats and great quality shouldn't be in the same sentence.

Timber flooring.

Timber floorboards are not water resistant, let alone waterproof.

(Real) Timber floorboards are no way near $25sqm.

I guess she meant laminate for $25 per sqm which is doable and it is probably water resistant too (to some extent, but certainly not water proof).

The only really waterproof timber I know would be marine teak plus pretty much most of the thermally modified timber (not sure if it is available in AU, but popular and widely available in Europe).

On a separate note, you can get some good quality engineered oak for around $50-60 per sqm if you look around hard enough.

I assume $50-60 does not include install costs? All the wood flooring I can find that includes installation, the glue, cleanup etc costs somewhere between $80/sqm to $140/sqm

Installation is on top, roughly $40-70 per sqm GST, depending on the method.

yeah so that sounds roughly the same range as all the prices I find.

That's what I initially thought too, but she said timber laminate was $15-20/sqm and she got timber flooring at $25/sqm.

Evaluating if an owner builder with a project manager is a good option for me. We are looking to build a home in south east suburbs of Melbourne. KDR. Whilst I have some building a renovating experience doing whole OB is risky and needs on site time which is difficult during the week.

Can anyone recommend a project manager that I can talk to and get a better understanding of what they can bring to the project as well as costs.

Thanks
AK

It all depends on how much experience and how much time you have, and how hard to try to find bargains.
Labour wise, unless you have existing connections, most likely you will be paying above average.
Finding a good project manager is not easy as well. Most likely your project manager will be your site manager/supervisor. This won't be cheap.
I have started my built and have a supervisor on board. He's referred to me by my frame supplier. The way we work is that I try to hunt for bargains for materials and define my needs. He'll use his connection to get trades for me. The good thing that got him interested and help me to save money is that my built is in a sense very unique that he is interested in helping to finished it off. I have told him how much I have on hand to play with. This is important, otherwise budget will blow at any time.
Currently I am sitting at approx. $1400 per sqm with good quality materials.

@snowing: we are about to start our OB construction in the SE suburb and thinking of engaging a site supervisor/manager too. Are you able to share your site manager's contact if you believe he's doing a good job?
thanks heaps
Tina