Knockdown & Rebuild vs Renovation

Sure thing. Thanks for your feedback. One company did give a rough starting point of about $700k. But the other two said about $800k-900k would probably be more 'reasonable'.

Ideally, the house should have 6 bedrooms and 3-5 wet areas (bathrooms/ensuites/shower/powder room). That's the aim anyway.

Will keep you all posted.

You're right in that that quotes aren't from volume builders. The quotes (or at this stage estimates) are from custom home builders.

From what we've seen of volume builders that we are aware of:

1. The bigger homes require a bigger frontage (i.e. >= 10m). Our frontage is less than that. It's about 9m or so.
2. Based on that, we can't really 'plonk' the plans that we've seen.
3. From what we've seen, all the bigger plans are rectangular. To maximise our block, we need something that's kinda "L" shaped.
4. The bigger floor plans also have ensuites in every room. This is not something that we want.
5. We also want 2 bedrooms with ensuites downstairs. And again, none of the plans I've seen caters for this.
6. That and the previous point means 'significant' changes as we would naturally like to use those spaces differently.

Rightly or wrongly, we think a custom build will better maximise our block. But if there's an opportunity to save 200k and get what we want, I'm all for it. So if there's any recommendation of volume builders that I should check out, do let me know.

Thanks again in advance.

BTW, what is the value of your land? If you spend 800-900k on building, add on to the land value, would it be over value? Assuming the land value is 800k, and you spend 800k on building a house, do u think the house would worth 1.6mill?

Hi Mscat.

I've come across Englehart in my initial searches but not Highview home. With regards to Highview home, as lovely as it is, it doesn't suit us. What I mean is that we prefer a more modern/contemporary looking house. We like to look at the Victorian / Hampton style homes but not live in one. I did see they have a petite version .

Another thing that we want to try and do is not to stand out as much as possible. Our current estate hosts the modern townhouse brick-render look. Say if we opt for Highview, we would immediately be a standout - due to such a stark contrast.

So that narrows the companies we communicate with.

Regarding overcapitalisation, that's a great point. I need to look up our rates to see the land value. But that aside, in our conversations we are pretty convinced that if we do KDR on this site, we will leave it only when carted out in a box. Sure things change, and life doesn't always go the way we expect.

That being the case, we are trying to ensure that whatever we are building, will be an easy sell as well. Work in progress definitely but it's a timely reminder from you about it. So appreciate it.

If you (others) have any builders that you've considered do continue to share it. Thank you.

So r u going to build on a stump or concrete slab? Most builder just use concrete slab now. I prefer stump, the reason is if you want to renovate or changing layout or fixing wiring/ plumbing, would be easier and lot cheaper. I wish mind were on a stump.

I'm building with a custom builder (Como Homes) myself in VIC. All of the custom builders (except Latitude 37) quoted me in the region of $15-16k per square, all up. Which is why I think your quotes of $800-900k seem a bit excessive.

Have a read of my brief reviews of the 4 custom builders and the 1 volume builder I had approached: viewtopic.php?p=1828658#p1828658, and maybe one of them will suit you too.

The $ per square is a way to estimate and compare cost of the overall build, and averages out all the areas in the house.

Obviously the wet areas and the kitchen will cost a lot more $ per square than say the living area or hallway, with the garage costing the least.

Most certainly. I've already picked up great things from this thread so far. Hoping that if I keep sharing, others can pick at it and pick up on things for their own journey.

Good question. But I don't have the answers yet. I've recently completed a site investigation and I'm trying to make sense of the report. I'll definitely be paying a lot of attention to our foundations should we proceed - especially given the issues we already have with the current property. I do not want a repeat - more so if we are starting from scratch.

Justme15
The best professional to review your Site and structural Data is an Engineer, the sooner the better!
BTW, The Councils Building department will tell you that, no certified engineering, no building permits
IMO, Hiring another independent Architect in parallel who is not qualified to review the Geotech/engineering, is a waste of $50K OT... Opinions should be based on trusted Data and Proofs, not Architects renderings. hth