Browse Forums Building A New House Re: Site costs - Established area 7Feb 25, 2008 8:09 pm Have you thought of selling the old house to one of those removal homes places, instead of having it demolished?
most of those places will take it away and pay you! So that way you get a clear site and some extra pocket money for those little extras. Re: Site costs - Established area 8Feb 25, 2008 8:16 pm Draconis - One of the other forum members mentioned this - Golden age homes I think they are called. Will definatly give them a call about the house if we decide to buy the land, however, by the looks of the house I doubt they would want it Re: Site costs - Established area 9Feb 26, 2008 7:23 am haywgl What exactly is fill? And is there any way I can know if the land has this prior to purchasing? Yes. Have a soil test done. You can make an offer on the land "subject to soil tests satisfactory to the purchaser". This will then give you a couple of weeks to have a soil test done and get the results. A soil test costs about $300. Simon Building an architect designed home out of Insulated Concrete Forms on acreage in semi-rural SE Melbourne. Developer approval obtained, engineering complete, getting quotes Re: Site costs - Established area 11Feb 26, 2008 10:36 am hi,
I would say that it is very difficult to estimate site costs without having a block. We bought a knock down house(also in the inner West Melb) and had no idea that the house was basically sitting on a big hole with at least 6m of fill. We signed with a builder, paid our money completly naive about site costs. The site costs came back as $80K!!!! We nearly died! We had budgeted $20K. Mind you I think they had jacked up the site costs as they didn't want to build there. I would be VERY VERY cautious about the big builders AVJ, M******, H3*L3Y etc in established areas. The impression we got was that the big builders were only really interested in building in new estates, everything else was just too hard and not really worth their while. We have signed with another smaller builder, downgraded our plans to single story and are about to tear down the house this week. We will not know the full site costs till they start work. It is a real gamble but basically this is our only option (besides selling and trying to find another house). The deal that we have struck with our builder is that they will charge us their site costs +10%. At least that way we know that site costs will be genuine and not inflated for their profit. I don't know about getting a soil test done before hand esp on an existing developed block - they are totally within their rights to refuse - it is a fairly invasive test and leaves holes in their yard. We got a soil test done to 6m (standard test only goes to 3m) and it cost us about $800. You can try to get that in your contract but don't bet on it. Btw demolition shouldn't cost you much more than $15K tops. Our house is TOTALLY asbestos, and they are having to take it apart by hand - no bulldozing and we are looking at approx $13K Good luck finding an old house on a decent block - they are going for a premium if the unit developers don't get them first! Re: Site costs - Established area 12Feb 26, 2008 10:38 am hi,
I would say that it is very difficult to estimate site costs without having a block. We bought a knock down house(also in the inner West Melb) and had no idea that the house was basically sitting on a big hole with at least 6m of fill. We signed with a builder, paid our money completly naive about site costs. The site costs came back as $80K!!!! We nearly died! We had budgeted $20K. Mind you I think they had jacked up the site costs as they didn't want to build there. I would be VERY VERY cautious about the big builders AVJ, M******, H3*L3Y etc in established areas. The impression we got was that the big builders were only really interested in building in new estates, everything else was just too hard and not really worth their while. We have signed with another smaller builder, downgraded our plans to single story and are about to tear down the house this week. We will not know the full site costs till they start work. It is a real gamble but basically this is our only option (besides selling and trying to find another house). The deal that we have struck with our builder is that they will charge us their site costs +10%. At least that way we know that site costs will be genuine and not inflated for their profit. I don't know about getting a soil test done before hand esp on an existing developed block - they are totally within their rights to refuse - it is a fairly invasive test and leaves holes in their yard. We got a soil test done to 6m (standard test only goes to 3m) and it cost us about $800. You can try to get that in your contract but don't bet on it. Btw demolition shouldn't cost you much more than $15K tops. Our house is TOTALLY asbestos, and they are having to take it apart by hand - no bulldozing and we are looking at approx $13K Good luck finding an old house on a decent block - they are going for a premium if the unit developers don't get them first! Re: Site costs - Established area 13Feb 26, 2008 11:54 am Our site costs are near $50,000 - Metricon quoted $40,000 and a custom builder built it into his overall price and that was about $100,000 more for the finished product. We are building in existing suburbia. I do feel anxious sometimes but even with the $50,000 in there it is a reasonable price overall. Fi has moved in!! Re: Site costs - Established area 14Feb 26, 2008 12:56 pm Kerrie - Wow! 80K no wonder you almost died!! Thats a huge difference, one of the troubles of building in an established area hey? I have spoken to M'con and they said they build in Newport, whereas other companies like PD told me flat out no. I have since enquired with M if they charge extra for building in our area..waiting for a reply.... i agree with you though that I doubt the owners will allow me to drill holes in their garden...we just have to decide whether to take a gamble...like you I am petrified of finding the worst once the house is removed...
Brittany - $40k I could probably squeeze into my budget as I have overestimated other items like demolition, air con, flooring but I really wouldn't want to go much over.... I drove past and lookd at the house again, I have noticed it has a large concrete driveway right up the side of the house and also more concrete running from the front of the house into some of the front yard...would I be right in assuming this might mean the house has been built on a concrete slab? Do people think this is more likely to reduce the amount of fill/slope in the land and hopefully reduce site costs? Re: Site costs - Established area 15Feb 26, 2008 6:56 pm We'll also build in an established area with a volume builder, and we just got our final costing yesterday and the site cost comes down to $24,000. big chunk of it goes to concrete piering totalling $10,700. This cost includes cut and fill, restricted site surcharge (apparently tradies charge extra because they have to carry the building materials by hand because of the existing neighbouring properties), slab upgrade, etc, etc.
According to the soil test report, the costs to build in an established area are generally more expensive because the soil has been "disturbed" because of the existence of the old house and the demolition. Start: 15 May 08, Current: Handover inspection 19/09 after that, the house is ours!! Visit our blog: http://loveourgerbera.blogspot.com/ Re: Site costs - Established area 16Feb 26, 2008 7:03 pm haywgl Kerrie - Wow! 80K no wonder you almost died!! Thats a huge difference, one of the troubles of building in an established area hey? I have spoken to M'con and they said they build in Newport, whereas other companies like PD told me flat out no. I have since enquired with M if they charge extra for building in our area..waiting for a reply.... i agree with you though that I doubt the owners will allow me to drill holes in their garden...we just have to decide whether to take a gamble...like you I am petrified of finding the worst once the house is removed... Hi Haywgl, We were also take a gamble wehn we purchased our land. we didn't do a soil test before hand. Worse case scenario if none of the volume builder wants to build on your property is to go with private builder. Besides with your budget, i don't think you'll have any problem building with private builder. Just bear in mind to get a fairly flat land we thought our land was flat too with the old house on it but the survey revealed that it was slightly sloping luckily not much though. good luck!! Start: 15 May 08, Current: Handover inspection 19/09 after that, the house is ours!! Visit our blog: http://loveourgerbera.blogspot.com/ Re: Site costs - Established area 17Feb 26, 2008 7:12 pm Thanks for that build_build....I hope we can make the right choice - its such a tough decision, I hope my site costs are like yours, they sound pretty reasonable considering..can I ask who you are building with and what area? (If you don't mind of course)
I initially thought I was being good budgeting $30k but I think we might be more around $50k. Yep the land definatly looks flat with the house on it, you would think you could tell if it had a slope wouldn't you Ah the joys of building Re: Site costs - Established area 18Feb 26, 2008 9:24 pm haywgl Thanks for that build_build....I hope we can make the right choice - its such a tough decision, I hope my site costs are like yours, they sound pretty reasonable considering..can I ask who you are building with and what area? (If you don't mind of course) I initially thought I was being good budgeting $30k but I think we might be more around $50k. Yep the land definatly looks flat with the house on it, you would think you could tell if it had a slope wouldn't you Ah the joys of building we're building in mt. waverley with b***bank, a single storey house about 29 squares I guess site cost will vary greatly between builders. Someone mention on another discussion thread about site cost earlier in this forum that this is how the builder make money.... i just hope that's not the case if yes, we're all being ripped off Start: 15 May 08, Current: Handover inspection 19/09 after that, the house is ours!! Visit our blog: http://loveourgerbera.blogspot.com/ CDC Housing Code 3 When to apply Floor Area external face of wall vs Gross Floor Area internal face of wall. Reading thru CDC Housing Code 3, lets take a lot 915sqm.… 0 16413 I am not sure whether Perth has its own way of doing things in regards to this. Most of Perth has class A (sandy soil), except for some areas near rivers or hills. 2 12981 Is anyone building with Mojo and have a recent site cost tender 0 15906 |