Category: Choosing a Builder

Guest Post by Hubert Dwight

If you are fortunate enough to have the opportunity to build your dream home, this can be a wonderful experience.

However, it is common for inexperienced homeowners to make lapses in their judgment when they are making decisions that are affecting the build of their home.

Below are a few common mistakes that we recommend avoiding when you are building ‘your dream home’.

Don’t Choose The Wrong Builder

It sounds obvious, but if you start off with the wrong builder, then you are on a course for disappointment.

Make sure you do thorough research on the builder that you are considering going with.

Find out as much information about the licenses that they hold and review the work that they have conducted over the last 12 months.

Find out as much as you can about the builder’s credibility to avoid falling into the trap of some building horror stories.

Additionally, you need to ensure that the builder’s team will communicate strongly with you .

The builder needs to convey that you can have confidence during the building process.

If you feel insecure about making a decision with going with a particular builder, follow your gut feeling and don’t go with them.

Don’t Just Focus On The Cheapest Option

Just as important as not choosing the wrong builder is automatically choosing the cheapest option.

Look into the details provided with the price to avoid any surprise costs that may arise in the future.

When looking into the details, find out as much information about the quality of the materials and building work that will be conducted.

If the quote sounds too good to be true, it possibly may be.

Check the details thoroughly!

Plan The Use Of Space Well

The impacts from the way the space is being used can be challenging.

Even though it may appear to be good on paper or in the display home, when you move into the home you will notice the convenience (or inconvenience) of the layout of the home.

These may include the following:

Kitchen Location

A kitchen that is placed a long way from the front door or garage can cause an inconvenience when the household goes on its routine grocery run.

Rather than making a shorter convenient trip, the kitchen may be placed in an inconvenient location when carrying heavy bags from the garage to the kitchen.

Toilet Location

You don’t want an unwanted elephant in the room (if you catch the drift!) Research and plan the toilet  to offer people privacy and to avoid any unwanted ‘shared experience’ that the toilet may offer.

Locations of Bedrooms

This is crucial if you want to make sure you get a good night’s sleep every night. Think carefully about the placement of the bedrooms in relation to external noise.

West facing bedrooms are best avoided as they can easily overheat on summer evenings.

You may want an infants bedroom to be close to yours, while teenage children may be better at the opposite end of the house!

Plan Natural & Artificial Lighting For A Well Lit Home

There’s nothing more annoying, and depressing, than being inside a badly lit house.

Plan to make as much use of natural light as possible.

Consult with your builder about how you can use windows, shutters  to control the natural lighting of the home.

Furthermore; ensure that the internal light installation will to keep rooms well lit in the evenings.

Should you want to adjust the lighting to change the ambiance, consider installing dimmers for your lighting needs.

 

Hopefully, these tips will help you to avoid making mistakes during the building phase of your dream home and will allow you to move in worry free.

Going into every Display Home the first person you see is the Builders Representative.

When talking to the representative it helps to understand a little about them, so here are some thoughts;

Pay

We all work for money but the Representative’s conditions of employment might be a fair bit different to you.

• Most Representatives will receive minimal, or even no basic pay.
• Their commission on each sale will be several thousand of dollar, but they may not get it for months.
• Although they may get a partial payment for your initial signature they usually won’t be paid the full amount until the slab goes down.

This means their main driver is to get you committed as soon as possible. . . . So don’t be rushed. Take your time to understand exactly what you are buying. (The current ‘Limited Offer‘ will be replaced by a different offer of similar value)

Priorities

Because of the way the rep is paid their main interest will be in people who are committed to buying a house rather than ‘Tyre Kickers’.

If you don’t:

• Own a block, or
• Want a ‘House and Land Package’ or,
• Already talked to a mortgage provider, and know your budget

Just tell them “you are starting to look at houses”, take some brochures, and have a look around.

When you have a good idea of what you want, and just as important ‘How Much Can You Afford’ then make an appointment to go back.

It’s probably best to do this midweek when it will be quieter and your children will be at school.

Length of Employment

Because of the lack of a basic wage, weekend work, and the wait for commission, turnover of representatives can be high.

This means that it’s really important to make sure that all offers, and agreements, are clearly put down in writing.

You don’t want to get further down the track arguing for an upgrade that was verbally agreed by someone who you are then told is now an ex-employee.

 

See ‘Choosing a Builder’ for more posts

Or my Guide to Choosing a House which also contains lots of useful checklists for only $4.
 

If you are new to thinking about having a new house built you may have  heard the term ‘Project Home Builder’ and wondered what it means.

Project Home Builders base their business on building large numbers of houses using a limited range of designs.

By cutting down on the proportion of individual design input on each house, and the ability to negotiate bulk discounts, they can build houses at a significantly lower cost than would be otherwise possible.

Because of the cost they are a very popular way of having a house in Australia. I have even heard self builders say they couldn’t build a house as cheaply as a ‘Project Builder’.

Customisation

Although Project builders work on a limited number of designs there is still a fair amount of Customisation possible.

Externally customisation options include:

• Different facades (Most builders offer at least 2 facades styles for each design)
• Choice of bricks or render
• Choice of different Roof Tiles or Metal Roof
• Handing (Building a mirror image)
• Changing window sizes

Internally it is normally possible to make some modifications to floor plans such as enclosing rooms, adding doors and making some rooms bigger by making others smaller. Some Project Builders are more accommodating than others when it comes to making internal changes.

Drawbacks.

As each builders offer you a limited set of home plans you may get good reports about a builder.. . .  but if you don’t like their range of plans…you’ll need to go elsewhere.

Project Home Builder’s designs are mainly suitable for flat, rectangular blocks. If your block slopes, or is an awkward shape the costs can quickly escalate. For really awkward sites many Project Home Builders may even refuse to build.

Finding a Project Builder

Just visit one or more local ‘Display Villages’ and you will find several project builders. Just understand when you go around the houses that each ‘Display House’ has lots of expensive extras not included the standard priced house.

For more advice see the ‘anewhouse Guide to Choosing a House’