How to Save Money Building Your Custom Designed Home
This is a really good question and one we get asked quite frequently at New Home Building Brokers. Our advice to anyone building is to control the building process as much as possible and this starts with understanding everything involved in building a home on the block you already own or are potentially purchasing.
Orientation to North
Some blocks of land don’t always face the ideal direction to allow the living areas in the home to maximise the northern sun exposure. Understanding this upfront before you even start the home design is important to enable you to have enough budget to get the home to a 7-star rating. Don’t find this out after signing with a builder and as a rule, it always costs you a lot more money to get the home design to comply to the NCC standards. If you don’t get this right, you will pay so much in energy costs every day.
Design Budgets
Architects and Designers are not estimators or schedulers, they are talented residential designers. So why would you let them control the budget upfront? Keep the budget to yourself or use an independent party to help you do a build cost estimate to keep you on track early on. At NHBB we have market leading tools that allows you to control the cost upfront before you have even picked a designer or architect in Perth.
Copyright
Never let a builder or anybody draw you up a house design, without having it in writing upfront that the copyright of this design will remain with you “the owner”. Home Designs are not free and if you have it drawn for free, you will have lost the ability to get an apple for apples costing from other builders. This is what builders want you to do so they can take you out of the market. Key point, the better the design quality the better the pricing from the builders.
Addenda’s & Specification
These documents allow for you to know exactly what you are getting from each builder.
A one-page specification document is a trap and if you sign this you will pay more for the home going forward from our experience. Never fall for the promotions offered by builders and end of month sales pitch closes by sales reps. Remember nothing is for free, all the promised free upgrades and double bubble items do cost eventually and have to be allowed in the price at some point.
These are only a few points and we have many others that we have shared with our clients We have over 125 real testimonials who can tell you what we saved them like these wonderful clients. https://nhbb.com.au/testimonials/knock-down-rebuild-sorrento
Like to know how we can save you money in building a new custom luxury home in Perth or residential development, contact the team today.
About the Author
Tristan Kirkham | Managing Director
Tristan has managed some of Australia’s major building companies, both project and private. His committment to customer service and providing market leading communication product for the home building industry has led to a role as regular Judge in the HIA Green Smart, HIA Kitchen & Bathroom Awards and the major Housing Awards. Winning multiple awards throughout his career in the housing industry, he is dedicated to improving the industry standards and practices. Tristan's vision is to provide a better way to build homes for all parties.