Building in Brissy- Custom Design

[Nona]

We are looking at building in Herston, an inner city suburb of Brisbane. We have 2 lots of land (350sqm sloping) on 2 titles, with a post war house stradling the 2. One house, over looking a park would be a PPOR in the future and the other an executive rental or short term accommodation (very close to hospital).

I haven't had anything built before so thought I'd gauge some more experienced people's thoughts. I have been talking to builders (Civic Steel, Evermore, Design Build) and they all seem great and of similar cost sqm (starting at $1,500sqm). These builders offer a one stop shop from design, council approval through to completed house which is good for us being so time poor.

However, I have issues with the same builder designing the house and owning the rights to the design. Also, if I used a building designer I would have the drawing/ elevations etc to tender the job and perhaps get it done cheaper. I'm in two minds about this also as I don't want a cheap and nasty build either.

What is usually done for custom built homes?- one stop shop builders or going to tender) Any ideas for good builders and building designers?

Any thoughts and ideas greatly appreciated.

 

[BlueRidgeHomes]

Good evening Nona,

Herston is a great location - well done on the acquisition, have you already settled on the purchase of the property?

Kind regards

Meg

 

[Nona]

Hi Meg,
Thanks, we love the area and yes we own the property.
Thanks
Fiona

 

[soyabean]

Hi Nona, we have built a number of times.
Always have had our own design and went out for tender.
The spec needs to be quite detailed otherwise it's hard to compare quotes. It takes some effort to provide a decent quote so only builders who are really interested and believe they could win the tender would respond.
Unfortunaterly the builder who built for us in Bris has retired so can't refer.

Builtex design & construction was the 2nd on the list I think they build quite decent houses. You could google them.

 

[Nona]

Thanks Soyabean,

Will check Builtex out. Hoe does one go to tender these days- do u post to select builders or is there a internet portal/website you can submit a tender ?
Thanks

 

[soyabean]

We did it quite manually. We researched (yellow page, net, local papers) a number of builders who are specialised in custom design-houses, rang them and went looking at houses they had built or in the process of being built, and ticked those we thought Ok.
Then we sent them our spec. We sent out to about 6, 7 builders .
Some builders did not respond as may be they had better fish to fry, got 4 quotes back but 2 we could see they just did a very rough estimate (and hence the quotes are high).

As for the floor plan etc, we draw our own on paper and got a draftman to draw up for us, with an engineer to do all the technical design stuff. Much cheaper than hiring architect and got full control.
Did try to use an architect once. Not good experience. The one we dealt with was quite arrogant, we told him what we wanted but he ignored most and came up with his design which did not suit our needs. Waste of time for us.

 

[Sailesh Channan]

What a great location Nona. If you intend living in one of the houses then the design can would normally be done according to your personal taste.

We have just completed a luxury home in Cashmere for a client where we worked off an initial sketch then we used an artist to further enhance the design once the client was happy with the layout and artists impressions of the elevations we then used a draftsman to complete the working drawings. The initial sketches only cost around $500.00.

Our cost to build was around $1300/sqm and it was for a turnkey finish. The inclusions where pool, retaining walls, floor to ceiling tiles in bathrooms, spa, 600x600 tiles to living areas, sound proofed theater room, bar, Bosch appliances, granite bench tops, 2pac kitchen and vanities, intercom, vacuum maid and the list goes on. Being a large home (550sqm) the cost per sqm is be lower due to large open areas. Therefore, a smaller home with the same inclusions could cost more per sqm.