Jackson Digney, managing director at Enduro Builders, explains why square metre rates don't work for home budgets. Start with a clear budget, preliminary plans, and detailed specs, then work with your builder and architect through a step-by-step process that includes a preliminary estimate within 15% of the final price and real-time cost tracking as designs change.
Did you know that coming up with an accurate cost on a new home is about way more than just applying a square meter rate to your ideal house? Are you aware that a well-designed home can actually be smaller and have more usable space than a poorly designed one? Hi, my name is Jackson Digney and I'm the managing director and builder at Enduro Builders. So how do you go about working out what you can build? You could say it's almost like baking a cake, except you get to fiddle with the recipe as you go about mixing until it's time for the oven. The ingredients any new home needs to get the ball rolling are: 1, your budget. This can either be the maximum you want to borrow or the amount you feel comfortable spending. Number 2, a set of preliminary plans. And number 3, a detailed specification and scope of work that has been costed using the plans and your budget as a reference point. The most affordable way to get to this stage is to start by meeting your builder and discussing what you want to build in terms of bedrooms, bathrooms, utility spaces, living spaces, garage spaces, finishings and fixtures you like and don't like. As well as the style of the home that you're after. This allows your builder to understand what you are after and offer advice on how this would work on your site in terms of orientation, house position, and overcoming or working with any site-specific issues. From this information, your builder can give you a budget range that they would expect your home to be built for, along with a fairly detailed list of inclusions and exclusions. This helps to confirm or alter your budget. The next step is the preliminary plans. A professional builder will offer you a preliminary services agreement. This is an agreement for design, documentation, and costing services for your new home. When you meet with an architect, the builder will have fully briefed them on what your requirements are. Based on his work, giving you a budget range. You can then work together as a team to develop your ideas into meaningful designs that can be built either for your budget or very close to it. The set of plans doesn't need to be perfect, just incredibly close and include all of the details you are looking to have in your new home. From this, your builder can provide a very detailed preliminary budget estimate. With all of this information gathered, you will have a clear idea of what you will have built and a cost to do that, which should be within about 15% of the final contract price. Why 15%? Because at this stage, you still need to complete a large amount of work with engineers, certifiers, and councils to uncover any additional costs that haven't been picked up yet. With all of the items in hand, you can then continue working on the design and budget alongside each other. This means that any design changes you make from this stage onwards are costed as you go. Your builder should be able to provide you with an online portal that gives you an up-to-date total cost as you work through the process of redesign and identifying all the little costs that are involved. This helps to reduce the likelihood of a price surprise later on. It also makes sure You are never locked into a building contract until you know all the costs to build. To find out what information you need to have before a genuine fixed-price contract can be offered, download our 16-point pre-contract checklist today. Click the link below to download it now.
