Jackson Digney from Enduro Builders walks through the five stages of building a custom home, which typically takes 18 months. The biggest pitfall: delayed costing that blindsides you with budget shock. Red flags include builders without a clear design process, no online schedule access, or inability to show current projects.
Do you want to build a custom home, but you're not thinking of moving in for 18 months or so? Did you know it can take that long to get your design, budgeting, approvals, and construction done? Hi, my name is Jackson Digney, and I'm the Managing Director and builder at Enduro Builders. Building a new home is all about looking to the end result you want and working backwards through the steps required to get there. Designing, From costing, council approvals, and construction of your new home takes a lot longer than you might think. Today we share with you our timeline to construction and highlight the areas where this timeline can grow unless you are working with a professional builder. We break up this timeline to completion of your home into 5 stages. Stage 1, initial site meeting and preliminary design, usually takes about 8 weeks. This stage is where it all begins and you get your first glimpse at the realities of having your custom home built. During this stage, You will be meeting with builders and picking your preferred one, accepting their preliminary building agreement, carrying out soil tests and contour surveys, meeting with the builder's designers and discussing your design, and developing a preliminary design to your liking. If you meet with a builder and they don't have a firm process for the design and council approval of your home, this is a big warning sign. If they can't organize the design and council approval, how will they go building your home? Stage 2. Estimating and lodging for planning approval. This stage is where we get serious about costs and what is actually required for building your home, and what you want included and excluded. Now I'll let you in on a little secret. Often this gets left to last, so the budget shock comes at the end of the process after you have spent significant amounts of money on design. So look out for builders or designers who want to leave accurate, detailed costing for later. What happens in this stage is you get your initial price subject to engineering and selections. You get access to your builder's online portal system to view and discuss options and inclusions. You have engineering carried out for the footings and timber framing so that these costs can be accurately accounted for. Your builder updates your pricing and inclusions so you know exactly where your budget is sitting. Stage 3, planning approval and selections. Duration, usually 12 weeks. This is the stage you make your selections as your home goes through the council approval process. While this is happening, we achieve the following milestones. We get granting of planning approval. Your selections of fittings, fixtures, and finishes are carried out and any price adjustments made in your builder's online portal. Your builder has the energy rating finalized, private certification carried out on your home, and final council and statutory fees paid in order to gain full building approval. Stage 4 is contract and bank approval. This is it, you're nearly there. Your builder has all the information they need to give you a firm, fixed price quote, no hidden extras, no missing items. At this stage, you can receive your final quote and sign a contract with your builder. Your builder will then be able to provide the bank pack to get your final construction loan in order to pay your deposit and lock in your start date. Stage 5, construction. This stage usually takes 6 to 9 months, and you're able to monitor and be informed of progress via your builder's online project management system. The same one you've been using from the start. If your builder doesn't offer this system, it's a warning sign that they aren't organized. We have 3 hot tips for you to look out for with any builder when building. Tip 1, does your builder insist on meeting with you regularly on site? If not, this is a big red flag. Tip 2, does your builder give you 24/7 online access to his project schedule? Tip 3, Is your builder happy to show you projects he is currently working on? So if you are thinking of building a custom-designed home, you need to make sure that you factor in the design and documentation time to ensure that you move in when you want to. To help you pick the right builder for your custom home, we've put together a handy guide of 7 things to ask your builder before you sign a contract. Click the link below to download it right now.
