Advice please on homebuyers the builders

[Guest Soph and Ju]

Looking into building our own house and trying to determine the best builders out there. hoping to get a plot of land in butler, though demand for it atm is crazy! have had few meetings with homebuyers re building a house as they seem to be around our price range of $150...starting to find them very pushy trying to get us to sign on the dotted line and hand over a deposit...has anyone used them? What were they like? Any hidden costs we should be wary of as we are on a very strict budget. wanted to go keystart to help us afford to pay rent and build but homebuyers finance broker has told us keystart wont lend us enought money to build so we have to go through a bank!? they seemed to want to put us off using keystart. can anyone recommend any other good first home builders around the $150, max $160 mark?

[Guest adey]

First of all Keystart no longer use brokers so you may be better off approaching them direct and seeing what they will lend you, they have tightened down their lending over the last year (as have most of the banks) but remember with Keystart they are a govt led and take quite a long time to get your finance in place. They will be able to advise you of the timescales and make sure you understand the terms and the costs of repaying them their part of the loan on any capital made during the time you live in the house. They also insist on the house being completed including window treatments, flooring etc so they will expect you to do this via the builder to ensure that once the house is built you can move in straight away (this can be expensive as the builder charges you more and will only use certain suppliers). They will review your earnings/income on an annual basis and expect you to pay any savings you've got into the loan to reduce it as quickly as possible, not sure if they really do this but their paperwork says that they do.

 

We built with Dale Alcocks and Homebuyers are part of that group and we had no issues with them, yes they are pushy for the sale as they rely on commission for their salaries and have high sales targets but don't be pushed into a sale shop around and see who can offer you the best deal and the house that best suits your needs. Research it as best you can to include all the additional costs as we were shocked with our final outlay and we shopped around as much as possible for the extras we needed.

 

The pitfalls of building, as we found out, were that there are lots of hidden costs even though they tell you there aren't

 

1 they only put those funny lights in (the ones that look like chinese hats) and if you want to change the lights you'll either have to buy those screw on fixtures or have to pay an electrician to change the fittings as light fittings are different to the UK and you just can't buy a new light shade and unless you are a competent sparky then officially in WA you need a qualified electrician to put up your lights

 

2 you'll have to paint the walls yourself as they leave plain plaster and don't pay them to do it as they will charge you much more than a decorator, you will also have to seal the walls first to stop the plaster cracking and damp (apparently). Paint is very expensive, or we thought so, so this added quite a lot to our build costs

 

3 you'll only have sand as a garden so check out turfing costs and costs for putting down slabs or bricks for your outdoor areas (cheaper again most probably to do it yourselves rather than pay builder)

 

4 window treatmeants (curtains/blinds) can be very expensive so price them up and see if your windows will be standard sizes so you can buy ready made blinds and put them up yourselves, ours weren't standard size so we had to pay for a blind company to make them and put them in

 

5 flooring wont be put down either so get a price for the flooring you'll need for each room, otherwise you'll just have a concrete floor full of dust

 

It took us about an extra 4 weeks after handover before we physically moved in as we had all the work done before so our furniture wasn't in the way. Don't get me wrong we enjoyed building our own home but to be honest don't think we'd do it again as we had to rent for an extra 10 months and if we'd bought an established house most of these things would have already been done and we could have changed them as we went along but enjoyed our home instead of a rental. Plus if you build now you'll get smaller lots than a few years ago so you may find an established house is actually bigger and you'll get more land/garden and land is what keeps the cost of the property up not the house thats sitting on it!?!?

 

Good luck with whatever you choose just research, research, research for the best financial option for yourselves.

 

We started building in 2007 and our house is now worth less than our total spend which is a bit of a gutter, then again 2007 was the height of the boom so maybe you won't find thats the case now.

 

Sarah

[Guest adey]

also don't forget the costs of buying the land and once you've bought it you will pay shire rate from that date. Contact a local Settlement Agent who will be able to tell you the costs involved in buying land.

[Guest Soph and Ju]

Thanks so much for your reply, really helpful we knew a few of the things you pointed out as we have started doing lots of research, didnt know about paying shire rates when you have built the land - any idea how much that costs? and is it right you have to pay this settlement person or something?? Blimey, there is sooo much to take in with building - we arent really in a position to buy established as they banks wont lend us enough money so our only option has become to build. Contacted keystart and they wont lend us enough money either so cant use them at all started to worry whether building/buying is even a good idea and we should just rent forever after reading a post on her about the property bubble and house prices crashing!!?? Thanks so much for your time and sending a great reply x

[Mongrel]

Looking into building our own house and trying to determine the best builders out there. hoping to get a plot of land in butler, though demand for it atm is crazy! have had few meetings with homebuyers re building a house as they seem to be around our price range of $150...starting to find them very pushy trying to get us to sign on the dotted line and hand over a deposit...has anyone used them? What were they like? Any hidden costs we should be wary of as we are on a very strict budget. wanted to go keystart to help us afford to pay rent and build but homebuyers finance broker has told us keystart wont lend us enought money to build so we have to go through a bank!? they seemed to want to put us off using keystart. can anyone recommend any other good first home builders around the $150, max $160 mark?

 

Where abouts you buyin duck , they have just released 10 plots back of us , the others Brighton Junction is more ridgewood as me and Kanga |Bruce were talkin about , there will be more available soon to the side and in front , Homebuyers are building a lot of off the peg units on Benendon but they are small , pm me if you need any info , I suggest the broker is bull, keystart is long winded but its worth it if you have a small deposit like we did . Homestart use keystart , it all depends on the size of house you want and the block size thats the first criteria obviously cottage blocks are narrowe lots and cheaper ,the blocks up here have gone up since we bought a h &l in november , most of the builders have a range of prices but be aware they are not display spec ,make sure you f9ind what you are gettin in the price

[Mongrel]

First of all Keystart no longer use brokers so you may be better off approaching them direct and seeing what they will lend you, they have tightened down their lending over the last year (as have most of the banks) but remember with Keystart they are a govt led and take quite a long time to get your finance in place. They will be able to advise you of the timescales and make sure you understand the terms and the costs of repaying them their part of the loan on any capital made during the time you live in the house. They also insist on the house being completed including window treatments, flooring etc so they will expect you to do this via the builder to ensure that once the house is built you can move in straight away (this can be expensive as the builder charges you more and will only use certain suppliers). They will review your earnings/income on an annual basis and expect you to pay any savings you've got into the loan to reduce it as quickly as possible, not sure if they really do this but their paperwork says that they do.

 

We built with Dale Alcocks and Homebuyers are part of that group and we had no issues with them, yes they are pushy for the sale as they rely on commission for their salaries and have high sales targets but don't be pushed into a sale shop around and see who can offer you the best deal and the house that best suits your needs. Research it as best you can to include all the additional costs as we were shocked with our final outlay and we shopped around as much as possible for the extras we needed.

 

The pitfalls of building, as we found out, were that there are lots of hidden costs even though they tell you there aren't

 

1 they only put those funny lights in (the ones that look like chinese hats) and if you want to change the lights you'll either have to buy those screw on fixtures or have to pay an electrician to change the fittings as light fittings are different to the UK and you just can't buy a new light shade and unless you are a competent sparky then officially in WA you need a qualified electrician to put up your lights

 

2 you'll have to paint the walls yourself as they leave plain plaster and don't pay them to do it as they will charge you much more than a decorator, you will also have to seal the walls first to stop the plaster cracking and damp (apparently). Paint is very expensive, or we thought so, so this added quite a lot to our build costs

 

3 you'll only have sand as a garden so check out turfing costs and costs for putting down slabs or bricks for your outdoor areas (cheaper again most probably to do it yourselves rather than pay builder)

 

4 window treatmeants (curtains/blinds) can be very expensive so price them up and see if your windows will be standard sizes so you can buy ready made blinds and put them up yourselves, ours weren't standard size so we had to pay for a blind company to make them and put them in

 

5 flooring wont be put down either so get a price for the flooring you'll need for each room, otherwise you'll just have a concrete floor full of dust

 

It took us about an extra 4 weeks after handover before we physically moved in as we had all the work done before so our furniture wasn't in the way. Don't get me wrong we enjoyed building our own home but to be honest don't think we'd do it again as we had to rent for an extra 10 months and if we'd bought an established house most of these things would have already been done and we could have changed them as we went along but enjoyed our home instead of a rental. Plus if you build now you'll get smaller lots than a few years ago so you may find an established house is actually bigger and you'll get more land/garden and land is what keeps the cost of the property up not the house thats sitting on it!?!?

 

Good luck with whatever you choose just research, research, research for the best financial option for yourselves.

 

We started building in 2007 and our house is now worth less than our total spend which is a bit of a gutter, then again 2007 was the height of the boom so maybe you won't find thats the case now.

 

Sarah

 

 

Lots now are the same as when you bought averaging 600 metres , + , house prices have gone up , so a similar one to mine is going for about 80 to 100k more in the same area

[Guest Soph and Ju]

hey yorkshire pom, yes it is butler/brighton we are looking at? are you in butler? Hoping some land will come up soon, just trying to get someone to lend us enough money to be able to buiild now as noone wants to lend us enough!

[Mongrel]

hey yorkshire pom, yes it is butler/brighton we are looking at? are you in butler? Hoping some land will come up soon, just trying to get someone to lend us enough money to be able to buiild now as noone wants to lend us enough!

 

Stage 80, they have just released 80c ,there will be loads soon they are doing the earthworks acroos the road and to the side , cottage lots will be cheaper ,try a h&l package its easier than gettin land then a builder

[Guest Soph and Ju]

can you recommend a good home buillder to do a h and l package through? did you use one?

[Mongrel]

can you recommend a good home buillder to do a h and l package through? did you use one?

 

We used national homes part of bgc , and used keystart ( youve been there) , best thing go around the display village and ask , aussie living were pretty reasonable and homestart , have a look at the websites and go and give them agrilling lol .

[moirclan]

my daughter and her boyfriend have gone key start it took ages for the finance to be sorted , but they wouldnt have got a loan with a bank , with key start they managed with a $3500 deposit , they were going through homebuyers but i looked around and found a much better deal with celebration homes which is apart of the dale alcock group as is homebuyer i think , they put a hold on a block in brighton i think the hold was for two months but brighton estate kept renewing it as the finance took so long the finance bloke and celebrations kept in contact with the land developer and there was no problem, i think the block was on hold with a $500 dollar deposit for a total of almost six months . settlement took place in late dec , and they started building end of jan , as said in the previous posts window treatments and floor coverings are included , this is because they realise that most people would be living with bare concrete floors for years if they were not included, there is a basic package that is included in the price and you can up grade if you want / can afford it ,

hubby and i went through the contract with a fine tooth comb dont let any one rush you , they took the wall and door off the toilet in the bathroom and got money back and added extras etc i think they paid a total of 340 dollars in cash after they added and deleted etc

its a gorgous 3by 2 on a cottage block ,

they went through spenser [ think thats his name ] at resolve finance in osborne park they handled all the finance through keystart and kept in contact with celebration homes

brighton estate also give you a landscape allowance ,

internal painting isnt done in any new homes here except for ceilings and doors and door frames , but there again if you buy an existing home you would proberly end up repainting it to your own colours , personally ive always done my own painting , i do the painting hubby washes out the brushes and makes the cups of tea , [ if you had seen his painting you would under stand why he makes the tea !!!!!

[Mongrel]

my daughter and her boyfriend have gone key start it took ages for the finance to be sorted , but they wouldnt have got a loan with a bank , with key start they managed with a $3500 deposit , they were going through homebuyers but i looked around and found a much better deal with celebration homes which is apart of the dale alcock group as is homebuyer i think , they put a hold on a block in brighton i think the hold was for two months but brighton estate kept renewing it as the finance took so long the finance bloke and celebrations kept in contact with the land developer and there was no problem, i think the block was on hold with a $500 dollar deposit for a total of almost six months . settlement took place in late dec , and they started building end of jan , as said in the previous posts window treatments and floor coverings are included , this is because they realise that most people would be living with bare concrete floors for years if they were not included, there is a basic package that is included in the price and you can up grade if you want / can afford it ,

hubby and i went through the contract with a fine tooth comb dont let any one rush you , they took the wall and door off the toilet in the bathroom and got money back and added extras etc i think they paid a total of 340 dollars in cash after they added and deleted etc

its a gorgous 3by 2 on a cottage block ,

they went through spenser [ think thats his name ] at resolve finance in osborne park they handled all the finance through keystart and kept in contact with celebration homes

brighton estate also give you a landscape allowance ,

internal painting isnt done in any new homes here except for ceilings and doors and door frames , but there again if you buy an existing home you would proberly end up repainting it to your own colours , personally ive always done my own painting , i do the painting hubby washes out the brushes and makes the cups of tea , [ if you had seen his painting you would under stand why he makes the tea !!!!!

 

S and J cant go thro keystartn see previous posts , all brokers deal with keystart , that spencer geezer is not a bald guy from leicester , he used to be in the display homea at Butler and give the same speel , we went in4 weeks on the trot did not recognise us and gave us the same patter ( think i know it off by heart lol) The reason Keystart stipulate you have to have floor coverings and blinds has bugger all to do with living on bare flors it is to cover their arse if the buyers pull out and they are stuck with an unfinished house , they want it so they can just get the keys and sell it , check out their website with the homes for sale at times

[Guest Soph and Ju]

thanks for everyones replies:) wish we would use keystart as you only have to pay $50 a week weve been told which whilst finding the money to cover the rent. not sure we will even manage to pay rent and costs of building at same time?

Bloke at sales office has told us that to get a piece of land we have to give them $1000 deposit and also a pre approval...how do we go about getting the pre approval? do we just walk into a bank and ask for one? we did try this with westpac, went in said need a pre approval for purchasing a block of land. he then talked and talked for like an hour, tried selling us all kinds of life insurances etc!! finally at the end printed off a sheet of paper and it says 'loan entitlement $160,000' now we had told him that a piece of land we may buy at our max would cost $230K - So is this a pre approval that he has done us??? why does it only say $160k? he told us they are normally happy with it saying that amount but it just doesnt seem quite right to me.

[gpo1971]

Advantages of keystart are low deposit (4%) and you don't pay much till you get your keys. But they have a ceiling limit of $412k I think, in terms of what they'll lend. And they take absolutely yonks to process your app.

If you have to approach a major bank, they will likely want 10% deposit (at least and it will need to be genuine savings) and you'll start paying the mortgage ages before you move in.

Google all the builders you can think off and have a look at their h&l packages. Or ask the guy in the showroom.

We started a build, put deposits down on land & house, went through keystart, but it all fell through. There are just too many people involved in the process and so many hidden costs its untrue. We are just going to buy an established place now I think.

Good luck.

[ottg]

Decide if you want to buy property wholesale or retail. At retail you will pay a premuim and work through an Estate Agent. If wholesale then decide where you want to be in the property development cycle. The earlier in the cycle the more you will save but the higher the risk. Risk is only applicable when you don't know something you should know. Create a company and run your property development as a project using a commercial bank as a financier. Interrest is then capitalised and payable only at the end of the project. A commercial bank will only provide a 60% loan so you will need 40% own equity. A possible way around this is to find a property you can sub-divide; get own DA approval & BA approval- that will add instant value to the land and cover at least 20% of the original equity you needed. Contract the building experts directly (surveyor, civil eng, architect and Master Builders Assoc certified builders - there is a proven method how to go about it.

 

This may then become your investment property instead while you rather rent in your preferred suburb. The taxman and tennant pays off the property. If you do you feasibility analysis you may find that the property is positively geared because a commercial bank will not give a loan if the net profits is not 20% So with a bit of homework can save a bundle :-)

 

Have fun!

[Guest tracynben]

we are in the process of building at the moment and went through keystart, and didnt have too many issues with them.

Out of every finance place i would say they are easier to get approved than a bank.

 

Do you know why you were rejected from keystart, if you earn a certain income you should be able to get a loan with them, maybe you might have to consider buying a plot somewhere cheaper, i believe butler would be more expensive but it depends on where you work,

there are a lot of good house and land packages around, but there are LOTS if hidden costs that arent included.

 

Have a look on realestate.com.au and search in the area you what on the buying section sometimes they have house and land packages on there, there are lots within the price range of 290-350k but thats baldivis which is an hour from where your looking.

 

Also remember too with interest rates going up, within 2-3 yrs they predict the rates will be up to 9% so you have to take that into consideration, as on a 300k mortgage every 0.25 % range adds about $45 a month to your payments so in 3 yrs you could be paying an extra $500 more a month in a few yrs time.

 

Hopefully you can find something, it is hard, good luck

 

tracy