If there is anything I’ve learnt over the past few weeks the most important part of building a home is research.
As with any industry there is a lot of jargon involved and dont be shy about asking people to explain what various words and terms mean.
I’ve spent a lot of time on the homeone forums and they cover almost every topic imaginable. You can connect to them from this link [http://forum.homeone.com.au/]
Finding plots of land to build on turned out ot be pretty easy, a quick google search turned up RealEstate.com.au [http://www.realestate.com.au/], this gave a sample of land sale sites in teh area, then it was a case of traveling out there, going to the land sale office and checking out the lots and prices. There was a lot of legwork to do here, but it will give you an estimate of costs for a certain area. Another thing do do is talk to builders about places selling land in the area as they will know prety much all the places that are not on the realestate.com.au site. They may also be aware of new and upcoming developments.
Once you’ve narrowed down the areas you might like to build, check out the development plans for the area. These can usually be found by a simple google search using the name as the local body council and the word “development”, if you are in Melbourne a good place to start is the Melbourne planning guide [http://planmelbourne.vic.gov.au/]
You’ll also want to select a builder, when doing this you will certainly want to do some research on them. Check with google putting in the builder name and “reviews”, many will lead to sites such as ProductReviews [http://www.productreview.com.au/]. One thing I found with builder sales people is that many of them will tell you misleading information. Ask what inclusions are available with the show home, many show homes will have had upgrades to the values of $100k or more which is why they all look so nice. It is dead easy to add an extra $50k onto the base price of a house just to get it to a basic level.
Again, on the HomeOne forums, there is a thread that lists a bunch of things people forget about when building a house, learn and memorise this list, it will become invaluable to you when talking to builders. Things to remember when building [http://forum.homeone.com.au/]
Anyway, there is a load more, Finance is also a big one, again, do research on the backing companies, read reviews and don’t forget to shop around and let them know you are shopping around. Brokers are good to talk to but be aware that they are sales people, and also know the law. Ask them what their kickback is from the various recommended lenders, legally they have to tell you.
As I remember things I’ll post them here as well in the hope someone might get some use out of all the things I’ve discovered.
Chur.