Building you home may be a daunting task at the start of the journey, but there are some very useful things you and your building team can firm up and work on together, especially in today’s market of supply chain and rising costs.
LOCK IN YOUR CHOICES
At contract time, this avoids the need for variations when you want to change something or up-spec to a better item, like a tap or feature wall. This will mean your budget is realistic for financing.
DON’T CHANGE YOUR CONCEPT AND PLANS
Once you have your contract in place and deposit paid, this is when the builder and designer go into the working drawings and engineering phase. Changes to your plan may lead to increased costs from design and engineering and lost time with council processing. Your builder should take you through your designs thoroughly through consultations and even some digital walkthrough tools like HomeAR, which is an augmented reality tool that can give you a virtual walk through of your home and even walk through on your building site with the plans.
GET YOUR BUILDER ORDERING AS SOON AS POSSIBLE
The sooner you make your selections and colours for the project, this means things are locked and loaded, and can be ordered as soon as possible, even while you are still processing at council for many things. The earlier you order, the best chance you have to minimise items not being available with lead times from suppliers, but also the best chance
to lock in prices through the supply chain. From time to time prices may be passed on, but the process is about minimising the risk.
The industry used to work on a “just in time” mindset, but with today’s environment this is not best practice as it can create delays and higher prices.
BE FLEXIBLE
With finished and specifications – in this current climate with material shortages, sometimes selections may not be available, but the builder will work with your for.
TRANSPARENCY
Finding a builder who is transparent and realistic from the beginning is so important. Realistic time frames and pricing, what sounds fast and cheap to begin with will often not be where you end up, or at the expense of quality workmanship and fittings.
A FIXED PRICE CONTRACT
Is not a realistic thing in today’s market, and if there is a fixed price, this will usually build a significant risk buffer in, alternatively an “open book contingency amount” is a much less riskier option with greater transparency for clients and their financer, which may result in a lower contract price and possibly delivering under budget, wouldn’t that be
nice!
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