Building A House - What Was Your Square Metreage Cost?

[fionas]

We're toying with the idea of a tree change from Melbourne to Woodend. After living in a house that has driven me to despair in the last few years because it's too small and not set up for family living really, I don't want to live in a 'make do' house that I'm not excited about especially if we're giving up city living.

I'm pretty fussy. I don't like any of the houses I've seen. What does excite me is buying a block, or acreage, and building my dream home.

Now, from memory, Archicentre recommends allowing $2000 per square metre but I can't remember if that includes labour costs. That's what I'm sort of allowing in my head but I got out some home building/reno mags last night and their costs seem to be way above that - it didn't give a square metreage cost though, just a total cost and I sort of had to guesstimate the square metreage from the floor plans and work backwards.

So ... for those of you who built your own home, what was your square metreage cost? And was it with a builder like Metricon, Delphin or similar or with your own architect/builder?

I've actually found a house I like through an American site. You can buy the architect's plans so that would save a bit of time. I'd just have and Australian architect adapt them and then get builders' quotes. We've got a great builder who did a major reno for us here and I know he could project manage the job too.

And how long did it take for a) council approval and b) actual building