What's it cost to build a house?

[Miss E]

DH and I are thinking about buying some land with friends and subdividing, then each of us building our own home. Just looking for a ballpark to build a house, nothing too fancy, probably 3 or 4 bedrooms and a couple of bathrooms. Any experience anyone has with this would be great cos we've got none!

[GlitterMum]

I only know what the average is for WA and its around $180k-$200 for something very nice not over the top but very nice

Goodluck ooh how exciting

Just out of curiousity how much to subdivide???

[Miss E]

Thanks Bee, that's around what I was hoping it would be. Not too sure about the sub-division etc here, but need to look into it. Houses are so expensive in my area, that we figure if we can get a decent block, knock down the house on it and then each build, we should be able to get something good for about half the cost.

[Cally]

One thing to consider is that you are allowed to subdivide and have separate titles. There is a place around the corner from us where they built two houses on the block, but can't separate the land - so they have to be sold together which really limits the number of potential buyers. Just something to keep in mind.

[deletedit]

We subdivided our block - the original house was way off to one side and we are living in it at the moment - and are building a new house. The builder is being mindbogglingly slow getting back to us about how much it is going to cost, but it came to about $14,000 for the subdivision and will probably cost $120,000 for the house once we add in all the juicy extras. We're in the country though and are building a reasonably large and fancy transportable - the starting price of the house was $85,000 so there's a LOT of extras above the listing price.

You can usually get something decent built for $160k and subdivision is usually around $20-40k, depending on how much sewage and water works you need.

Watch out for sloped blocks - sometimes it can be impossible to divide and build two houses on a block with a slope the 'wrong' way because the rear house needs crazy easements to get the water to the street.

[The_Gudism_Master]

As an architectural technician, I feel I can give you a bit more light on this.

Firstly, this is a very 'open' topic, with alot of variables that would effect the overall costs, depending on typical build costs (Tasmania for instance is dearer to build than say Melbourne or Sydney), and local councils way of doing things re subdividing.

So I will try to be fairly broad with my '$' and just say you'll have to do your homework.

- to get a ballpark figure, builders work on a $ per square metre rate. On average, in todays economic climate you can work on around $1000-1200 per sq/m, inclusive of EVERYTHING, floor coverings, appliances, paint.....the lot. Start with this. Again this fluctuates depending on state and if you are in metro or rural. (What I can advise though is the things that make a house more expensive to build are elevated and off the ground ie NOT concrete slabs, lots of windows, and handrails.)

- also dont always trust the prices shown by builders that mass produce houses, there is always hidden costs.

- you say houses are so pricey in your area, chances are that builders prices to build a new house are also high. Their costs follow the trend and market in particular areas.

- subdividing is a very open thing too. Yes it can be quite cheap to subdivide ($20000 mark) but this can depend upon local councils. Some councils do not like small subdivisions like you are suggesting, as they want developers to subdivide large parcels of land, because councils get certain monetary handouts when they approve subdivisions. This is quite legal, its just how it works. Developers want to subdivide land because they make loads of money, and councils only feel it is fair to receive their piece of the pie. A friend of mine wished to make a seperate title from his parents farm, and the counci charged him $60000!!! Again, do your research.

- another factor in subdividing (as someone suggested) is distance from existing water and sewerage mains, because if new piping needs to be put in, then the costs go way up. Same with power.

- also if you were thinking of doing something with say, 3 or 4 friends (ie building 3 or 4 houses) then council may want you to put in some form of road network, and this is very pricey. This obviously would be dependant on shape of site and location to existing roads, but councils can be very anal when it comes to town planning, believe me. They are not interested in people making gravel driveways etc, (again this depends where land is located ie rural or residential) and also depends of councils town plan.

- having 2 seperate buildings that people live in permantly is not permitted by the Building Code of Australia, only if the are deemed as units, and then that is another thing, which then involves development approvals from local councils which need to be drawn up , different type of construction etc etc (what I do as part of my job), and this all cost a decent amount of money.

- you mention getting a decent block and knocking down the existing house. This isnt as cheap as it sounds. You have councils fees for demolition (not too pricey), paying a demolition man to do it (its illegal to have a go yourself unless licenced), costs to remove the demolished material, if it is an older house extra cost to remove and dump asbestos. Demoltion can be quite pricey and not as clean cut as it sounds.

so yeah, a little bit of my thoughts/knowledge of it all from my experience

But, like I said at the start, there are soooo many variables to this topic, and just do your research, talk to local councils about subdividing of smallish blocks etc.

Hope this helps some! Any other queries just ask!

[Floweryfields]

Most builders will give a square metre price dependent of what you want. I have heard around $1500 from some people, but that would vary where you live.

[Cupcake]

How long is a piece of string? Hehe. Really depends on what you want in it, how big you want it, how many bathrooms, where the land is...and lots lots more. Dont think you could really get an accurate ball park figure unfortunately .. unless ladies that have built come in and post what it cost to build their house? & what was included..sorry not much help

[Pandora]

We built a 4br + study (27sq Inc garage) for 204k +land
That's inclusive of everything, driveway, floor coverings etc site costs ( we built on very rocky, reactive clay soil so big excavation costs and slab upgrade)

[aussienic]

Pandora: Are you able to say on here who you went through?

Gudism: Approx how much would it cost to demolish a house? We are looking into doing this but I think it is going to turn out to exy

[The_Gudism_Master]

Gudism: Approx how much would it cost to demolish a house? We are looking into doing this but I think it is going to turn out to exy

Did a bit of asking around the office today re demolition. Depending on the size of the house and age (eg if it has asbestos etc) cost would be between $10000-$15000. (but as high as $30000)
Again this is fairly ballpark, some demo guys would do it heaps cheaper too. It depends on if they are busy or not, or want to do that sized job etc.
Most demo guys are fairly open to questions, so call up a few and ask.....I might be right off the mark with my price!

[misty]

We built a 4br + study (27sq Inc garage) for 204k +land
That's inclusive of everything, driveway, floor coverings etc site costs ( we built on very rocky, reactive clay soil so big excavation costs and slab upgrade)

I want to move where you live!
We are building an IP at the moment. Land aside, the house itself is costing us 220k. That is for a small (115m2 Living + double garage) 3 bedroom, ensuite. But the cost of building here is quite high. Nothing fancy about it. Bottom of the range carpet, tiles, brick, everything - just plain old laminex benchtops. Seriously budget house. But that is all we could afford, and since it is an investment, it doesn't need anything but basic fittings.

Demolishing a house is very exxy. You could be looking at round 30-40k just for that (sometimes lots more, sometimes less), and you will have to call in the specialists if it has any aspestos.

Truthfully, it would likely end up cost just as much as buying an already established house anyway. And I would be extremely wary of your plan to do this with friends, because what happens in the 'worst case senario' and someone looses a job, or otherwise can no longer afford to service their portion of the loan. Unfortunately the banks will not care that you have already paid you portion, they will expect you to cover the rest as well. You will be liable for the entire debt, if for some reason they decide not to pay.

[Miss E]

And I would be extremely wary of your plan to do this with friends, because what happens in the 'worst case senario' and someone looses a job, or otherwise can no longer afford to service their portion of the loan. Unfortunately the banks will not care that you have already paid you portion, they will expect you to cover the rest as well. You will be liable for the entire debt, if for some reason they decide not to pay.

I would've thought that we would each have our own seperate mortgage and finance. Is that not possible?

Yes if they had to get out in the middle of it all we'd probably be forced to sell up too because we wouldn't be in the position to buy them out, but with the financial side of things being handled separately at least our credit and assetts would still be in tact.

[misty]

It isn't possible to have seperate mortgages for individual entities secured against the one property. A bank generally will not allow a mortgage against a security unless all the owners are listed as applicants and/or guarentors.

A crafty mortgage broker may know some ways around this, but as far as I am aware the only way around this in to use some other security for the finance, rather then the property which is being purchased.

[Miss E]

It isn't possible to have seperate mortgages for individual entities secured against the one property. A bank generally will not allow a mortgage against a security unless all the owners are listed as applicants and/or guarentors.

I was thinking that we'd use our own money to purchase the land (if we did it with my Dad he'd do the same, but not sure about our friends). Once we had the approvals etc then we would borrow to fund the building. Surely if we had the subdivision approved the banks would be happy to allow us to borrow separately for the building wouldn't they?

[deletedit]

Yeah, you'll have to go joint for the initial loan and then refinance so you each have half after subdividing. In the meantime you will each be effectively responsible for the entire amount of the loan. Silly, but that's how it is.

[~Phoenix~]

[QUOTE=misty;2405356]I want to move where you live!

Pandora - Wish it was that price round here too We've got reactive clay soil here too and are being slugged $23K just for footings!

Misty - wow it is expensive to build in Canberra!!! Even though we've only got 3 bedrooms we'll end up with 205m2 (not including garage) of living space plus alfresco area.

[Pandora]

Dennis family.
We did house and land with fixed site costs. Places won't generally do that if you have your own land already though