Building A House - What Was Your Square Metreage Cost?

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

Just telling DH about this - he should be able to help

I've built twice now....

First house was 170m, and $170,000 to build, basic cost, with no extras..
Second was 230m, and $230,000, basic cost, no extras..

Since the $24,000 grant, the prices here are REALLY exxy, our house to build now was $320,000... a hundred K difference!!

We spent around another $50,000 on extras, like fencing, reverse cycle ducted cooling/heating, down lights etc..

Here you can pay extra and have your plans fast tracked, only took about 2 weeks. First house took 18 months... slow, but GREAT work... 2nd house took just under 9 months, again great work. Depends if all the materials you want are easy to obtain, and where your building isn't rainy or such too!! ;)

Not sure of your experience/knowledge of what is termed as an 'architectural designed house' & a normal spec built house, so I apologise if I insult in any way or over explain :)
Also I will probably cover alot of bases here, as it is a very open ended question you have with many factors. Plus like I said above, I dont know if you are 'in the know' so to speak.

I am in the industry (ie work for architects), and the first thing I can tell you is yes, the figure usually in inclusive of labour.

$2000 per sq/m is a pretty normal rate for a architectural style home....actually probably a starting price. (by architectural home I mean raftered roof construction giving raked ceilings, high end appliances in kitchen/bath etc, top end floor coverings, materials like rammed earth, stone, composite panels). It all depends on what sort of quality you are after in materials, finishes and appliances etc. The more 'top end' the higher the price. And also the more different and unique the design, the more costly to build.

As a comparison, a ballpark figure for your typical stock spec built house (lets say Hotondo homes) is about $1200 at the moment. So this is just your normal, trusses roof contruction (meaning flat ceiling) tile roof, brick veneer, standard fit out in kitchen/bath, standard floor coverings etc.

Another factor is location. Certain areas of the country will be more or less expensive, dependant on ease of access to materials or tradepersons to do the work (sometimes rammed earth for example can be hard to find tradeys), and sometimes due to pure assessibility of the site. Also if you are away from towns in rural etc, they will charge more.

Council approval depends on the councils themselves (some are painful) and also if the project fits nicely into their town plan......if it does, no probs, if it doesnt (ie building height, boundary setbacks).....it can become long winded.
Average time for a no probs application from experience is 6-8 weeks.

Building time, again depends on the project itself. Obviously if it is big and complicated design, it will take alot longer than a relatively simple house. Also again location and assessibility. Ballpark figure, a spec built house should be done in 12 weeks (weather permitting), for a fancy architecturally designed home......how long is a piece of string!! A million dollar home should be built 6-9 months (weather permitting).
The longer it takes, the better the place will look etc.

I'll add this too, only get the services of an architect if you really need it. Architects fees are expensive (hard to average but for a fully documented house from design to construction drawings I would say ballpark $20000, and thats not including engineers fees and other consultants etc). Mind you, this figure could be ALOT higher, depending on the name of the architect.

Architects do design some awesome houses etc.......but it is amazing how many people go to an architect with a pretty much sorted out design in their heads or on paper, and the architect will just tweak it. Hell a client of a firm I worked for came in with a full design, then argued with the architect that the suggestions he made where silly.......so why did you come to the architect then???...anyway, off topic.

All I am saying is architects fees are worth the money if you have an idea of what you want to acheive, then let them go to work to come up with a great house, with your imput of course. If you have a good design that you may have come up with, or bought from another architect, go see a qualified building designer to 'finish off or tweak' the design. You will save a ton in fees. Most are pretty well trained in good design (this is my qualification, though I am not licenced).

The negative of this is you dont get the project being administered by the architect, which ensures the house turns out the way you wanted and not changed in little ways by the builder to suit him. But then again, architects usually charge more for administering a project than the 'base price' I averaged above. But if you have a good builder you trust and does good work etc, then this usually isnt an issue. Be up front and tell them you want it the way it was designed! :) Nicely of course..

Ummm.....gees I wrote alot!! hahah!
I hope some of my drivel and rabbling here helps, and if you have any more questions let us know! :)

Thanks so much TGM - lots of useful info there.

Yep, we'd be looking at an architect-designed house with lots of angles, rafted ceilings etc. etc. Have decided angles are a must and I don't like the straight-line box look. I won't be choosing luxury fittings for the sake of choosing expensive options eg. I've seen plywood lined walls that look very stylish but I do want a stylish look and nine times out of ten, that WILL mean paying more which I'm happy to do.

I'll PM you the plans I found online to give you an idea as I don't think I'm allowed to post a link to a commercial website.

If I bought the plans, I would need to have them modified as this is for a 3br home and I want a 4br home so I'm a bit unsure about whether I need an architect for that. I'd also want to eliminate the stone from the design and choose another material. I don't think I'd trust a builder necessarily with coming up with the best options style/aesthetic-wise.

Anyhow, thanks again for your help and I'll PM you the plans I've been looking at.

Fi - I don't think he can accept PM's cos he hasn't dribbled on enough.

You can PM me and I'll show him if you like.

Done. From one dribbler to another ;)

wow what a nice looking home!
you have good taste........and expensive too! ;)

I'll see if I can come up with a ballpark figure for you based on this plan, plus adding another bedroom.

That design is 4068 sq/feet or 378sq/m......pretty decent sized!
And you are planning on adding a 4th bed to this, so add another 20 sq/m ballpark for this and the size is 398....lets say 400sq/m. You say you will modify it all a bit, but i doubt the overall size wont change much.

ok, lets apply the sq/m rates. If we run with archicentre's $2000 per sq/m, that comes to a princely sum of a cool $800000.

ok for this part of my pricing guesstimate, I am going to use exactly as those piccys shown, except the stone as previously posted, and I'll exclude using the beautiful (but expensive and upkeep cost hungry) stained timber external cladding, but the windows I will include as is, cos if you were to change them it would ruin the ascpects of the house.

anyway, on the window note, windows are one of the most expensive items in a house. And even more expensive, is custom sized ones.....anything non-standard and the costs start to rise. If you use standard sized windows, with standard glazing (ie not double glazed or anything fancy) a ballpark figure is $1000 a window. Then the order of the most expensize is louvres, double & single hung, awning sashes & hoppers, sliding windows and lastly fixed glazed windows (most exp to least exp). This is great to keep in mind when choosing wondows and the amount of them in a house design.

This house, has a fair amount of windows, nothing exceptional for a house of this size, and very few appear to be a standard 'off the shelf' type. That said, it is possible to change some of them to be a standard size etc, but like I said earlier, it will effect the look and feel of the space in the house. Comes down to how much coin you are willing to spend. All the angled windows would be custom built anyway you look at, as no off-the-shelf windows exist angled like that.

Vaulted or raked ceilings are awesome! Cant top that........unfortunately, again, they are expensive, from both a labour point of view and a non-standardness situation too.
With your typical house construction with a flat ceiling, this is a trussed roof construction, and these are cheap to build and cheap to install. Sizes are given to truss manufacturers and they build them in a factory how they need to be, then pop em on a truck and send them to your house. The builder then leans them up and puts it on the walls and presto......a roof structure.

With a vaulted or framed roof, the whole thing needs to be engineered to get the correct sizes etc, then it is built on-site, taking considerable more time & labour, as well as more engineering fees. Also the sizes of the members are usually substantially bigger than a trussed frame, which adds costs.

The other extra cost compared to flat ceilings is internal labour and materials. On the high side of the ceiling, there is more wall to be built, which means more wall sheeting & paint. Also conventional cornices that you see in flat ceilings dont really work well on an angle, so the ceiling has to be square set, which is labour hungry (mind you, it looks great, even on a flat ceiling!) You can use a cornice on a raked ceiling, but it looks cheap and dodgy.

Also framed roofs are hard to insulation effectively.

Angles themselves are expensive labour wise too....lots of extra cutting of materials etc.

The type of floor construction is also a contributing factor to cost. The cheapest way, is slab on ground on a perfectly flat site (which are few and far between). Slab on ground is also the most environmentally impactable method, as land needs to excavated to dig footings etc. A elevated on post house is more 'green friendly', but more expensive (and harder to heat and cool).
The great thing with slab on ground is it stabilises the internal temperature due to the coupling with the earth, which stays pretty constant in temp. An elevated house is harder to keep warm due to heat loss through the floor, but a slab on ground doesnt lose any through the floor. Thermal design factors also contribute to this, and I wont go into it cos its a big subject :)

My point being that slab on flat ground is cheapest. Elevated uses lots of timber or steel members to frame up, more labour to build, more cost. A slab on ground on a sloping site can get pricey too......retaining walls etc are expensive. Plus alot of earth moving etc, so another trade to bring in.

ok, again I've rambled on about lots of things, and I will stop soon (need too, wine is kicking in a little and I need to sit back and relax! :D).

Overall the plan is great, I have no comment, as well as the design, I think it is great. Rooms are nice and big (though the master bedroom is excessive, but thats my opinion cos I dont feel they need to be overly big......you dont live in your bedroom...). The kitchen to living space is great, connection to outside to deck is great......a great design! Although this design would have to be tweaked to suit the land that you buy/have, as a design must suit the land. I mean normally you get the land first, then design around the land etc. Cos you have to get things right, certain living spaces to get sun at certain times of the year and certain season of the year etc.

Anyway, to conclude (it feels like an essay! :) ) The cost I reckon will be min $650000 max $850000 (really ballpark..do not quote me ;) ). The roof is doing some interesting things and would be a tough one to resolve from a built perperstive. And this is most probably going with average to slightly above average materials, appliances, fitout and finishes etc.

My final point is this......after all I have said re cost, there is nothing worse to see a great designed house space wise, but certain details have been omitted to save money, and it looks...well.....unfinished? Not cheap, just not quite right. Sometimes, when it comes to largish, impressive looking houses with greats spaces, to go that extra and do it right is the only way. I am not saying ulta expensive oven suites and ridiculously expensive slate tiles, etc etc....but decent fitout in the kitchen and bathrooms....nothing to the max....but nice stuff. Ultimately it may cost an extra 50-80G, but the results (and future resale) with be worth it.

I have always thought it you are spending a fair nugget of money on a house (and 800g is a big nugget) what is an extra 50g! ;) Obviously what you can afford is what you can afford......but we once had a client, who got us to do this reno, and the architect got this great design for her, suited her every need totally, but when it was priced it was 20G too dear. And she would not budge of dipping into her investments etc to get it done. So she got a redesign, and built a sub-par version of her house. Sure, it was still a good house etc, but it wasnt want she set out to do when she reno'd, so really a waste of time.

anyway, thats it, I hope any of this info helps you :)
And if you have any queries about anything, let me know :)

Oh and a parting thought........is there any reason, besides from a moral stand point, that you need to purchase the drawings? I mean really, you said yourself that you are going to tweak the design and add a bedroom, (and believe me if you do it right and tweak to suit the land you have or buy, it will change a fair bit) why dont you redesign off the stuff on the web, and save the cash, and get someone to draw it up from scratch? (though I will say the cad drawings are cheap, though they would need to be amended to do the changes and that takes time and can be more annoying than a fresh drawing).
Architects do it all the time, look through magazines and get ideas and inspiration....there is probably very few true original designs around. All you actually need to do is change 10% and copyright is nullified.

anyway, enough from me!!!!! have a good night!

Thanks again for all that TGM - I really do appreciate the time you've taken to reply.

Yep, I do have expensive taste unfortunately but as I spend a lot of time at home, I've decided I've got to love my next house.

Wow - I didn't realise it was that big. I can think of ways of cutting the size down. We don't need a triple garage and neither DP or I is precious about garaging cars so could do without it altogether and use some of that space for the fourth bedroom.

The master bedroom currently has two WIRs which is OTT and the bathroom could be smaller. I do want an oversized actual bedroom though as I will be using it as my retreat.

I can't see my budget going much above $450K for the actual build though so I guess I'm going to have to substantially reduce the size of the house, win Tatts or buy extremely cheap land!

Thanks again for the info TGM - really, really useful.

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and all has told me to say between $10,000 and $14,000.

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maz I think J means $10000 - $14000 a square, not a sq/m (a square is approx 9sq/m) so thats approx. $1100-$1550 per sq/m. Which is a good ballpark figure for a fairly standard to slightly more complicated house. And I feel the house Fionas PM Mel is a little above this figure

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Depends really on size, the smaller the house the bigger the cost per square metre he says.

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yep I would agree, but when buildings get complicated this gets a bit different. No offence to builders, but when things start to get a little different/unique/complex the cost goes up, up and up. Granted a more complex building will take more time, but I think some try to squeeze more $.

No prob, you are most welcome. I enjoy this sort of thing.....

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as I spend a lot of time at home, I've decided I've got to love my next house.

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Can relate. If you are at home for a lot of the day, or plan to stay in a house for a decent time frame, you need to enjoy the space you are in, cause it will annoy the hell outa of you for years to come! The place we have recently bought is a 5 year plan for us, after that then (i hope) we will be in a similar situation that you are (though it gives me 5 years to design it!!! :D

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Wow - I didn't realise it was that big. I can think of ways of cutting the size down. We don't need a triple garage and neither DP or I is precious about garaging cars so could do without it altogether and use some of that space for the fourth bedroom.

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Yeah it is a big one! There are many ways to trim it back. The other bedrooms are very generous (4.5m X 3.6M is a big bed for a non-master bedroom), so these could be trimmed down. Every bedroom has its own ensuite, and there is no main bathroom as such (there is a toilet and basin). Having all ensuited rooms is cool, but expensive, alot more to clean, and very water hungry!!!.
Even the kitchen space is very generous and could be trimmed a little. It is amazing how much you can squeeze out when redesigned to fit under budget.
And yeah triple garage is a bit excessive too.

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The master bedroom currently has two WIRs which is OTT and the bathroom could be smaller. I do want an oversized actual bedroom though as I will be using it as my retreat.

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Yeah the 2 WIR is silly. The robe behind the bed.....I love this detail......but it is expensive as it adds to the floor area real fast, but doesnt give you any more space.
And the bathroom is very grand indeed! (damn nice though!!! :) ) As for the oversized bedroom, if you need the retreat.....damn its your house have one!

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I can't see my budget going much above $450K for the actual build though so I guess I'm going to have to substantially reduce the size of the house, win Tatts or buy extremely cheap land!

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If you have a budget (and who doesnt), start there and work backwards to get the size of the house you can afford.
If you were to go to an architect, this is what they would do. First, they'de ask your budget. Then they have the meeting with you to work out what you want in your house etc, and come up with a dollars per sq/m figure based on the discussions with you re design, quality etc.
Then basically do some math to work backwards (eg $500000 budget, sq/m figure of $1500, therefore the house can be 333sq/m in size. And then they start designing to fit that size.
You can do the same thing here to a degree. You have a budget in mind, and a ballpark sq/m figure cost wise. Actually upon rethinking that house.....you could probably get away with using a figure of $1500-$1800 per sq/m. (probably closer to the $1500 mark) If you take the 400sq/m from my last post, then the price comes down to $600000-$720000. All you have to do is massage that floor plan to reduce the size, to fit a cost. And hope when it is priced by a builder that the sq/m rate isnt higher than you planned on! ;)

One thing an old boss said to me when I was designing a house that we were going to build, when you start a design, try not to think about the size to cost ratio at the beginning...work out what you want and need, then scale it back to fit under budget.

Thanks TGM and sorry it's taken me so long to reply.

Our current house is 133sqm and I reckon we need about 200-230sqm.

Now I think I have come up with a GENIUS solution. A while ago I was looking at module houses - you can get some really stylish ones for $2K per square metre. Now architecturally, they're fairly boxy and simple so while I thought one would be fine as a granny flat sort of set up at the back of our current block, I didn't think I'd want the whole house in that style for our new house.

But, having thought about it again, I think there is a compromise to be reached. We could have an architecturally interesting building for the living/dining/kitchen/2nd living/office and connect it through a glassed-in walkway to the bedrooms in a different section. And we could have a module for the bedrooms because I don't mind so much if they're simpler and a bit boxy. So I reckon each section would be 100sqm each.

The house/block we're looking at already has a garage so we don't need to worry about that. It also has a 2br house on it so I'm also thinking that once the module gets installed, we could use the bedrooms in that and then use the existing house as our living areas until our new house gets built. We'd then keep the existing house and use it for guests and possibly rent it out as a weekender. The block is 5 acres so it's not like we'd be cramped!

Anyhow, that is my latest plan though we haven't been able to see the block yet!!!