who has had a house built?

Way off topic for a parenting forum, I know!

DH and I are hoping to be in a position where we can afford our own home late next year. We've been keeping an eye on the property market but I wondered if prices are comparable when you build your own home?

Has anyone here built a home or had one built? Was it cheaper/more expensive than buying a home that is already built?

Any big pro's or cons?

We looked at building but brought existing instead. The only draw back with building new, unless you are doing it on your existing section - usually the only available land is further out of town and not close to facilities etc.

Our existing house is cheaper than what it would have cost to build and as Stacey said, most land and section packages doen't include landscaping.

That was a few years ago, you may find some keen builders through as there isn't a lot of residential building going on at the moment and you could get some good deals.

Is there anywhere I could find out what the costs of building a house would be? Know of any builders websites that have example costs

kebakat wrote: Oh another thing to think about is if you can afford to service a mortgage as well as have somewhere to live while its being built. When my parents were building they lived with my grandma for a couple of months cause they couldn't afford both.

True! I hadnt considered that!

Definatley cheaper to build rather than buy a 1-18 month old home.

BUT that being said land is damn hard to find in the right areas at the moment.

The best thing that would make it totally worth while is what Stace said if you can live with someone while you are building - or find a mortgage broker that will let you do Progress payments.

The days of $1000 a square foot are gone, it is more like $1200 now. Although it does range around $800-$1200 and some being more like $1500 type thing.

Hope that helps!

We built three years ago, and it was one of the most stressful things we've ever done, but we love our home. I designed the house and DH quit his job so he could be the building labourer. We did all the project management ourselves, which I don't recommend if you want to keep your sanity intact lol. It cost more to build than buy in our area, but we were the first people to build here in about 50 years so its not the greatest comparison.  After renting one of those other houses for 7 months during the build, moving into this place was bliss. Nothing compares to good insulation and double glazing .  

we did look at the cost of building but instead brought an exisiting house - we decided location was more important for school zones etc. As others have said most bare sections are further from town. This website will give you an approximate indication of how much to expect:

http://www.dbh.govt.nz/Utilities/cal...05&Version=1.0

In some areas builders are short of work so offerring good deals at the moment $1,100/sqm - but just be sure to check out what is included in the price (driveways, letterboxes, etc because all these items will add up). I think from memory GJ Gardner Homes were about $1400/sqm - but ring around a few places and they will be able to let you know.

Good luck - hope you find something that will work well for you.

Actually building in the Auckland area if using a quality builder is more like $2,000 per m2. It is almost always cheaper to buy existing rather than to build. Building costs (raw materials in particular) normally only rise, whereas the existing housing market fluccuates. You can build cheaper through a housing company, such as Golden Homes, GJ Gardner etc as they have better purchasing power on product and labour so can pass on some of those savings, but the quality is usually a little lower as the houses are basically off the processing line. Quality land normally holds its price better than existing housing, so this also increases build cost.
If you think about all the costs to complete a new house such as landscaping, curtains, carpet etc, the costs can easily sky rocket.
I base this opinion on my own experience in the housinng market. We have built one new home, purchased an old home and done a complete renovation, purchased a factory and turned it into a two bedroom apartment, purchased a farm where we renovated an existing cottage and relocated two old houses onto the property and renovated them.
By far the cheapest option was the relocated houses. For instance, one of them is a 100m2 three bedroom timber weatherboard house that we purchased off Trade Me for $20,000. It cost us $9,000 to relocate it and approximately $40,000 to completely renovate it - new carpet, new bathroom, new kitchen, new interior and exterior paint, polished existing timber floors. So an entire house for $70,000. A small house, but lovely.
All these opinions are based solely on the Auckland market, and specifically the North Shore, Hibiscus Coast and rural West Auckland.

Edited by Lulu