Buy or build??

[leelee53]

Hello,

 

Just wanting some general info on the pro's and con's to buying or building our first home here in Adelaide.

 

Thankyou )

[Keith & Linda]

Hello,

 

Just wanting some general info on the pro's and con's to buying or building our first home here in Adelaide.

 

Thankyou )

 

Hi leelee53, really it comes down to personal choice, with buying a house you can see exactly what your getting and you may find your dream home, you will also be able to see the neighbouring property's/streets and in effect this purchase is an instant house.

Having a house built then you are getting a brand new home which is, in general, built to your requirements and it does give you a nice feeling being the first to live there (an ego thing), but you will be looking at 4-6 months, If built on a new subdivision then you may not know how your neighbouring property/streets will end up like.

 

All down to personal choice and feelings, happy house hunting.

[Guest Cadas]

We wanted to build but two things put us off;

 

One was build time. Even on ready made, subdivided plots in Blackwood we were being quoted 12-14 months from start to finish. For a plot needing subdivision,etc, you end up closer to two years. Factoring the rental and finance on the build added substantially to the overall cost.

 

Secondly, it's expensive to build. We looked at land in Craigburn farm and picked a mid level 5 bed. Build + land was coming out at $850k plus landscaping. But it's resale value day one would be more like $750k, so instant -ve equity. And that's in a popular area. Head further out and it's worse.

 

We bought a high quality established house (5 bed) in to same area for under to $600k. Moved in 4weeks later.

[NicF]

We're building. It doesn't take 12 to 14 months to build the actual house - most builders will quote a 20 week build time from the slab going down. Our next door neighbours on our sub divided block took about 20 weeks from start to finish including the slab going down. However the problem when building is there are lots of little things that trip you up and add to the cost. And the time it takes. We have had our block of land since last October and we still haven't started the build yet. Some of that is the time it took to get a drawing of e plans we were happy with and the fact that an argument with the council about a tree meant we had to start again pretty much from scratch, but even so it's been a long process so far. The costs definitely start to add up and there are loads of extra costs that we really didn't factor in to start with - like retaining walls, moving water meters, storm water sump and pump etc. Fortunately out neighbours went through it all first and were able to warn us but we already had the land and had signed up with the builder by then.

 

we are definitely spending more on the build than we would on buying a house in this area. However if we bought we would be unlikely to get anything that was exactly what we wanted and we would then end up spending money on getting the house to be what we wanted it to be and quite possibly end up spending nearly as much as building anyway. At least this way we get a house that is the way we want it pretty much from the word go. At the moment I wouldn't do it again though.

[jim and adel]

Depends on what you're looking for and how long you're willing to wait. If you can find a house you like or don't have any unusual requirements, then certainly easier to buy.

 

Build time itself generally isn't too long (but can be - plenty of stories of delays on dedicated building sites like the homeone forum) but it's planning and prep that can take many months. If you're building a popular choice from a builder's catalogue, if they have material and trades on hand and they can get plans into council quickly, the council have no issues, your soil report is good etc, then it can be done within months (but I wouldn't rely on this happening). Most of the time, though, it will take more than a year from start to finish.

 

We built, but in our case had the house designed from scratch, have a problematic (sloping) block and looked at a lot of builders before making our choice. We spent more on the house than it would be worth immediately (especially in the current market), and still have a lot of work on-going in terms of landscaping etc, so are still spending, but we've got a one-off property built above the typical standard here.

 

Jim

[leelee53]

Thankyou for your comments. We're certainly in no rush at the moment to do either but just wanted to get a feel for how things are. Building our own home was always a dream of ours before we moved here, don't want it to become a nightmare instead so we will certainly think things through carefully before we decide to buy/build.

 

;o)