With the banks tightening their lending criteria, more families are finding it difficult to gain finance for their dream home.
Here are some tips on how you can save money when it comes to designing and building your dream home.
- Start the conversation early.
Talk to your preferred bank or broker early, start a discussion on how much you can afford. Many families leave this to the last stage, only to find out that they can’t afford to build the home of their dreams. As a result, the monies spent on concept drawings, plans and authority approvals goes up in smoke.
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Be clear with your building designer or architect.
Many families are not clear on a project budget, from the outset this must be made clear. If your brief and project budget don’t meet, then the brief must be altered, otherwise you are simply wasting money. Your building designer or Architect should be able to provide a high level verbal cost estimate during the first meeting. Although there are many variables when extending or renovating your home, the building designer or Architect’s previous completed projects can be a good source to compare product outcomes and quality of service.
- Consider staging your project
Should your project budget not meet your brief consider staging your project – Masterplanning. That means determining what your needs are now and into the future. For instance you need additional bedrooms and another living space for the kids and want a new kitchen, bathroom renovation and patio. A large cost can be deferred should you stage the project and complete the kitchen, bathroom renovation and patio at a later date. If you were to extend and create an upper floor extension and move the kids upstairs, that in itself will make a huge change to the liveability downstairs.
- Your design choice can make or break the budget
The design of your home can make savings or create additional cost. Carefully positioned services, staircases, hallways etc can be designed with minimal surplus floor space, while still providing the necessary circulation area. The design should also take advantage of environmental factors and make use of solar heat gain in winter and natural breezes and shade during summer.
- Know your products and selections
Material selection and specification play a major part of your home renovation and extension. For instance why select a toilet that cost $1050.00 when it is going to be used and seen by the children within their own space and act as secondary facility. A quality and functional toilet can be purchased for $550.00, that’s a saving of $500.00 on one item.
- Do-it-Yourself
What can you do yourselves to save money?
Can you pick up a paint brush? Many clients are handy and have painted their homes before, completing your internal painting can save you thousands in labour costs.
Should you have further questions on how to make your dream a reality, call our friendly team.