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Lucas
2023-09-18 18:48:44
Hi, first time commenter here. I recently listened to this podcast from Property Lovers on construction company collapses, and now reading this article from Michael, I'm curious. I know Australia plans to bring in a record number of migrants in the ...Read full version
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Pete
2023-09-11 18:12:12
Wonder if cost and time is better with tilt up concrete? House can be at lock up in like four days. I think there is more work and costs in getting your design right at start as hard to make changes later with concrete but surely this would be a cons ...Read full version
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Denis Duncan
2023-09-08 10:28:46
It feels like there is not really going to be a good time to build in the foreseeable future. With rates constantly rising it seems like we're going to be stuck for a long time and building just doesn't seem worth it.
1 replyWould you like to share your thoughts?
Hi, first time commenter here. I recently listened to this podcast from Property Lovers on construction company collapses, and now reading this article from Michael, I’m curious.
I know Australia plans to bring in a record number of migrants in the coming years, which will drive up demand for rental properties and owner occupied properties. Couple this with these rising construction costs, it seems like we’re on the brink of an enormous surge in property values. I’m really feeling the pinch of mortgage rate rises, but with these facts in play, I’m wondering if there’s sense in holding on for a few more years before I sell?
Can anyone think of a reason why property values wouldn’t go up dramatically alongside the increased demand for housing/slowed growth in the number of dwellings?
The only reason builders will build and property developers will undertake new projects is if they are going to make money and so the cost of new dwellings will only keep increasing, pushing up the value of existing dwellings
Wonder if cost and time is better with tilt up concrete? House can be at lock up in like four days. I think there is more work and costs in getting your design right at start as hard to make changes later with concrete but surely this would be a consideration with lack of build materials and the better time turnaround. And better thermal mass depending on where you live.
Yes – there are advantages to this construction technique but it’s not very flexible in design – works best with straight walls
Agree. But if you want a cube or box style home and maybe just a smallish 2 bedroom, 2 living area kind of place, I’d be investigating this method. You can still clad it in whatever you want and it doesn’t have to be brutalist architecture in anyway and as long as you really think hard about where you want power points and taps etc, it can be up very quickly. But I believe it can cost more for the construction method (especially for a small house with scale of economy thing) but you save a lot in time and labour costs at the other end and also maintenance of the home.
I don’t believe a quality house can be built for less than $1m today and may be closer to $2m depending on size and finishes. I had an interesting experience building a house in 2008/09 at a cost approaching $1million a premium suburb when I decided to buy the materials from the US as the USD exchange rate was almost par with AUD. GFC hit and suppliers started going bust. What was available in the East coast had to be sourced from the West Coast and vice versa. The quality of the kitchen cupboards, doors,windows, roofing material, fire places etc was much better than in Australia price wise. Just managed to finish the house and a few months later the builder went bust. The builder going bust is the biggest risk in development. The lesson I learnt from this was to avoid development and value add as much as possible and just to let the market do the heavy lifting for you by sticking to blue chip suburbs. Buy the biggest land you can get. Generally Land appreciates and buildings depreciate.
Karen, you are right – it’s very difficult to conduct an accurate feasibility study – at Metropole we have our own construction company and internal databases which makes it a little easier.
While many houses are single story and builders use a “cookie cutter” approach to hold down costs, townhouses are usually double story and one off builds making them more expensive
Unfortunately Carol is using imperial/USA measurements. One “square “ is 3.33yards x 3.33 yards = 11.11sq yards which = 9.290304m2 so her build is in fact approximately 372m2 and her build costs are thus about $2065m2. IMO she’s got a very good build price for an upmarket home esp if it’s in a top notch suburb. Ours, similar size, cost more (870K No landscaping) in 2012. Total build 1.1mil with all pres incl demo and landscaping and pool.
