Find a builder like an idiot.

When deciding to knock down our house and rebuild, I set myself some rules of engaging a large volume builder.

1. Don't fall in love with a design
2. Negotiate extras before handing over ANY money
3. Get everything right before you sign a contract

Two large volume building companies were our front runners...  For this post I'll call them C1 and C2.  Their designs and their inclusions really suited us. C1's design was bigger than the other, but the C2's came with more appropriate inclusions.  Both designs needed some changes for us to be happy with them.  The display homes of both were reasonably good but we knew that their finishes didn't reflect what we were going to get.

C1's salesperson was very professional. He guided us to make specific decisions up front before we paid  an initial deposit.  I disagreed with a few of his recommendations and I don't think he was up-front with reasons for making them, but he was pleasant and responsive to all our questions.  I sent him a request of changes by email and when we arrived to get his price indication he had everything accurately drawn up ready to go.

C2's salesperson had been in the job six months and I got a gut feeling that this guy could be a problem.  He didn't guide us at all and he could hardly answer any of my questions.  He said some really weird things about being a good salesman and that having a good salesperson was the most important thing about building a home.  We managed to get a price indication from him, as well as some roughly sketched drawings, but it was no where near as smooth or professional as with C1.

Mathias Erhart (CC BY-SA 2.0)

I drew up an Analytic Hierarchy Process (a spreadsheet) to help wifey and I decide between the two. C2 came out on top.  They were a definite winner with my wife, but only by a nose with me.  My experience with the sales consultant had brought their marks down quite considerably but not enough to make them lose out to C1.

The reality was, we had fallen in love with C2's design.  Now, anything else we looked at would not  work for us.

The first rule was broken.

And, in quick succession, the second rule was broken.

Excited by our new love interest, we paid the initial deposit to C2, without negotiating hard enough on extras. We really should have played C1 and C2 off each other a little more.  Paying this initial deposit made us more committed to C2 but by no means wedded to the decision. The amount paid was small enough that if we wanted to go back to C2 we could call the expense "research".

After this point our sales consultant's performance deteriorated further.  He was never clear about the process, he gave us strange unnecessary forms to fill in and sign, and he really couldn't manage the extra changes I wanted to make to the windows.  In the end, I did all the sketches myself and held his hand while he punched the list of changes into his computer system. I (with limited assistance from the sales guy) got everything perfect and he submitted a tender request for us.  He said he had been aiming to get the price indication to be around the same or more than the tender.

Two weeks later, the tender came back and the site costs had doubled.  $16k more than what he had estimated.  A very large sum to swallow.  Our block was still not clear (and it still isn't) and I figured we had time to start the process again.  I reconsidered C1, and also a looked more seriously at a third builder.  I realised the deal we had with C2 was still going to be the best value for money and we should stick with the devil we know.... nah that's BS...  We were still in love with the design.

The C2 sales consultant was pressuring us to go to contract.  If we wanted the price on any further changes we were going to have go straight to contract.

Then we broke the third rule.

Our block is still not ready to build on, but we've ordered a contract, which will be subject to another soil test and survey.

The contract has arrived I've nearly had a mental breakdown stressing out about it.  The next post will be entitled "Get the Vaseline ready!"

Is it gone yet!?!?

As I said in the last post, the house was off our block one day after it was supposed to be and the block is still not clear.  What are the consequences for construction industry people not doing what they are contracted to do?

Thanks to the Queensland government there is this great website where you can look up the reputation of your licensed builder or tradesman.  The Queensland Building and Construction Commission (previously  known as the QBSA) allows you to punch a tradie... no no no... I mean punch in a tradie/builder/company name and out pops a report.  This report has their turn over, their bad deeds and their rectification record. House removal mate's record showed his turn over was small time but he'd been around for 15 years.  His bad deed record was clean.  Completely clean. The names on the truck weren't matching up with my house guy, and I realised he is not actually a house remover.  He just buys and sells removal homes, subbing out removal work to another company.

The trucks have a different name on them.

After the house was gone, I rang him up every three working days (on average) and asked "When is the rubbish going to be taken away?".  He would say in a couple of days or next week and once mentioned that it had been raining so it was taking a while.  I was getting weary of nothing happening but if I was unreasonable or too disgruntled, he might walk away. Wifey was telling me to calm down.  I was pretty busy at the time and didn't want to deal with sorting out the mess.  I'd previously studied up on this construction agreement stuff and worked out that I should allow reasonable time for rain (it had been quite rainy).

Two and half weeks like this!

Two and half weeks after the "gone by" date (reasonable enough time for rain), I consulted with a solicitor, made a call to the removal guy and spoke the phrases "reasonable time", "in breach" and "recover costs".  He seemed upset (as you would) and told me, that each time I called him, he would call his sub contractor who would then make promises to him.  The very next day (a Saturday) a machine was on site removing rubbish and digging out the old slab.  The following Monday, the machine was gone, without the job being finished.  Of course I made another call and asked politely... "It's not finished, the machine is gone, what's happening?".

Yay!  Machine on site. Nearly finished!

The answer was "The machine sunk in the wet clay... It's started raining, the ground is too wet and nothing can be done until it dries. There is no way it can be surveyed, and there is no way a soil test drill can safely enter the site."

"How long do you think it will take to dry out?"

"Weeks."

Awww... Where did the machine go?

I went and had a look at our land myself... he was right, and here we are... still not ready for our new house.

What's a house worth without land underneath it?

What's a house worth without land underneath it? Not much!

My wife and I have been buying and selling second hand goods for as long as we could read the trading post.  Furniture, cars, electronic goods, baby stuff, you name it, we've bought and sold.  Selling goods second hand can be a really random experience.  Some things go in seconds, like the deck and the fence for instance.  I thought they would sit there forever but they were sold the day after advertising them.  I literally had multiple buyers on my property trying to outbid each other over the deck.

Gumtree, the greatest Aussie invention.

Selling the house to be removed off our block took seven months.  The removal home companies make more money moving a house directly to the new owners property but only after all the approvals have been granted and bonds paid.  Straight after signing up with a removal company  there was immediate interest, then nothing for two months.   In hindsight I think we were never going to what we wanted fro the house. None of the companies said "you're dreaming" when they probably should have.

So the house was not selling, and I began scheming up ways to get money for it.  One scheme was to buy some land out in woop woop, move the house there and on sell it ASAP.   I did the sums and worked out it wasn't going to be worth it.  We may have made, 20k or we may have lost 20k and it would have taken a lot of time and effort.  Also, most regional councils require a bond if you are going move a removal home on to your block. This is to make sure it's actually going to be a real home and not just dumped there.  We gave up on the schemes and decided to try and sell again.

The house still made it to woop woop.

Gumtree had been good to us, so we advertised privately on gumtree and got a good offer from a small removal home company.  It was subject to permission for tree trimming in our street,  BUT... the council guy said no.  The house could still be removed, but the house needed to be chopped in half so the offer was halved. I got some quotes for clearing the block after the house was gone and realised that the money we would get wouldn't cover the cost for site clean up. It's pretty standard for these removal home people to buy the house for a dollar on the condition that it was gone and the site cleaned up by a certain date so we negotiated down again... to a dollar, on condition the site was cleared after the removal.  We got a contract saying so.

I had completed all the disconnections by the agreed disconnection date.  There was some trouble with the electricity and the plumber took a week longer than he promised, but they were all done on time. I called the removal guy up and asked when the house would go.  He said by the "gone by" date.  I then asked what the likelihood of it going earlier was.  He said "not likely".  The house had already been on sold and he was going to delay for as long as he could until approvals for it's new location were ready.  The "gone by" date came and I called him expecting excuses.  I was shocked and elated when I was told that it would be gone by tomorrow night and the site cleaned up by the end of the week.  Awesome!!!

The morning of the move day came and it was already on big trailers with the roof being taken off.  In the afternoon it was cut in half and the trailers were ready to go.  The next morning it was gone.  Clearing the site is another story and, as of now, still not finished.

Family getting bigger... Small house too small...

What it looked like when we bought it.

I was always going to do up a blog about our house building experience, so I had better make a start.

Ours is a road well traveled, so I'll begin with some cliches.  My wife and I "got into the market" back in 2009 with this 3 bedroom, high set, semi-modern home in one of those suburbs that "had great potential" and "was going to be hot".  The house was big enough for both of us, my wife's sister and the occasional visitor from out of town.   We knew our family was going to grow, so we never considered it our "forever" house but maybe something we could add to when we needed it.

The outdoor living area

With the arrival of our first child it was getting a bit tight to accommodate out of town guests.  We started assessing our options.  With the arrival of the second child, we had to kick out our long term boarder (my wife's sister) and it was getting uncomfortable to accommodate any out of towners.

With the unique location and convenience to absolutely everything in our lives, renovating was always at the top of my list.  Meanwhile, my wife was browsing realestate.com.au every single day for something nearby we would be happy with.


I was naive enough to believe I could owner-build the renovations myself.  I did the course, got a white card, and researched a hell of a lot of things about how a house is built.  I spoke to building designers, friends who had renovated, plumbers, electricians, and bathroom people.  I came up with two sets of house plans and I even started planning and costing the construction of our renovation.  Meanwhile my wife continued to trawl realestate.com.au every day.


Reality eventually hit the both of us.  I didn't have the time to owner build and engaging a builder to conduct the renovations would bankrupt us. New houses in our area are expensive, small and have no back yard.  Bigger houses in nearby areas are well out of our budget.  Leaving the area meant leaving our friends, family and abandoning our plans for the future.  It was obvious that knocking down and rebuilding was the best option for us.

The deck is gone.

We had sunk a lit of money into our 3 bedroom house and we needed to get as much back as we can back for it.  I put the rear deck on gumtree.  It was sold the next day and taken away the next weekend.  A few nights later I woke up in the middle of the night, sweating and feverish.  There was no going back, we either see the plans through or take a massive financial hit.

I put our picket fence on Gumtree.  Sold the next day.  Then I put our house on Gumtree.  6 months later it was sold and gone.