Building a House with No Grants (Perth, WA)

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  serpserpserp on 15/07/2021 - 18:12

  +1

  Adding the news from The West Australian yesterday that we might have to wait 3 years isn't helping at all.

  Wait 3 years for what?

  With no incentives and low confidence to building a house within a year,

  You realise this is most house builds right?

  You push through because you want the house to live in. No one builds a house because they are getting "a good deal" (unless you are a tradie).

  Just suck up the overrun costs and keep going. If it is going to ruin you financially, pull out now. Simple choices.

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  PissLUR on 15/07/2021 - 18:13

  get owners builder to build. they will have shorter time wait but more expensive.

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  Baa on 15/07/2021 - 18:20

  +1

  The same happened to me 13 years ago, I ended up just sticking it out as it was much harder to just get out of the contract even during the fixed price window.

  Our titles were delayed by 18 months though so could always be worse.

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  netjock on 15/07/2021 - 21:22

  Depends on your view. Once the world comes to terms with the supply chain issues (reconfiguring the supply chain and getting infection prevention correct) some of the problems will disappear. If you look at wood prices it has peaked and now on the way down. Problem is whether your builder will price on current prices and get lucky (they will end up paying less and get a bigger profit).

  I look at these yet to be titled land, problem with it is unless it is titled right now and ready to hand over you are at the mercy of a lot more people. I suggest you look at a piece of land where for one reason the buyer is backing out.

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  whitelie on 15/07/2021 - 21:40

  +1

  What was the $5k deposit on? The land? If so, that should be refundable. Check the contract but there will be a means of getting out of it one way or another.
  Only deposit that may not be refundable is paying the builder to begin preparing the plans, which is generally more around the $2k mark from my experience.

  I originally signed in August last year, promised the $45k in grants. Builder then took on too much work and in late September said as our land wasn't titled yet, they won't do our contract. Land was then titled within a month but still missed the $45k. Finally got a contract signed in March so get the $15k but that will likely get chewed up in price rises. Still waiting for construction to begin but I would hazard a guess at 12 months from slab down to completion. There are heaps of delays but 3 years is a fair stretch. If you are coming in now, by the time you get to construction, most of the demand should be tapering down. We essentially came in at the peak demand and may be 2 years all up.

  We didn't build for the $45k in grants, it was just a bonus but I suppose tipped us over to signing sooner rather than later. That said, not getting the full amount now hasn't stopped us at all. We're building exactly what we want as we couldn't find it in established houses.

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  iforgotmysocks on 16/07/2021 - 07:13

  +1

  Building a House with No Grants

  I mean it's possible but to be sure you'll probably have to be on site every day checking the IDs of the work crews. Seems a lot of work just to avoid a few Grants.

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  Fever4shakin on 16/07/2021 - 09:11

  +1

  We are currently in the process of our house build, we haven't started construction yet but fingers crossed will in the next few months. We didn't qualify for home builder but do qualify for stamp duty waiver.

  Like you we have also experienced delays - small delay in settlement due to getting our act together for the bank, small delay waiting for our reference number for the land registration, and big delay with our approvals due to a very avoidable oversight by our builder.

  That big delay (that we're sort of on the tail end of now) def had us questioning if we should go ahead or at least find another builder.

  There's 3 main reasons we're continuing on and not giving up and selling the land:

  1) I guess for us it's a bit of a sunk cost thing. We've come so far and are so close now that pulling out would cost us both time and money. Building inevitably has delays, we are of course optimistic that we will be the one exception where everything goes smoothly and we move in earlier than expected but that is dream talk.

  2) For us, we locked in prices last year. When looking at what we can buy for our budget in existing suburbs - after the market went nuts this year - it would be nowhere near as nice as the house we are building.

  3) property prices seem to inevitably rise. Sure there's lots of talk of a housing crash but the way it's been going we figure that once our house is built it will be worth more on the market than what we paid to build it. The block next to us got sold after land registration for $50k more than the original price, and that was 6 months after the land ballot to secure it. If you don't build now the market your competing in just keeps growing. Time is money.