Your Building Brokers Blog About New Homes, Building Advice And News

What Payment Schedule Can I Expect While Building?

We’re often asked how payments are made while building a new home, so we should we’d cover it in this weeks blog post. The payment schedule during construction is referred to in most building contracts as ‘progress claims’ and there are a couple of different ways this is done which we’ll explain in this article. First, what is a progress claim? A progress claim is an invoice from the builder to the client for the work completed on site by the home builder. Builders will typically charge you a progress claim when main components of construction has been completed on your home. The way these figures are calculated generally follows this formula; Cost of Building to Date – Any payments already made = Invoice Cost…

Revealed: Unethical Builder Tricks Used On Unwitting Customers

If you’ve ever walked through a display village you’ve probably found it difficult to compare builders. It’s just one of the tricks used to make it very hard for prospective buyers to make a good value decision with their choice of home. While there are legitimate discounts sometimes offered by builders, we’re seeing some practises that aren’t very customer friendly. In fact, it could almost be regarded as unethical.

Don’t Get Caught With A Recess That Is Too Small

It’s easy to overlook something as simple as this – dimensions on a plan that might be 10,20 or 50mm too small for your existing furniture. I’ve seen this a few times in my career. Home owners move into their brand new home only to find that their favourite piece of furniture doesn’t fit where it should! This video shows just how easy it is to get caught out when you build your new home and shows just how you can double check your plans if indeed you have specific furniture in mind for a niche or recess.

Hillarys Starts On Site With Bradford Retaining Walls

It’s great to see one of our favourite home designs start on site and that’s just what has happened in the last week. The owners, Ben & Soraya, have just commissioned their retaining wall contractor to work on and complete the retaining walls to the rear of the block.

Your Building Broker Wins 2012 HIA Awards – Best Custom Built Home $350,000 – $475,000

The 2012 HIA Awards was held last weekend and as it turned out, we couldn’t be happier – walking away winning the 2012 HIA Best Custom Built Home in the $350,000 – $475,000 category. It was a big weekend for Aaron & Jess, VM Building Company and Your Building Broker. Together, we managed to win the coveted 2012 HIA Award against a lot of tough competition in the Best Custom Built Home $350,000 – $475,000.

What Factors Should You Consider When Choosing Your Home Builder?

If it were as simple as walking into a shop and choosing a new home design and builder just by looking at what is on the shelf, our lives would be much simpler wouldn’t they! But unfortunately, it’s just not that simple. If, like me, you’ve walked through dozens of display homes you’re probably a little mystified at how to choose the right home builder for you. When I launched Your Building Broker I was determined to make things easier for clients by selecting a smaller pool of home builders to choose from. Too much choice often leads to analysis paralysis (which is probably another blog post in and of itself). These builders would all meet certain performance criteria which I broke into 3 parts;…

The Myth Of Big Builders Better Buying Power Reducing Prices

Can big builders build your home for less because they have better buying power than smaller builders? Here’s a test you can do yourselves when you’re visiting a display home this weekend. Let the sales consultant know you’re thinking of building with a smaller builder (someone who builders 15 homes or less a year). You’ll start to get a number of worrying statistics about ‘smaller builders’ being riskier and more expensive, among others. So lets break this down a bit further and dispel this myth. First of all, it’s a common sales line used by many sales representatives working for the larger project home builders. Our buying power means you’ll pay less on your home than if you build with a smaller builder. But is that really…

How Do You Choose A Builder On Price?

We’ve seen lots of examples where builders pricing isn’t equal. Unfortunately as a home buyer, this makes your job even more difficult. In our portfolio of homes we’re revealing the tender prices received for the design and specification from each builder. What is surprising is the final choice owners make when deciding which builder is right for them. So there are a few obvious considerations here; Which builder gave the best price? Which builder has the best policies? Which builder does the highest quality of work? Which builder did we just get along with better? Given the design itself and the specification is equal for the most part, the above considerations needs to be addressed.

A Sun Study Helps With Energy Efficiency Design Considerations

Energy Efficiency is so important with new home design that sometimes it’s better to create a Sun Study on the home design as it gives us and our clients a little bit more insight. This particular home is a design we came up with for Margaret River. Now as most Perth people know, it’s a little cool down south and the Owners were also mindful when it came to their home design. So our main goal here was making sure the home design stayed on budget, but deliver a design where maximum amount of sun could come into the home in the winter months.

Aaron & Jess Move In To Their Fantastic New 2 Storey Home In Viveash

As a building broker our goal is to help clients achieve their perfect house design and then find them a builder who will turn that dream into a reality. We’re really happy to see that Aaron and Jess received just that with the final handover of their wonderful home earlier this year. It feels like a big responsibility to take on new home building – but partnering with great home builders who do over and above what they promise to do makes our job so much more enjoyable. I’d like to personally thank the builder, Rob and Chris on behalf of Your Building Broker and Aaron and Jess for making everything run so smoothly. Coming down the driveway the front of the home is revealed…

YBB Wins 2012 HIA Award for Best Custom Built Home $350,000 - $475,000 Find out more here.

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