Hey everyone
Firstly just wanted to say a huge thank you to all you legends who have given great advice and input into this chat. The information I have read has been incredibly helpful and insightful, so thanks so much!
A little about us: we live in the Penrith area and bought our first home in Dec 2011 for $335k and we had the house Bank Valued late last year for $580k. We have 4 sons ranging from 10 down to 3 and we are going to use this equity to build a granny flat in our backyard with the main intention being to eventually rent both the main house (a 3br and 1 shared toilet/bath is to small for 6) and the 2br granny flat out. My wife has just started a 2 day a week job and will be going full time in the next two years, so in the mean time we will rent something after the GF build. Hope this makes sense:)
I have just done my Owner Builder’s and White Card Courses. I have 1 best mate and about 3 other builders/carpenters who are helping me out, I have other good mates who are an architect, plumbers, and sparky’s. Hence why I’m doing a GF owner Builder.
I was hoping to start a thread to discuss my Owner Builder GF and also diarise/log the whole experience (mistakes and all) so it really empowers and helps others to do the same.
So, thanks for having me and any thoughts or input you might have would be heaps helpful as I’m basically learning as I’m going and obviously starting from scratch and loving this whole thing so far.
Jay
How do you plan on financing it? A lot of banks don’t like owner builders.
D.T. | DT Property Management
http://www.dtproperty.com.au
Email Me | Phone MeAdelaide Property Management - whole Adelaide metro
Hey DT
No they don’t, but I have a line of credit.
New Update: Surveyors
I rang around a whole stack of very reputable Surevyors and I’ll have to say they were all excellent in trying to be accomodating and helpful. The prices I got quoted though were quite different. At the moment things are pretty crazy for Sureveyors though and it will usually take 2-3 weeks to get one out.
The price you should be expecting to pay for:
1. Site/detail Survey $1000
2. Set Out or Peg Out Survey $500
3. Final Inspection Survey $400But as an owner builder you only really need to concern yourself with the Detail Survey. If you can get your Detail Survey done then you can hand that to your architect or draftperson so you can get on to the next part which is the actual Plans/Floor plan and design of your Granny Flat.
Anything I’ve missed or info you’d like me to include? Then let me know:)
Update 27/04: Surveyor Locked In!
So got another 4 or 5 quotes back today and I’m going to be going with a great local Penrith Firm Richard Hogan Surveyors. They have a good reputation, they were able to do the survey 8am this weds (which is a miracle considering every other surveyor couldn’t do it for 3 weeks!), and their service is excellent. I gave their initial quote to my architect who wanted some extra things added in and they did so quickly and cheaply only adding another $50 to the quote:
Detail Survey $1050
Set Out Survey $660
Final Identification Survey $385
Total for the whole project: $2095I was quoted from a Granny Flat Builder $1800 just for the detail survey:) so already we are saving big time!
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