Town House costs (branched from 4 townhouse topic)

I’ve already answered the other thread but further to your questions:

1. Two 3 bedroom town houses don’t equal a 6 bedroom house.

Each townhouse requires for itself, seperated from the other: a kitchen, an eating area, a living area, a lug plus a 2nd car space, an outdoor area (usually has a balcony and a patio in addition to a courtyard or garden area), three bedrooms, and usually has both an onsuite and a bathroom.

This is much more than one house.

Townhouses are compactly designed. They take up less space, but are generally more efficient with the space they do use. This costs more in design and materials (see other post for some examples).

More added expenses: There is a need for double brick, insulation and fire protection between townhouses (where normal houses often just have timber framed and plasterboard dividing walls). A DLUG is cheaper than two seperate LUGs. Each townhouse needs it’s own connections to water, gas, electricity etc. Each townhouse needs driveway access (rather than one for a house)… the list goes on.

Townhouses only cost more per square metre. As townhouses are generally half the size of a stand alone house this does not make them double the cost. Three townhouses would be cheaper to build than three standard houses (which each take up more square metres).

2. You are unlikely to be able to do this, as there are council regulations regarding how close one dwelling can be next to another, etc.

You seem to overlook the fact that townhouses are of a completely different design to a regular house. Most houses (probably including your 4 bedroom) are not very efficient with their usage of space. You would need twice the land to place two such stand alone residences on a property than if you put two townhouses.

Equally, two stand alone houses would have their windows onlooking each other with no privacy for residents – not a pleasant outlook. Townhouses are designed so that while you live side by side, you never see your neighbours except as you arrive at the front door.

3. If these are your thoughts, then don’t build townhouses. The basic principle of a townhouse is that it is a medium density dwelling rather than a low density dwelling like your four bedroom house.

The 214 sqm that your house takes up could fit two 3 bedroom townhouses, each bringing in a rental return equal to (or nearly) a normal 3 bedroom house. The two houses together are worth more than one 4 bedroom place – so you can expect that it will cost more per square metre to build.

The design is more expensive on a per metre basis, but it also gives you more bang per metre – and you don’t use as many metres.

Hi there,

As a “master” builder, as opposed to a project builder, I come across this sort of situation quite regularly. It’s hard to escape the marketing of the project builders and their price tags, yet custom builders avoid advertising as much as they can. For the good ones, we just have no need for it, as there is usually not a shortage of clients.

Firstly, although you may be building your house through one of the project mobs for $855/m2, if you were to bring the plans to me there’s just NO WAY that I could even pay for the materials and labour at that price. You get what you pay for with a project home – they operate on a very different pricing structure to a builder:

i) They have huge buying power
ii) They employ labour at the lowest rates, with little regard for quality. We tend to pay more for a tradesperson that we know will be a craftsman.
iii) Their profit margin system is setup differently; they rely on high turnover/low margin, we rely on lower turnover/higher margin.
iv) Their construction is just rubbish. People have no problems seeing the difference in quality between a Mercedes and a Daewoo, but it’s harder for them to see the difference between a master-built and project-built home.

Generally, you won’t get a project builder who can build townhouses, so you’ll have to employ a custom builder.

Secondly, most things in the industry are charged per item, per square meter, or per lineal meter. Hourly labour rates aren’t as relevant. So a 200m2 slab will cost twice as much as a 100m2 slab, even though it may take comparatively less time to pour. That’s just how it is.

Townhouses can be an excellent investment, and in the right area, with the right design can bring some serious dollars. A while back we built 3 3br townhouses in Terrigal for just under $1m. They were an amazing design, with some spectacular views. The block they were built on was bought for around $900k. They sold (quickly) for just under $800k each. Now if you’d gone and plonked your $130k house on that block, I really doubt you’d have found someone to pay even $1 million for it, just because it was a house.

Townhouse building is not for everyone, nor are project homes.

Hi!
Project mobs build only standard houses, which are replicated many times, so are cheaper. Townhouses are normally custom designed, with specific planning approvals, not just building permits. So, project mobs don’t touch them. Is this the reason town houses are expensive?

If you look at Metricon’s prices, even double storey houses of standard design cost about 40% more than single storey houses.

Someone please advise.

Regards,

Rakesh

1. Bingo
2. Kind of… But it also comes down to the fact that on a townhouse (or any architecturally-designed building) we’re constructing from scratch, and each day has new unknowns. Materials actually cost more, because there isn’t the buying power, nor the economies of scale of making, say 20 sets of identical frames and trusses.
3. Again, kind of. But go an look at Wagga Wagga to see that there are plenty of these sorts of developments (presumably profitably) going on in regional areas.