Building construction is costly. This is the reason why home building and renovating are done with careful planning. Every aspect of the construction is being planned, assessed, analysed, restructured, and reviewed repeatedly even before construction. This is all for cutting the cost. A well detailed plan will enable home builders to minimise the expenses of building.
Here are some useful advises to cut the costs of your building construction:
1). Estimation
As the name suggests, estimation is not precise. That is why the process is called estimation in the first place. Companies, even those with many years of experience cannot gauge the exact cost of production, they can only estimate. This is because building a house involves over 100 people and components that have to be individually negotiated with, purchased and installed. If one problem occurs, it can easily create a domino effect and carry unexpected costs. To remedy this, builders usually carry adjustment margins in their estimates. Prices are usually fixed per square metre but costs of materials changes constantly.
2). Progress Payment
The contractor may ask you to make progress payments but you should only pay for the work done. If you find it hard or too technical to inspect the work progress yourself, try to engage the services of an independent architect or contractor to do the inspection.
3). Deposits
Deposits are usually only asked for long time projects or when specific or custom-made materials are required. There are certain laws that protect us from overpricing and over-charging by some builders. The building law specifies that the maximum deposit you are required to pay is 10% of the contract price if the overall projuect is less than $20000 and 5% if the overall project costs over $20000.
4). Cheap Companies
The cheapest house builders are the large, volume based companies like Dixon Homes, Orbit Homes, Hallmark Homes or Coral Homes who can offer you a house from $220 per square meter. But you can opt for small flexible and quality builders for a higher rate and get a more customised product.
5). Do It Yourself
A contractor cost from 5% to 25% of the total project cost, with the average ranging 10-15%. To cut costs, you can choose to locate and coordinate your own subcontractors but then you will need to invest a lot of time in the building process. Always keep in mind that the contractors’ oversight and experience can also make you save money. Their job is indeed to make sure the subcontractors are doing their job completely, properly and for a reasonable cost.
Cost-cutting does not necessarily mean using cheap labor and materials. Cost-cutting is simply arming yourself with the right knowledge and information on dealing with builders, contractorsand sub-contractors.