How to find the best residential home builders for your project
Are you looking for residential home builders? It’s fair to say that the great majority of builders are very good at what they do, but there’s always a few bad apples in every barrel. So if you are in the market for a builder, how do you make sure that your builder is one of the good ones? How do you form a positive working relationship with a builder, ensuring excellent communication and full transparency?
Clarify your design and renovations
To give you a realistic quote that covers all the costs, builders need a detailed brief. This might mean that you need to have plans drawn up, along with a list of inclusions and exclusions. For a small one room renovation, you might think that this is going too far, but the only way to clarify your requirements and receive an accurate quote is to give your builders as much detailed information as possible. With a detailed brief there are no grounds for confusion; otherwise the quote you receive will be the builder’s best guess, which might be a lot lower than the final cost of your project.
Match the residential home builders to your project
Some builders specialise in commercial projects, others in residential projects, and yet others in building townhouses, multi-story properties, granny flats, and so on. There are also large building firms who only focus on high-end luxury projects, but are very expensive to employ. On a more practical level, there are many highly experienced small owner-manager builders who have their own team of trusted tradies and run all their projects themselves. Due to their lower overheads, these residential home builders are more affordable, but they aren’t as organised, service driven or as fast as the high-end building firms. The take home message is that if you match the builder to your needs, there won’t be any surprises!
Allow the builder to manage your project
Some people employ builders, but want to manage their project themselves, a strategy that often leads to disaster! Without the experience of managing building projects, you have no idea which trades need to be on site at any given time, and what jobs need to be completed and in what order. You also don’t know how to manage a team of tradies and ensure that the right materials are on-site when needed. The builder knows how to do all these tasks, so let them do their job and it will be completed on-time and within budget.
Always compare quotes from at least three builders
Costs between residential home builders can vary by 100% or more, so always ask for at least three quotes, but not more than five or you can become too confused. It also takes a lot of work to put together a realistic quote, so it’s unfair to the builder if you are not seriously considering them for the job. These quotes also need to include the costs of the final installations, if you want your builder to do these tasks. So for example, if you want your builder to install the cabinetry and fixed appliances in the kitchen, laundry and bathrooms, these costs need to be included in the quote.
JEB Built are third generation QBCC licensed residential home builders in Brisbane. Why not give us a call on 0431 065 019 or send us an email for a free quote?
