When building make sure you buy land with titles here in Perth as they are never due on the date promised.Which means the house you are building will go up in value.Ours has just gone up $11000.Which is just crazy if we could afford that we would of built a more expensive house in the first place.
Salesman upto 2 weeks prior of getting price rise promised we would only have a couple of thousand increase,but like anything a verbal promise means nothing.

Any advice on building would be great then we don't get stung again.
Do we do electrics at pre-start or pay the electrican cash.
Should we put a pool in before,during or after compleation of house?
Any advice on aircon and heating?
Any advice just to make the next stage easier would be great.

I know what you mean about titles taking for ever. Ours took 7 months. Luckily we didn't have an increase in price with our house. Just wondering, who are you building with?

We had our electrical upgrades done at the pre-start because very often you don't catch the sparky on site as they are in and out so quickly.
Pool: Most building companies will not allow you to put a pool in until they have finished the house and handed you the keys. Their insurance companies will not cover them for a crane lifting a whopping great pool over the roof of the house! We are using Sapphire pools. They are part of Agua Technics, and Buccaneer to I think. Just go between them and haggle down the price. they will all try to beat each other. We saved over 3k and got the pool blanket, daisy wheel and baracuda cleaner thrown in too!
Aircon: We have gone with Advanced Air , Winton Road in Joondalup. We're have reverse cycle as I have flatly rfused to have another cold winter in a house with no central heating or double glazing!


Good luck with the rest of your build. We've been very lucky with our builders..Summit Homes, they've been excellent.

I can only gather you are doing an OWNER BUILDER purchase.

If you buy an house and land package I am pretty sure this would not happen.
Once you sign up with a HOUSE AND LAND package, the final price is the FINAL price.

Unfortunately when you do it that way, you will get unexpected costs. Should not be that way, but it is

Can someone explain what 'titles' is please.

Thanks.

If it's like my contract - it's set for an initial 6 month fixed price. If building doesn't start within that time the builder has the right to pass on any increases to you.

We are building with Content living.We bought without titles at the Vale which means you buy land off the plans.Then once sewer pipes and roads are in then you get titles which means the surveyor can go down and measure up.

The person who had no price rise after 7 months was very lucky.
Thanks for info on pool will go and haggle with them all.

Thats crap. In QLD my building contract alllows for a price review within 1 month from starting and even that I could have negotiated with the builder. After that its fixed no matter what. I also pointed out to him that if he raised the price on the price review date then he's not getting the job. Easy eh ? Hey presto no price increase.

Most major builders use this from what I hear as a good excuse to chuck a couple of grand on. Its a con and total rubbish for the main part.

Here you get a fixed price for 90 days but with titles taking longer house prices go up and unfortunatly we can do nothing about it.I would love to tell them to shove it but then back to square 1 finding ahouse and 5 month wait or longer for building to start.

Titles are deeds to land issued by the Shire.....when they feel like it, or it eventually gets to the top of the pile, or they get back from an incredibly long lunch break!

They don't call W.A 'wait awhile' for nothing ya know!

In Qld if you buy land pending titles the price is firmly fixed in the contract, a discloure statement is attached, which is usually a book length type annexure to the land contract detailing the proposed subdivision. Are people sure they legally bought the land for the purpose of building on or did they just put their name on a house/land package.

We are finially on the move with the building bought the land 13 months ago,pre start in Feb and slab down 4 weeks ago and much to our delight when we went down today bricks been delivered.

Titles are only allowed to be issued when the Shire/Council has the handover of developed land to them after all the infrastructure is put in(ie. Roads, drainage, sewer and water mains etc).


A reason for the delay in titles to block owners( In Perth) of late is due to the incredible amount of land development going on at the moment.

ALL the civil engineering contractors are flat out like the house builders.

Some developers have to pre sell the blocks in order to kick start cash flow from the bank.( Borrowing after purchase of land).

Therefore the risk, and it's happening here as it has in QLD, is that due to the phenomenal rise in land prices, some developers are trying to break the pre sold agreements done say 12 months ago, and are now trying to break contracts now to resell on at the more inflated price of todays market.

Be wary