Mr Kilt

Hi All,

We are hopefully moving to Perth soon from Brussels. Originally from sunny Scotland. We have been looking into buying a house but have seen a lot of house and land packages. These seem pretty good value. Does anyone have some more info about this process i.e. how long does it normally take. Is it good value for money. Good and bad feedback welcome.

jimbo_d

Unless you're loaded they're in the middle of nowhere, very nice places to live, lots of space but a very long way into the city, most of the new suburbs have no train links, and few bus routes so you'd have to drive. Check out the area and where you'll be working first to work out if it's commutable.

hoofie2002

The block size is also small - it looks massive coming from the UK but they are small plots to put a 4 bed single storey house on.

pomtastic

Take your time and rent first before commiting to a land/home package. All suburbs are not the same especially if schooling is or will be an issue, the right suburb is absolute for schooling. Looking from afar on the internet is useless for deciding where to live, areas may look nice but you could be surrounded by barking dogs, burn outs or undesirables, plenty of new bogan suburbs in Perth.

Research, research, research, all builders offer different quality of homes builds. You'll get to know what is quality and what isn't as there are plenty of new build estates in the Northern Suburbs of Perth where people have obviously chucked up very cheap double stories or houses to make a quick buck, looks good from the outside but IMO cheapens the suburb in the long run.

Land values will vary according to size and position, a corner block is cheaper as it's usually less desirable and a waste of land (2 sides unused), elevated blocks are more exxie than blocks in a dip, views cost more, blocks that are opposite a junction in a road are cheaper (end of a T), blocks opposite a park are more exxie, near or on main roads cheaper, battleaxe blocks (awkward spaces that sometimes need a 'specially' designed house to accomodate, i.e more expensive to build.

Looking at current land prices and current new build prices, you may find that homes that are several years old will come in a lot cheaper than if you built from scratch in same area, below replacement cost - something to take into consideration. All new houses depreciate in value while land value (supposedly) appreciates.

Good luck and do your reasearch, talk to as many people as possible and from what I've seen on BE there are tons of threads on new builds, good and bad.

Mr Kilt

Yeah will defo not be commiting to anything for a good few months after arrival. The reason we were looking to build is to get a new home rather than some of the dated places that we have seen so far. I think from what you are saying it would be better to pick up one a few years old. I don't really fancy waiting to have somewhere built to then find out it is worth less than a house we could have moved straight into down the road.

Mr Kilt

Thanks for the updates

pomtastic

I have to agree that the older homes around town are 9 times out of 10 in a state of disrepair and very dated so unless you are handy at doing them up then expect to pay big bucks to someone else.

Renos are exxie here, even if you have the tools and the trade, raw materials are way more exxie than UK, even the cost of paint here is laughable. That's why I think all the older houses are so dated in general, it's relatively more exxie to do them up than UK and the cost is not worth it, easier and cheaper to move to a new home.

When you get here, check out second hand land prices (coming in cheaper now than land releases due to the amount of 'flippers' stuck with land they can't sell in Perth, see Mindarie, Burns Beach, Jindalee) you'll find them sometimes cheaper than the land releases. Also, new builders are slack at the mo, the First Home Owners Grant that was bought in to bouy the economy ran out in December so many house builders are desperate for business so room to negotiate and get plenty of freebies thrown in.

Remember, Perth is oversupplied right now and prices are edging downwards in the majority or areas, so don't get sucked in with the bullshit from real estate agents getting you to rush in and buy because of the pending boom or whatever.

neil248

[QUOTE=pomtastic;8705357]Take your time and rent first before commiting to a land/home package. All suburbs are not the same especially if schooling is or will be an issue, the right suburb is absolute for schooling. Looking from afar on the internet is useless for deciding where to live, areas may look nice but you could be surrounded by barking dogs, burn outs or undesirables, plenty of new bogan suburbs in Perth.

If nothing else please take notice of pomtastics piece of advice.

The Bogans could have a bigger impact on you than you could imagine and a house and land package on a legoland development is likely to have a good number of rentals.

You could be the only owner occupier surrounded by people who don't give a damm.

verystormy

We are in the middle of looking at the moment and intend to take our time. We have been looking at house and land packages. However, remember that when a house build is qouted here it is the BASIC build.

This means that on a standard 4x2 single story house you need to factor in $10k for site works - assuming its on sand. Clay ground and things can get seriously expensive. A friend recently got hit with $80k. The remember that a whole bag of stuff isnt included such as electrical fittings, paint, sometimes even things like shower doors. So we have priced that it will cost us a extra $30k for a mid range set of stuff such as flooring - they will hand over with bare concrete floors.

It can be cheaper to buy a second hand lot, but this will mean you will not get the landscaping and fences that the developers would have given, so it adds maybe $15k to the price. Though it can have the advantage that if building a single story, you can find a plot with single stories around you so you know the plot next door wont be built into some huge McMansion looking into your windows.

We are not looking in Perth itself, but around Dawesville, you can get good packages, but the ones that are decent are often expensive.

The remember that all of these extra costs may not be part of your mortgage, so you need to have a spare $40k in your back pocket. The builder will do all of this for you and then you may be able to add it on the mortgage, but it will be a LOT more expensive. The average we have come across is about double. So you would be looking at $80k on top of the package price.

As others have said, be wary of the lot size. Personally i wouldnt even think about a lot smaller than 600m2.

Timing does vary a bit, but allow about 12 months from signing the contract to getting the keys. They will not usually allow your contractors such as floorers to come in before then. Perth has a shortage of tradies. You would be able to move in then, but it would still be a bit of a building site. To move in complete i would allow 16 months.

Another option and one which we have thought about is a new house built complete as part of a new development. This is pretty rare in WA, but we have looked at Frasers Landing http://fraserslanding.com.au/fraserslanding/index.php

They have stunning homes at about $390 complete and to a VERY high spec. But for us, the location is vital and we want to stay in walking distance to the beach, so unlikely.

Hope this helps

Evelin

they did a similar but smaller project in Meadow Springs and they were fantastic for the price and location.

moneypenny20

Basic house build only has one single socket in each room. To bring it up to a liveable state you will be adding shed loads of 'extras' or 'basics' as I call them What starts as a reasonable land/house package can get totally out of hand.