Believe it or not, the majority of builds out there, whether luxury or not, end up to the disappointment of the customer, way over budget.
It’s very disappointing that most plans with architects and designers don’t ever get built as the customer wanted.
Planning out your dream home with an architect or designer is an exciting time as you work together to tailor your home to suit your unique lifestyle. It is important to understand that while architects and designers are experts at design, often they don’t fully understand the true costs associated with building a luxury home.
And this is where the problem lies.
After investing a lot of your time, money and energy into this process, you can be left bitterly disappointed and your expectations completely shattered, as you come to realise that you cannot afford to build the home you envisaged. You are now left having to make huge sacrifices to your dream.
We’re not saying that picking and choosing your own architect or designer is a bad thing, on the contrary we think it’s awesome. However what we want to warn you about is that oftentimes when people go to architects or designers direct and do not include the builder in the design process, the homes are usually not built as planned. Certainly not in the way that they were envisaged.
What happens most of the time is that these plans will get thrown out to tender for the cheapest quote to win, or a builder will be picked because they tell you “never mind what others are telling you, I’ll build it for your budget”, and the chosen builder will just rip the guts out of the inclusions and selections to meet the initial budget, and you, the customer will be none the wiser.
Then what usually happens is the costs to you start escalating quickly during the build as the builder tries to make back the money they cut out to get the contract signed!
To ensure that you’re not going to be the loser in this situation, and to ensure that you don’t miss out on building the dream home that you wanted, it’s imperative that your builder is picked first.
Architects and designers will give you what you want, but when they work in unison with the builder, it ensures not only an addition of more value and ideas from years of actual building experience, it also ensures that the small team of designer, builder, and customer keep it to within the budget.
Most luxury home builders will already have a few great architects and designers ready to start working on your designs, so be sure to ask them the question.
If you are from the train of thought where you have a favourite architect or designer in mind, get them involved with your preferred builder right from the start.
We must understand that most people do it the opposite way around because they are under the misconception that architects and designers can price the job accurately.
The other reason why people do it the opposite way around is because they are distrusting of builders and fear getting ripped off.
So our best advice to you, is to find a reputable builder, with years of experience (don’t pay someone to learn with your money), who has solid testimonials, and it wouldn’t hurt if they had won some awards in their category, AND be open and transparent about your ideas and your real budget.
A good builder won’t rip you off, they’ll ensure that you get the most value out of your budget.
If you’re thinking of building a luxury home, check out our award-winning quality designs.
