Finding Builders From Brisbane - Four Things To Watch Out For

By Donna Bradford


Unless you have been living in a cave over the past few years, you will have noticed that South-East Queensland, in particular in the Brisbane area, continues to be in the middle of a massive home building boom. Due to the mining boom throughout Queensland, workers throughout Australia and the rest of the world, are flocking to Brisbane for employment as well as the enviable lifestyle we Queenslanders take for granted.

This inflow of hundreds and thousands of people per year, has meant that Brisbane as well as its surrounding areas has become the biggest growth area anywhere in Australia. In an effort to provide accommodation for all these workers and their families, thousands of houses are being built in new housing estates throughout Brisbane and surrounding areas.

One of the first things that lots of these workers do is start thinking about getting a new house. The demand for honest and reliable home builders has increased dramatically as a consequence. Inevitably, this high demand from customers has also meant a rise in the number of grievances relating to dishonest and questionable home builders. Lots of customers are seeing their hopes and dreams becoming nightmares, along with many thousands of dollars being wasted because of poor development practices by unlicensed home builders.

And so what steps can you take in order to stop this taking place?

Here are four of the most important things you need to verify before you hire a builder for your next family home build project.

Quality of Workmanship

When looking for a builder to build your dream family home, take some time to view some of the builder's completed projects. You will find many display villages located all over the Brisbane area that showcase all types of homes from a wide variety of home builders. Walk through the properties and pay particular attention to the workmanship and finish in each of the rooms. Take particular notice of the quality of the fixtures and fittings and build quality of the bathrooms and kitchens. These are the most used rooms in any house, so you have to ensure that you're satisfied with the quality and design of the fixtures and fittings within these rooms.

Clear Lines of Communication

The vast majority of house builds which lead to tears have almost always been due to poor or lack of lines of communication between the client and builder. Before your home build project gets under way, ensure the building contractor is not causing you to feel stupid and he makes an effort to listen to your personal needs. You shouldn't be forced into agreeing to stuff against your will or better judgement. A good builder will usually go out of his way in order to ensure that you approve of your finalized house design. When you can establish robust and relaxed channels of dialogue from the very beginning, the chances for any serious issues arising either prior to and during your home build will be greatly reduced.

Building Cost Transparency

Building cost transparency follows on from the channels of communication and is perhaps among the list of key requirements for any favourable home construction result. All good builders should normally have at least several years of experience developing family homes under their belt, and will in most instances, be able to provide you a fixed-price cost for your home construction. Always check that your builder is completely transparent with you and is not attempting to slip in extra fees and charges without previous approval from yourself. Your builder should really be upfront with his construction material charges and really should advise you immediately if there are any major variations or exceptions to the building expenses.

Project Build Times

Something generally overlooked by many prospective home owners is how strictly your building contractor tracks his scheduled build times. The best builders should always supply you with a detailed schedule of the full build process right from start to finish. In almost all cases, this particular schedule should describe the forecast finish date of each phase of the project, which is then used by the bank (if you are using the bank's money to construct the house) to work out on which date the building contractor will be paid.

All the best home builders will usually have some form of recompense built into the building contract, which agrees to pay a penalty if they are late when it comes to finishing the house construction.

And so there you go. By ensuring that your prospective building contractor fulfils the requirements of each one of these key elements, you can minimise the possibility associated with committing to a questionable builder and save a great deal of heartache and a lot of your hard-earned cash.




About the Author: