I am a new in property market and bought a residential land in the Gungahlin region. Now those days I am busy to traveling from one display home to get some design idea and most important, to find the cost of building.
And guess what? I was so surprise about how greedy and outrageous of the building cost charged by Canberra builders to local people. For example, for a double story home, looking about 220sqm (inclusive of area of Garage), 4 beds, 2 bath, double garage, the start price is around $340K. This price does not include any flooring or front landscaping cost, which you have to pay about more than $20K on top of the start price, also, there may be lots of things not in the standard inclusion list, e.g. gas cook top, change ceiling height from 2.4m to 2.7m, etc. Which means at least you probably look to pay $360k-$400k. That is about $1,500 – $2,000 per sqm !!!!!!!!
Ok, in the mean time I surf many Sydney and Melbourne builders’ website and still for the above house package, start price from $230K-$240K, and with all the upgrades, flooring and front landscaping, total price just over $250K. Example like one of my friend in Melbourne just signed contract with his builder, total area of 358 sqm and total price only $320K, that is about $900 – $1,000 per sqm !!!!!!!!!!!
So how come Canberra builders can charge 50%-100% higher than Sydney or Melbourne builders? Anyone know the reason? DO NOT TELL ME IT IS BECAUSE THE DIFFERENT BUILDING REGULATION FROM STATE TO STATE.
Sorry about the gossip as I feel so angry about the Canberra builders. Rumours I heared before was builders in Canberra make $180K profit from each home they build, and I think builders from Sydney and Melbourne will never dream about to have this high margin on their project.
My final comment: anyone saw this post and is going to build their Australian dream in Canberra, let us work out something together just being not to ripped off by the local builders. If we can put our block of land together and attract some Sydney builder to Canberra to build for us, even there is many additional cost e.g. transportation, I think it is still worth to try it.