If you are looking to build and considering not using a housing company you need a reasonable funding facility or some equity to be able to meet a number of the costs. We currently have a client looking to do an architectural build and they inquired about funding it.
Unfortunately in the short term some of the costs must be self funded; those to be aware of include:
Architect/design: You may be looking at up to 12% of the build cost for fees here. So, on a $500,000 build this could be $60,000
Engineering: There may be a reasonable amount of variance here depending on house specifics but you should probably allow for $10,000 – $15,000 in engineering costs
Geotech: This may cost up to $5000 dependent on the type of land and property you are looking to build on it
Council: $5000
Therefore on a $500,000 house build you may be looking at $85,000 in associated costs prior to the ground being touched.
There is no physical work being done, i.e. this is all a paper cost – you will not get funding for this, which means you must have access to the funds yourself. Of course if you do have existing property with equity you are able to use this to fund these costs as not many people will have $85,000 just lying around.
It will be possible to recoup these costs through the build funding as long the valuation of the completed property meets these costs.