Anyone already built and been very pleased with their overall experience

Hi Glen, Unfortunately one builder doesn’t cover all market builds. Franchise businesses, you will pay an extra 7-10% which equates to a max of $50,000 on a $500,000 build plus their profit on the build. You want a builder who can manage the job and has a good track record.

Hi Glen, If I were you look for a local builder, not a franchise and do your due diligence on them. Ask for referrals to go and have a chat aligned with the type of build you are looking for and ensure they are face to face ones and you get to view their work. Ask for the code of compliance information to show they did the build as there are a lot of losers out there using fake websites and promotional tactics to suck you in. A good builder will have plenty of work to view and a great website with pictures of themselves. They will offer a build guarantee and if it is a Builtin one they will have had to provide financial information to secure this, so you will know they trade well and suppliers have been contacted as part of the application process. Do not think that using a Master Builder or a Certified Builder is a guarantee of quality. This is not so. The Halo guarantee from NZCB has no insolvency cover in their Halo guarantee so homeowners are not protected. They pulled it in August this year. You are right. Building is a minefield of questions and decisions and difficult to navigate. My advice. Do serious due diligence and ask ask ask heaps of questions and get them to back them up. We offer our customers to come to site and speak to our current build partners to ask all the hard questions like communication, pricing, knowledge etc. this way you get the picture as to who you are spending major investment with. Cheers

We’ve used Rob May Builders in Cambridge before and they were great. It was about ten years ago now but the owner was very involved and he was a good, honest builder and I have noticed his signage up all over Cambridge at the moment, he built the brand new Te Awa Lifecare village which looks fabulous so I would definitely recommend giving them a call. Unfortunately we’ve found that if they are good then chances are there is quite a lengthy wait involved for their services but good builders are in such short supply that it shouldn’t really be much of a surprise, and a bad builder might fit you in 6 months earlier only to find you’re still waiting for them to complete minor remedial work 6 years later. Good luck!

Have you considered getting some plans drawn up and tendering it to various builders? I know it may seem like the safest and easiest option to go with a building company but if you use their plans you’ll be using their products too and some of them aren’t great. Cheap perhaps but not durable or maybe even suitable for what you want and you’ll be using their tradies on their schedule and you will literally have lost control of the biggest asset you’ll Ever have. We went to a Draughtsman (not an architect) who drew us up something simple and moderate in size and it cost us $5k. While they were doing this they went over various different materials we could use, the pros and cons for each and we could trust their advice because they were not making any money from us on building materials but even though they may be good at what they do you have to always remember that they do not physically work with the stuff and this is where a good balance of advice and some research on your part will save you $$$ and stress. We then found a couple of local builders, showed them the plans and discussed various options and amendments but most importantly we asked them for names & phone numbers of recent builds they’ve completed and that was a game changer. In the end we went with a young local lad, Mitchell Williams, who lives just out of Morrinsville and we’ve never been more thankful that we did! We were initially concerned that he was only a one man team but we needn’t have worried at all, If the builder in question has the right tools and is knowledgeable about their trade there are a million ways to do a specific job that doesn’t always involve brute strength and not only was he a smart cookie and hard working but above all he was honest. We didn’t see huge mark ups on the materials and our build didn’t take much longer than perhaps a team of four could have done It in but you’re only paying for a quarter of the labour and we saved thousands in the end for a few months of extra waiting and it was a bloody good trade off. Mitchell didn’t push us into using expensive, top range stuff either and the result is a beautiful, well built house that we know will still be standing long after we’re not. As an example, we were looking at various different types of cladding for our house (Laminated stuff, fiber board type stuff, the options are endless) Until Mitchell pointed out that there is nothing wrong with using wood, there is a reason it’s been in use for hundreds of years and just because something new and “improved” comes along doesn’t necessarily mean it’s better. He also has a very good network of other tradies (sparky, plasterer etc) who, like him, are also good at what they do and we used them all with no regrets. It saved us so much time and he communicated with them all so in effect he actually project managed our build. I helped somewhat but really he has to take much of the credit for our house (and the three rentals he renovated for us too) It is a myth that a building franchise company will make everything easier. Building a house is a very time consuming and emotional thing to do and if you do not actively involve yourself In it you leave yourself wide open to excessive over charging and poor workmanship with very little recourse for you if it all goes horribly wrong. If building seems like something you can’t or don’t want to get overly involved in it may be easier to buy an already built house and get a builders report done on it. Mitchell does those too by the way! Hope this helps, if even a little.

Are there many reputable good owner-building firms in Hamilton/Cambridge – I don’t know much about “franchises” – rather green about all this building business?

Anyone you can recommend please – that is if you are allowed to? Thanks.

Hi MJ, I was interested to read your reply to someone who confessed to being an older lady who has no experience, and very little knowledge, of house building. I have read many entries on this blog of other people who seem to perhaps be younger, but otherwise in a similar situation. I’m not sure how many of them realise that the common system in NZ (and I think to some extent in Australia) of buying a piece of land, and then employing a builder you have never met before, to build you a unique home (because even their ‘standard’ designs will end up as unique, due to variations in the site and your choices of fittings etc) is extremely unusual from a world point of view. And due to the nature of the building industry here, with poor control of builders and materials by Government and Councils, poor legal safeguards if builders rip people off or go bankrupt, and in fact many builders who are relatively inexperienced, and have poor project and cash flow management skills, because they don’t actually build many houses, it is extremely risky. Which is why so many people find it goes wrong. Even the nice, honest builders can get caught out with cash flow problems. In other countries normal houses are usually built by large builders, who obtain large blocks of land, then get one architect and one engineer to design and get Council approval for a variety of different size houses of similar style. So they can employ experienced project managers and large scale construction, which makes it easier to maintain quality, while keeping costs down. So I think your advice to this lady that it is probably cheaper, and certainly safer, to buy a house already built, is good. But if she ignores your good advice, and goes ahead with getting a draughts-person (I’m being PC) to prepare some plans, I’d like to ask what you got for $5K? I assume that was just for some basic concept drawings, perhaps with just layout plans and elevations. Because in my experience people should budget for something closer to 10% of the construction cost, more like $50K, to get full construction drawings that can be submitted to Council, including all the engineering design and detail drawings, and Council fees etc. Plus of course other paperwork and inspections required during and at the end of construction, to get code compliance.

Very helpful thank you.

I know a few Cambridge people who have used Buildtech and are very happy. They actually manage the project and it is sub-contracted to other builders they know are good. Benefit of this is they know how to deal with the tradesmen and what to look out for and what is expect and you can be free to raise any concerns without offending the tradesman.

Hi Chris, the 10% you mention is usually what architectscharge .Architectural Designers / Technicians usually charge around $4 – $5k for full working drawings to consent stage. Plus you’d have the cost of the council fee for processing the consent. 🙂

Hi Chris, the plans were a simple 2bdrm 80sqm house with all the usual details like foundations, frame, trusses, cladding, fixings, guttering etc all done by a lady draughtsman here in Morrinsville. The drainage plans were done free of charge from a local plumber who also quoted the job and got the job, same goes for the sparky but being self regulating not a a huge amount of detail was needed from him but we keep everything a local as we can. The joinery details were supplied by Rylock in Hamilton (who we absolutely recommend) also free of charge as they in the end got our business and the scoping/land report was done by CKL for $1800 All submitted to Matamata-Piako District Council in a very easy to read set of plans and all accepted (sorry I may have missed something out but you get the guts of it) Council fees and inspections were surprisingly cheap, much cheaper than in Hamilton (where we built twice last year) they set us back under $4k But the MPDC are known for being very reasonable but they’re just as vigilant and were great to deal with and gave us great advice from the start so whole house from start to finish was $250k (not including the land as we already owned it). If you’re not afraid to ask for help, more importantly free help (especially if they want the gig) then there is no limit to what you can achieve on a tight budget, worst case scenario they tell you to piss off so you move on. Our builds are a collaborative effort, I have no shame in saying “I don’t know How to do this so who is the best person to ask?” With the web and social media making due diligence that much easier and great forums like this it’s quite easily achieved.

I think that older lady with no experience or knowledge about building may be me you are referring to but I do own a section so can’t buy ready built unfortunately but do find everyone’s comments and advice very helpful and slowly learning a lot.

Thanks for your reply – will do a bit of research as I have never heard of them before. Are they a franchise as I keep hearing people warning about using franchises.