Can anyone help us understand the relative and prices in general for the big...

Hi Jane, Wow, people sometimes say ‘open-ended’ questions are good, but yours is so open-ended it would almost require a book on building in NZ to answer it. Not sure whether by ‘relative’ you mean ‘relative merits’, or ‘relative prices’ (ie approximate prices per square metre for build cost). But either way you could initially try just looking through all entries on this blog. Time consuming, but worthwhile. And possibly discouraging if you have not built before, or have no experience of what a potential nightmare it can be if you get it wrong. Of course for every company their finished price per square metre of build can vary (I’d guess by as much as 100%) depending on what is included, and the standard of finish you expect. And very often the total cost you end up paying will be a lot more than the price you thought you were going to pay, because many companies are very clever at tempting you into signing a contract by offering what seems a good price at the start.The only way you can minimise that is by being absolutely clear about what you are going to get, before you sign the main building contract. Although in my view to be fair to the builder you may have to pay (and risk losing, if you pull out) something upfront, if you want them to do a lot of work preparing detailed drawings, specification and estimates. But if you have more specific questions, for example about a particular building company that builds in Levin, you could try searching for comments by clicking ctrl F, and entering the name in the search box.

I suppose I’m just asking for a rough idèa of which big companies are high end and which are more modest. Just as I could with Farmers vs Kmart or kircaldies vs the warehouse.

What Chris is trying to say is any of the franchise building companies will build to whatever your budget or spec is or they will all tell you that your budget and spec is achievable but always keep in mind you will be dealing with someone who works their marketing aspect of the company and not often is this person a builder and they will tell you whatever you want to hear just to sign you up. Some are more reputable than others with regards to hidden costs, which is a common trait with them all so a “fixed price” is never fixed and if you use the search option Chris mentioned you will find the franchise’s that exploit things like PC sums to get maximum amount of money from you and give you low spec (even if you ask for high spec) vs the ones that are a little more honest. But with franchise companies where everyone in the chain needs to clip the ticket so to speak, you will always pay more. My advice is to employ a draughtsman and tender your design to a local builder, again checking the builders credentials. Less stress & more control for you.

Thanks.i had thought he big companies get good prices from building lots of homes and they give a fixed price. I guess a local builder would do the same.

Unfortunately many people think the bigger the company the better the price but it’s exactly the opposite. The more people involved in your build means less accountability if something goes wrong. You have more control using a local builder, and less people in the chain so your costs are more exact. But in saying that I would still do as much due diligence when engaging any tradesmen including plumbers, sparkies etc as building a home is the biggest thing most will ever have to do in their lifetime and it’s never going to be easy.