Most people use a builder to build their house, but if you do it well, Owner Building can be a great path to a better quality house at a lower cost. It’s not an easy path though, saving money requires investing a huuuuuge amount of your own time, and building a house is a very complex and difficult process. Builders go bust or build defective homes on a regular basis, and they are the professionals. Becoming an Owner Builder means taking on a lot of risk and responsibility, and it is not for everyone.
What is Owner Building?
In Australia in general, only a licensed builder is allowed to build a house. Most states allow an exemption every few years where you can get an Owner Builder Permit. This allows you to take on that licensed builder role, for the purposes of building your own house. Either physically with your own hands (for those trades that don’t always require a license, such as electrical work), or by recruiting and managing all the subcontractors you need to build the house.
Some people consider a hybrid option, using a builder to the lockup stage, ie to complete the shell of the building, and then fitting it out themselves as an Owner Builder, but in practice that doesn’t seem to happen very often.
Is Owner Building for you?
How well do you fit this mould?
- Good research skills
- Practical
- Well organised
- Energetic
- Willing and able to commit at least 10-20 hours per week for at least a couple of years
- Comfortable with tolerating a lot of stress, risk, uncertainty and complexity, in the context of the biggest financial investment of your life
- A good understanding of the steps involved in building a house
- Experience of managing a complex project
- Experience of renovation or construction
- Comfortable with supervising tradies and checking the quality of their work
- Good at finishing what you’ve started
- With bonus points for being a tradie yourself, or having trades amongst your friends and family
This is a pretty accurate profile of all of the Owner Builders I’ve met, but don’t be be daunted if you don’t yet fit it 100%! I have met at least two Owner Builders with nil previous experience in construction, and they were both on track to create really wonderful homes for themselves. On the other hand, I have seen a lot of building professionals on Facebook talking about times they’ve seen of Owner Builders being thoroughly ripped off by tradies, or building really substandard homes for themselves. I haven’t met those people, but I can certainly imagine it does happen.
First steps as an Owner Builder
Good first steps, in something like this order, including:
- Step 1: Start your research. Join the Owner Builder groups on Facebook, nationally and for your state, and spend at least an hour surfing around to see what questions are being asked and what advice is being given. Search for owner builder topics on Google and Facebook. (If your very first step is to pop into an Owner Builder Facebook group with a question that has already been asked a thousand times – which Owner Builder course should I do, how much will I save by owner building, etc – then building up your research skills will be valuable preparation for your build.)
- Step 2: Are you able to get finance to Owner Build? What is your budget? Give some thought to what kind of house you want to build. Research what a builder would charge to build it for you.
- Step 3: Research, research, research, research.
- Step 4: Buy your block.
- Step 5: Drawings.
- Step 6: Permits.
- … More to follow!
Feeling keen to be an Owner Builder?
I wish you a rewarding journey and a wonderful new home!
Image by Michal Jarmoluk from Pixabay