I want to talk about something that catches a lot of families out at the very start of a custom build. The free quote.
It feels like a no-brainer. A builder offers to give you a price at no charge, you take it, you stack it next to two others, and you pick the cheapest. What could be wrong with that?
The honest answer is that an accurate quote on a custom new home requires real work. Someone has to inspect the site. Someone has to read the plans line by line. Someone has to develop a proper bill of quantities, ring around suppliers and subcontractors, and check current material prices. That work takes weeks, not hours. No business gives away weeks of skilled labour for nothing without recovering the cost somewhere.
So where does it get recovered? Usually in one of three ways.
The first is low-balling. The builder knows the real number is one hundred thousand dollars higher than what they have written down. They are betting that once you have signed and committed, the variations and the corrected provisional sums will get them back to the true figure. By then you cannot walk away.
The second is cheap inputs. Lower-grade materials, unlicensed subcontractors, shortcuts on items you will not see until something fails three years in.
The third is a quote built on a square-metre rate rather than actual measured quantities. That is a guess in a nice suit. It can be hundreds of thousands out by the time the bill arrives.
A best practice Sydney North Shore builder will charge a modest fee for a proper preliminary service. In return you receive a detailed proposal, a real bill of quantities and a quote you can actually rely on. That fee saves you many times over by the time the slab is poured.
When you compare three quotes, do not just look at the bottom line. Ask each builder what is included and what is excluded, item by item. Ask how they arrived at their numbers. The cheapest line on the page is almost never the cheapest house in the end.
If you want a clear, honest quote process for your project, you can find us at inh.com.au/Sydney North Shore.
