Building a Home on your Own | Challenges and Pitfalls of Being an Owner-Builder

Building a home can be one of the most exciting, nerve-wracking, and unique experiences, and it, therefore, makes complete sense that you would want to have as much control as possible. Being an Owner-Builder, whilst it may seem like an option wherein you have the most flexibility and control over what happens, it can also be an incredibly stressful, time-consuming, and overall, a challenging experience. That’s why when you’re considering building a home on your own or engaging home builders, it is important to keep these Home Building factors in mind.

Time and Stress of Building a Home

Building a home is a huge moment in one’s life, and everyone wants their home to be perfect. As anyone embarking on building a new home will tell you, you are in for a stressful time: between the pressure of settling on home design, the long wait for completion, and having to organise your finances to pay for your home, it can be a lot!

However, as an Owner-Builder, you’re adding a whole new layer to contend with, having to spend as much of your free time as possible organising builders and aiding in the construction of your house. This becomes even more worrisome when, like most homeowners, you also have to maintain your full-time job in order to finance your current living and the home that is being built. You’ll also need to be considering the time it takes to choose trades, materials, organise deliveries and to coordinate the work, and how you will have the time to help out when uncontrollable things go wrong in the building process.

Financing Home Building

Being an Owner-Builder can be extremely financially straining, and it can become increasingly difficult to get a loan. This is because most lenders will not provide construction loans if the builder is an Owner-Builder due to the perceived lack of experience, financial control, and the very real risk of halting construction due to personal, family, or work-related issues.

Also, builders have the added advantage of buying power which saves them huge amounts of money on supplies and other retail products for construction, which unfortunately as an Owner-Builder, you won’t have access to.

Quality Control When Building a Home

When considering building your own home, of course, you need to start thinking about how to make it the most secure and safe building structure for you or your tenants to live in. Without the necessary building and construction experience, it is easy to make extremely costly mistakes. You will need to know what to check at each critical stage of construction, including ensuring the frame is plumbed properly, whether the foundations are appropriately prepared, the electricals, and other highly specific aspects of construction. You must also consider the challenges of finding trusty contractors as finding experienced and trustworthy contractors can make or break your construction.

When it comes to building your home, it’s important to remember the long term nature of your investment. Controlling the end-to-end process yourself may sound like the best option now, but it is important that you have someone who is qualified, trusted, and experienced to be organising and triple checking the construction site and the tradespeople working on it. Make sure that you make the builder decision with a complete understanding of your own abilities, time constraints, financial stability, and awareness of how much hard work goes into building a home.

In addition, it’s important to remember that homes built by professional Home Builders may be preferred by future buyers if you do decide to sell your house in the future.

When you’re looking to build in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth or Adelaide get an understanding of the benefits of working with Home Builders, and how to find the best for you, call one of our experts today on 1800 184 284 or book a call online.

Let us do the legwork for you.

• We’ll ask the right questions to better understand your needs
• We’ll create a recommended shortlist ideally matched to you
• We’ll answer specific questions or concerns related to home building, land purchasing or financing

Learn More

About Latest Post About iBuildNew

Zoe Langenberg

Zoe is passionate about coffee and interior design. You can find her most weekends exploring an art gallery or devouring a good book.

Latest posts by Zoe Langenberg

Queensland First Home Builders’ Grant Revised To $15,000Should You Build a New Home from Scratch or Purchase a House and Land Package?Simple House Design | Building Design Features That Don’t Date

About

iBuildNew is the market leading aggregator dedicated to residential home construction and land development. As an independent platform, iBuildNew helps Australians identify and compare new home designs, house and land packages and land estates. It’s the smart way home buyers, who are considering a new build, can find the ideal options to match their individual needs. Home building is a big decision, we make sure you get it right.