There are two sensible ways to start a custom home in Perth. You engage a designer or architect first, develop the drawings, then take them to builders to price. Or you bring a builder into the conversation while the design is still moving. Both approaches produce good houses, and plenty of people we work with have come to us either way.
There is one failure mode worth understanding before you choose, because it is expensive and it is avoidable.
The gap that catches people out
It runs like this. You engage a designer. You state your budget clearly at the first meeting, because you are sensible and you know what you can spend. You pay a serious sum, often tens of thousands, for a design you love. Months later the drawings go out to builders and the prices come back materially above what you were told to expect. Not five per cent. Enough to change what is possible.
By that point your options have narrowed. You can value-manage a design that was never drawn to your budget, which usually means stripping out the parts that made it worth building. You can find more money. Or you can start again and write off what you have spent.
None of those is a good position, and the reason it hurts is that you did the responsible thing. You said what you could spend, at the start, out loud.
Why it happens, without anyone behaving badly
Designing a house and pricing a house are different disciplines, and the gap between them is structural rather than dishonest.
Early cost guidance is usually a rate per square metre. That rate is an average drawn from previous projects, and averages hide the things that actually move a build price. The wall system. The glazing schedule and how many different window sizes are in it. The roof geometry and how many junctions it has. The number of external corners. Site access, slope and soil. A design can be genuinely excellent, and correctly drawn, and still land twenty per cent above a square metre rate that was quoted in good faith.
Two things make the gap wider. The first is that the decisions with the largest cost consequences are made early, when the least is known. The second is that once drawings are complete, changing them is no longer cheap, so the pressure falls on the budget rather than on the design.
Five questions to ask before you commit
These apply whoever you engage, including us. If a question is difficult to answer, that in itself is useful information.
1. What does the square metre rate include, and what sits outside it? Site works, retaining, driveways, landscaping, window treatments and connections are frequently excluded from an early figure. Ask for the exclusions in writing, not the inclusions.
2. Can a builder look at this before the design is locked? A construction opinion is worth most at the sketch stage and worth almost nothing after the drawings are finished. If the process does not allow for it, ask why.
3. Which three decisions in this design cost the most? Anyone who has priced buildings can answer this. It tells you where the money is and gives you somewhere to move if you need to.
4. Who will build it, and what happens if I want someone else? Some design engagements come with a short list of builders attached. There is nothing wrong with a designer having builders they trust. It is worth knowing early whether it is a recommendation or an arrangement, and what your options are if you would rather go elsewhere.
5. What happens if the design comes back over budget? Ask directly, before you engage. If the cost is only tested once the drawings are finished, the pressure lands on you: find more money, or strip back a design you have already paid for. The way to avoid it is to keep the build cost in the conversation from the first sketch, not the last.
How we handle it
We think about construction method and budget from the first design conversation rather than at the end of it. That is not a courtesy, it is the only point where the answer is cheap to change. When we say a number early, it is a number that has the wall system, the glazing and the site in it, so it survives contact with the tender.
On the fifth question, our answer is straightforward. We design to the budget you give us. The build cost is in the room from the first sketch, with the wall system, the glazing and the site in the number, so the design that comes back is one you can actually build for what you said you could spend. A design you love and cannot afford to build is not a good outcome for anyone, and it is the one we work hardest to avoid.
It works in the other direction too. If you already have drawings from a designer or architect, our build only service reviews them for thermal performance and buildability first, then builds from them. Several of our homes started exactly that way.
If you are at the stage where a design is being drawn and you want a construction view on what it will cost, that is a conversation worth having before the drawings are finished rather than after.
How design and build works with us, or why we only take on twelve builds a year.
Frequently asked questions
Both work, and the right answer depends on what you want from the process. An architect will usually push the design further and take longer. A design and build route keeps cost and constructability in the room throughout. The failure mode is not choosing wrongly, it is failing to test the price against the design early enough.
It varies enormously depending on the practice and the scope, from a few thousand for working drawings to tens of thousands for a full architectural service. The number that matters more is what happens if the design comes back over budget, so ask about that before you engage.
By putting the build cost in the room from the first design conversation rather than the last. We work to the budget you give us, with the wall system, glazing and site costs in the number rather than added later, so the design that comes back is one you can build for what you said you could spend.
Because a rate per square metre is an average, and build cost is driven by specifics an average cannot see: wall system, glazing schedule, roof geometry, corners, site access and slope. A design can be entirely correct and still price well above an early figure quoted in good faith.
Yes. We review them for thermal performance and buildability first, because that is where a high performance home is usually won or lost, then build from them. It is our build only service and it is how several of our homes started.
