Building Your Own Home

[eric_amanda]

I know this has been covered somewhere before, but I thought I would start it again.

Since there are so many sections here for sale we were wondering if anyone has any experience of building their own home here in NZ.

We have already looked at many houses, but until we decide to sell up in the UK and stay here in NZ we thought that for the time being we would rent, and possibly by a section ( big enough not just for the small vegie patch that I was originally planning but for the orchard that Eric is now planning!)

Once we have made our decision we can then build our dream home, to our specification (something we dreamed of doing in the UK).

Does anybody have any websites that may assist or any advice on whats good and whats not.

Thank you in advance.

Amanda & Eric

[Tara Sage]

We are planning on building our own.

There are loads of websites that show hundreds of plans for different houses.

Most of the company's deal with all the planning etc too.....

Seems a lot easier that UK and you get exactly what you want including a massive garden/orchard/veggie patch etc...... oh and somewhere to keep my horses.

Some companies we have looked at:


Today Homes
Golden Homes
Stonewood Homes
Jennian Homes
Signature Homes
etc.................

We found them under builders in the Yellow pages

Good Luck

[Dinnaefash]

Anyone out there actually done it yet? How much are we talking, to build say a 3 bed house (with UK standard heating / insulation )??

[Pakeha Boy]

I've not done it but, I am considering buying a section and re-locating a house onto it.
I'm looking for land just north of Ashhurst up the Pohangina Valley....However thats exactly the stage I'm at, just considering.
Haven't checked out costs yet, but all I need do is mention "horse maybe" and thats the mrs. all ears!!

[Tara Sage]

The cost of land depends, on the area you are looking at, The house companies like Golden homes do everything as a package so the prices quoted are fairly accurate.

On top of land and house you need to consider the cost of having septic tanks, water tanks, elec and telephone connected to the house.

You usually find that Elec and Telephone are put to the boundary of your section you just need to pay for it to be connected to the house.

[eric_amanda]

Thanks Tara for your help on this, I have subsequently contacted a few of these companies and information is winging it way to me.

Regarding service connection and water tanks etc, we have been advised to pick a section, if it has services to boundary you should then add $20,000 to the cost of the section as a good estimate.

Since looking at this possibility and spending the weekend driving around, we have visited an Orchard that belongs to one of Erics patients, we are subsequently going to look at an Orchard for sale this weekend as we both seem to have the bug! I'm not sure how things are in the rest of NZ but with the volcanic soil up here it seems quite a popular way of earning a few bucks but enjoying the outdoors with the children. Any comments? We would be interested in hearing other views on this.

Regards

Amanda

[Timbo]

How are you finding the climate up there Amanda? I have heard it gets mighty humid.

[Timbo]

How are you finding the climate up there Amanda? I have heard it gets mighty humid.

[eric_amanda]

Climate during the day is very pleasant, a little like summer in Huddersfield! By night it has been a little chilly, Northland has in the past week experienced some frosty mornings, the first in a few years we are told. Humidity, well we will see when summer arrives, I'll let you know.

Amanda

[petersmit]

We also have this buy vs build dilemma. I have shown my wife the RealENZ real estate site and there is not many houses that we like....or the ones that we like are way too expensive.

To muddy the decision process even further, my daughter and I are quite keen to have a larger property where we can potentially get some additional income, but my wife sees the beach and would like to live close to the sea.

For this reason we are not in a great hurry to buy as we want to be sure that it is the right decision.

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