6 Tips for Building Your First Home in New Zealand
Building your first home is exciting, but there are also a lot of decisions to make before anything starts on the site. How big should you build? How reliable are square metre rates? Do you choose a house plan or start from scratch? And where is your money best spent?
If you are building a new home, there are many options available on the construction market, from Architect + reputable Builder, to design and build companies, to heading straight to a builder and his drafty. All of these suit different scenarios, but the built results are as different as apples and pears, and a few overripe bananas thrown in there for good measure. Making an informed choice is key to choosing the right path through the home building process.
Often, the sites available to purchase are owned by a developer with a ready-made option for building a house on the land - while in some cases this may suit exactly what you want, it is a good idea to look at your options carefully and outside of the 'laminated book of plans' or dressed-up showrooms. If you are interested in a sustainable home, it’s worth investing in the services of someone trained in quality site-specific design, such as an Architect. While this initially may seem a more expensive option, the last thing you want to be thinking when you are about to spend a huge amount of money on a new house is "it's not perfect but 'it will do'."
These are the questions and issues we most often discuss with people building their first home in NZ, particularly those who want to build sustainably without losing sight of their budget.
Planning Your First Home Build
1. Don’t be swayed by the size of your new house
My biggest tip for newbie home builders is not to be swayed by area. Now in some cultures, this is king, but the reality is that if you want the highest possible area and your budget isn’t aligned, you’re taking money away from the insulation, quality of materials and any customisation. For the investment you are about to make, do you truly want that?
2. Treat metre-squared rates as a rough guide
The same caution applies to metre-squared rates. They can be useful as a very rough starting point when budgeting for a first home build, but most are outdated and don’t take into account land contours, site conditions, retaining structures, and location within the country.
Base m2 rates for design and build options often include rock-bottom fixtures and fittings - you will regularly be asked by the company if you want to 'upgrade' these.... and you almost certainly will once you see what those options are.
This is also why design needs a place in the budget from the beginning.
3. Budget for design
Design adds value to your home, and it’s also a skill that takes time and expertise. It’s easy to see it as an additional cost, but if you’re interested in a quality and sustainable result, engaging a professional at the design stage ensures that the house is tailored, customised, and considered.
Good design considers all the elements of the build from the start, rather than simply cutting quality to make the numbers work.
You have a personal one-on-one service with an expert who is as passionate about achieving the best quality result as you are. It means the home is of the highest quality and longevity you can afford. This will be particularly important if you’re building a long-term family home vs. an investment property, so it's worth thinking about what your priorities are.
Budget for quality design and ensure that this is there from the very start to consider light, form and proportion. It will make a fundamental difference to the end value of the house as well as how it feels and works on a daily basis.
You can read more about how we work with clients through the Day Architects approach.
4. Design a home that suits your lifestyle
How package design and build deals often work is that, if you are lucky, a forward-thinking developer may have originally engaged an Architect to develop some prototypes for his subdivision.
When it comes to working with you on your site, this plan is tweaked (perhaps you asked for another room or a scullery) and documented by a separate draftsperson in a cut-and-paste manner; unfortunately, sometimes to the point where it fundamentally no longer works.
When you’re building a house from scratch, good residential design starts with the site, the people who are going to live there and what they actually need from the house. Where does the sun fall? How do you want the living spaces to connect? What might your family need five or ten years from now? These decisions are much harder to resolve well when the starting point is a generic plan.
5. Make sustainability part of the design
The reality is that natural resources are dwindling, construction material production generates a huge volume of pollution worldwide, water quality and freshwater availability are becoming urgent issues, and the cost of electricity is constantly rising.
When you are building a new house, the opportunity to improve the future living conditions on this planet goes far and beyond simply putting out the recycling bin every two weeks... it has the potential to last for the lifetime of that building.
An affordable, sustainable house is possible and actually saves you money in the long run.
The orientation of the house, its size, where rooms are positioned, access to sunlight and the way spaces can be naturally ventilated all need to be considered during design.
It's not a 'would you like fries with that' situation, so look beyond the kitchen and bathroom fit-out specification, and make sure that this is clear in your brief from the beginning.
Our Spaces and Projects show some of the different ways homes can respond to their owners and sites.
6. Choosing the right architect matters
Architects and architectural designers or draftspeople aren’t interchangeable terms. In New Zealand, “architect” is a protected title. Someone offering services as an architect must be registered with the New Zealand Registered Architects Board (NZRAB), having demonstrated that they meet the required professional standard.
There are different pathways to becoming registered, but registration reflects a high level of architectural education and experience, as well as a commitment to ongoing obligations around ethical practice and professional development.
Architects are the professionals in design and construction who are trained to look after you from beginning to end, including not only the quality of the spaces, but the materials, fittings, fixtures, energy performance, colours and light, kitchens, bathrooms, right through to checking the quality of construction and managing the contract with the builder. They are not trained to 'just make something look pretty'.
Architectural designers and technicians also play important roles within the industry, but their training, experience and scope can differ considerably. The important thing when building your first home is to understand who you are engaging, what expertise they bring to the project, and who they are working for.
Decide what level of expertise you require for your build and what quality you want to achieve, and don't assume that you have an 'Architect' on board unless they are on the NZRAB register.
Bringing an architect in early in the home building process also means those bigger decisions around site, budget, sustainability and the way you want to live can inform the design from the outset, rather than being dealt with once a plan has already taken shape. If you have questions about what to expect, our FAQs are a useful place to start.
Ready to start building your first home?
Before plans are drawn, one of the most useful things you can do is get clear on what you want your home to do for you. A good architectural brief covers more than your preferred number of bedrooms. It helps define how you live, what matters most, what the site needs to accommodate and where your priorities sit when decisions need to be made.
We’ve created a free How to Write a Brief for an Architect ebook and editable PDF to help you work through those questions and put your ideas in one place before the design process begins.
Or, if you’d like to talk about building your first home, get in touch with Day Architects.
xxx
Lisa.
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