The questions that come up first.

Everything on the drawings and the specification, plus site costs calculated from your soil report and survey — excavation, retaining under 1 m, connections to services at the lot boundary, and the standard council and inspection fees.

What sits outside it: landscaping past the driveway, fencing, window furnishings, and anything you add after signing. Provisional sums are capped at 4% of contract value so there's no large floating allowance hiding in the total.

Twenty-two weeks is our average from slab to handover for a Marlo 4 on a level lot with a Class M soil classification. The Aria 3 usually runs closer to eighteen, the Halcyon 4 closer to twenty-six.

Add four to seven weeks before that for plans and permits. Reactive soil, bushfire overlays and sloping sites all add time, and we tell you which apply before you sign rather than after.

Within limits, yes. Room sizes, window placement, kitchen layout and external finishes are all adjustable. We don't move load-bearing walls or change the roof structure, because that's where the pricing certainty comes from.

If you need a plan drawn from scratch, we're not the right builder — a custom architect will serve you better.

Because building one thing repeatedly is how we can hold a price. A single storey has one slab pour, no stairwell, no upper-floor framing, and scaffold off site by week six. Those savings are structural, not a discount we're choosing to give.

For work over $16,000 you need a Certificate of Consent from the Victorian Building Authority, and then a building permit. You must be on the title, and you can generally only take out one owner-builder certificate every five years.

Check the current rules directly with the VBA — they change, and the consequences of getting it wrong sit with you, not with us.

Yes. Most owner builders take plans and permits, engineering, slab, and frame and roof, then run the fit-out themselves. A few take us all the way to lock-up. Each stage is quoted separately and you're not committed to the next one.

Usually 15–25% against a full builder contract, but only if you hold the schedule. Every week the site sits idle costs you holding costs and pushes trades into other jobs. The owner builders who save the most are the ones who take our supervisor hours and use them.

At minimum, construction works insurance and public liability from the day the site is handed to you. If you sell within six years of completion you'll also need domestic building insurance. Get advice from a broker who writes owner-builder policies specifically — a standard home policy won't cover you.

Yes — two written appraisals from local agents, included in the feasibility pack before you sign anything. We use the lower of the two in any figures we show you.

If the lot is subdividable and the frontage supports it, usually yes. We check overlays, easements, minimum lot sizes and setbacks before quoting. Our Verge 3 plan is designed as a boundary-wall pair specifically for this.

It happens, particularly in fast-moving corridors. You'd need to cover the shortfall in cash, restructure the loan, or renegotiate. This is worth working through with a broker before you make an offer on land — Urban Loans can model it in advance.

No. It's arithmetic. It ignores loan interest, stamp duty, depreciation benefits, capital growth and your tax position. Use it to sanity-check a deal, then take real numbers to your accountant.

Deposit, then progress claims at slab, frame, lock-up, fixing and completion. Each claim is issued with photos and the relevant inspection certificate, which is what your lender needs to release the draw.

Our finance partner for construction, owner-builder and investment lending. They're an independent business — we don't receive a fee for referring you, and you're free to use any lender you like. We recommend them because they already understand how our stages and progress claims are structured.

You can reach them at urbanloans.com.au.

No. Site assessment, plan matching and the initial fixed-price quote cost you nothing. A deposit is only taken once you sign a build contract or a stage agreement.

Seven years structural, two years on non-structural items, and manufacturer warranties on appliances and fittings passed straight through to you. Defects raised in the first ninety days are handled as a single scheduled return visit rather than one trade at a time.

Warranty work, yes. General maintenance, no — but we'll give you the contact details for every trade that worked on your house, which is more useful than a call centre.