Welcome to Home Building Like a Boss, the podcast dedicated to helping first home buyers in Perth build their dream home with ease and excitement. I’m Jamie, your host and go to building broker. Are you ready to feel empowered, in control and excited about your building journey? I’ll help guide you with expert advice, insider tips and tricks and real life stories to help you navigate the confusing world of home building.

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Today I have Jake with me, joining me on another episode. Welcome back for your second episode. Thanks for having me. Thanks for having me. What was it? I’m ready now. In La La Land. In La La Land. Just thinking about my clients. Yeah. We’re going to chat about today. I’m going to ask you Jake, uh, a little bit about a client journey slash story that he’s been helping some clients navigate.

I guess start us off with a little bit about the clients and what the situation is. Cool. So yeah, how it started, uh, it’s a bit of a feel good story in the end. It is. Early days, stressful, but all good now, which is good. But yeah, essentially how it started, we had, um, a couple come in, lovely couple come in, come to see us.

For an info session and then usually how it is anyway, they’re, they’re very eager to sort of get moving once I realized I wanted to build and then I sort of just got to be eager and excited and jump the process before we initially caught up, which is normal, uh, happens. It does. People are excited.

Couples are excited. Anyhow. So I had a chat to them on the phone. They gave me a brief rundown of where they were, where they were looking to. Build, which was great. And then they sort of said, we’ve got our eye on a block that we’ve done a bit of research on. And I said, okay, that’s great. Um, before you pull the trigger, don’t make any sudden movements.

We always recommend that. Um, just to obviously get a good understanding of the whole process, the whole journey before you lock yourself down to anything. So essentially they were pretty keen. So they went checked out the block in the two days before we met up and then put a deposit down on the block.

Um, because I loved it, which, you know. It’s a hot market at the moment. You know, you get talking to the wrong people and they say, go, go, go. But anyway, nonetheless, come in, had a look at the block, uh, had a good chat. And then probably a few red flags popped up with where it was located in proximity to a bushfire or a nature reserve area, I guess, uh, pretty dense bushland.

And what does that mean for people who don’t know? What that means. Yeah. So, I mean, I guess what they were looking for initially was less neighbors and to look over park bushland, which is fine. Um, but yeah, essentially with that comes a bushfire attack writing or level, which affects the components in the house, obviously for safety, for the fire ratings and whatnot.

And that writing changes. In the hard, the distance between the, wherever the house is going to be built versus, you know, the bushland itself, uh, in this case, it was very, very close. Very close. Um, so to give you an example of the block size, I think it was a, off the top of my head, like a 15 by 22. Yep. So maybe about five, was that five, 10 square metres I think?

Yeah. I think from memory, I’ll have to double check. Essentially, it, part of the, I think six metres into the block was a flame zone, which is a big no no. Yeah. Uh, I, realistically, I don’t know. Not a lot of builders would build in that. No, yeah. Not a lot of builders would build in it. Possibly. You could debate and argue whether the block should have been built that close to the Yeah.

Anyway, it’ll change. What are the levels, I guess, before a flame zone? Like, give us some context. Yeah. How do we get to a flame zone? Because that’s obviously bad. Where does it start? Yeah, true. So Sevilla, flame zone. No one’s going to build there. It’s high risk. Yeah. And then it comes back from there. So flame zone.

And then it goes, um, bow 40. Yep. Bow 29. Yep. Bow 19. Yep. And bow 12. 5. Yep. So bow 12. 5. Really common. Yeah. Not an excessive cost is, is. How much cost does that roughly add in? Starts from about six, seven grand. Yeah. Yeah. And obviously in the scheme of things, that’s not really a lot at all. It’s pretty normal.

Same as like a, yeah. So, but, and then obviously the severity of that bell rating to the flame zone, pretty much most builders, 90 percent of builders will tap out. Yeah. Because that, you can imagine that obviously is going to affect insurance and. It actually, if there is a fire, that portion of the block or house is going to be in the flame zone.

So it’s pretty risky. Yeah. So there were like a few, I guess, red flags on the block being the cost of the bow, the setbacks. So they could only build on a portion of the block. And It really minimized how many builders would actually build that house. So we ran into like three major red flags. Yeah, sure.

So essentially after we caught up and I had a look at the block without putting like a, putting a lot of sort of making them feel uneasy about the situation. We just had to, I just had to sort of bring it all back and explain to them. Um, because when they bought the block and this is quite normal, the land developer didn’t explain what all that means.

So they were kind of like, yep, cool, happy days. And then, so our job to explain what that meant to them and yeah, essentially the setbacks and the flame zone and the costings and everything like that, it reduced the, essentially the building footprint of that block. Um, which then had to flow on to the cost itself, to the bow, and then essentially the house they wanted, room sizes and sires and everything like that, was fully compromised as well.

So they weren’t able to achieve. At all what they wanted to. Yeah. Which was just not ideal. big milestone after big milestone sort of just been like, oh, and yeah. Yeah, it was, it was obviously it’s a lot for them to take on. Yeah. And how did you help them navigate this situation and how did you kind of like, I guess, overturn it into a positive situation?

Yeah. Cool. So firstly, we sort of just broke it down for them and said, this is exactly what. The ratings mean, this is what the setback means, this is what it means for the cost, and then this is what it means for your house. That’s a lot in itself because obviously that is nothing what they wanted and they were quite shocked at all those sort of things.

And then essentially I got to the drawing board with trying to find a solution and said, we can either still go ahead with this and find out what builders will build on there, at what cost, and at what compromise in terms of house. Or get on the front foot and look for another block. So I sort of had option A and B ready to go.

Yeah. So obviously telling them the issue. Giving them the solution and then giving them the decision to ponder on it and like tell them and then for them to let me know what they want to do. Yep. And I guess people might not understand the importance of having a broker in a situation like this. How do you think having like your expertise and a broker helping them through this change the course of their building journey?

Well, I mean to put it sort of blatantly they’ve saved themselves 40, 000. Yeah. Overall. and then half a house. Yeah. So like literally that’s huge. The house is huge. The house is, well that, yeah, the house. Yeah. So what option did they go with in the end? Yeah. So I was lucky enough with timing and whatnot and just getting on the front foot with the developer and letting them know the situation and just being honest with it.

And then at the time, obviously getting solution option B different block, which was a completely different bell rating anyway. So, yeah, essentially save them 40 grand. They were like super, super stoked with the outcome and the solution. And then obviously realizing like, wow, we’ve just. Yeah. It’s really Dodged a bullet.

Dodged a bullet. Yeah. Quite literally. Huge bullet. Huge bullet. Yeah. Why is it important, I guess, to have a building broker in that initial helping clients in that initial phase of the process, like with looking for land and the hidden costs involved in that and helping clients? Good question. I mean, probably the biggest thing is just the sheer time they would have saved because if they had have still gone ahead with it.

the deposit on the block and then sitting with five or six different builders and they’re all just wasting time telling them different costs, different no’s, you know, that’s just a huge time saving factor in itself. And then obviously before it was too late because pretty much now that whole estate sold out.

So like just having us on their side to sort of Navigate that quickly rather than them finding out the hard way two months down the track rather than two weeks Yeah, I think was just like a huge. I don’t say it’s a wake up call for them, but they were just super grateful Yeah And like we obviously it’s we want to make sure that we can get them the home they want and it was just not gonna Be possible with the block they got and I think I don’t think many builders would have had the same Solution approach method to get them what they wanted Obviously, that would just have been like, nah, we don’t want to touch these.

Yeah, it wasn’t. And then, and they’re stuck with the block, there’s literally no other blocks there in that estate now. And I think literally four days after that whole estate sold out. Yeah, so tying just was of the essence. So yeah, and like there’s if they didn’t have a broker ie me. Yeah This guy it’s like unfortunately the day that they would have been stuck with that block What’s your solution was very client focused like you had the best interest of the client and I guess that’s the advantage of having a building broker if you’ve got someone looking out for Your interest that’s knows hidden costs and bail requirements and developer stuff.

And like, you don’t know necessarily like the developer, unfortunately, and the land agent didn’t disclose any of this to the clients, they weren’t aware of it. So as a client, you don’t know these things when you’re looking. Either for land, which is why it’s also valuable to have us helping you through that initial stage of the process, looking for land as well.

Yeah. Yeah. And like they, and it’s not really their fault obviously, but just making sure that before you start pulling the trigger on like paying deposits on land and whatnot, just really sitting down with someone who knows, a broker, um, at Boss Building Brokers, just to explain because I mean, realistically, even if it was.

It was slightly different circumstances without the flame zone. It possibly could have been done, but it wasn’t. And obviously the education before they signed up for that block wasn’t there. And that’s not really the land agent’s fault either or anything, they’ve got a job to do. No, it’s just the education around it and knowing it.

What stands out as one of the most rewarding parts of being able to help them make an informed and educated decision once they had all the information? You could just literally see, like, the gratitude in their, in their eyes. Like, obviously Yeah. Yeah, they were just It’s, you could tell they were getting quite stressed quite quickly once we were sort of showing the red flags and what this meant for them.

And then obviously to give them that solution, they were just, um, that was super stoked. Just obviously means that they’re going to get the house they want and they’ve got like a small family as well. So yeah, just a huge financial. Yeah. Decision that they’ve saved themselves with just by having a chat with the right person.

Yeah. Yeah. And to wrap it up, what advice do you have for other people listening, I guess that you’ve learned or that you could give from this situation? Definitely doing your research first and double checking it with someone who knows what they’re talking about. Don’t make any sudden movements. Don’t make any sudden movements.

Like that could have been the biggest financial mistake of their life. Like honestly, that’s how close I were to stuffing up that situation and it like wasn’t really their fault, but for other people thinking, Oh, I might just quickly secure this block. The land agents and the land developers don’t necessarily.

They’re not there for you. Yeah. They’re just that, like, they’ve got other blocks to sell. It’s really not up to them. They don’t build the homes on them. Yeah. So just chat with someone before you make the next move. Yeah. And having someone that understands, yeah, all the like components, cause you can obviously chat to a land agents about it, but they won’t necessarily know what the build side of it’s going to cost or the site works are going to cost.

Whereas like sitting in the middle, we kind of know all those different anchor points. Yeah. Correct.

Thank you so much for tuning in to the home building like a boss podcast. I hope you enjoyed today’s episode and learned something new. Remember you’ve got this and I’ve got you. Until next time, stay inspired, stay informed, and stay confident on your building journey. I can’t wait to chat with you on the next episode.

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