That does seem extremely high. Are there flood, fire or cyclone compliance items or difficult site conditions? I’d be asking the designer and builder to take you through the EstimatorS line by line with a big red pen.

That's ridiculous.

Just the decision to give you a "$2800" door for a "not a high end home" sets off alarm bells.

Is it possible they used AI to come up with the quote and fed in some wrong information?

Is using AI for tasks like this maybe a thing now?

@macyjean maybe they did use AI. I’m annoyed that we paid for the quote seeing how hopeless it is. Did i mention that the quote cost is 3.5 grand

If you’ve paid that amount for the quote I’d be expecting a personal walk through with the person tha prepared the quote. I’d be questioning any assumptions they made and looking for the full list of inclusions with prices.

The driving of and preparation of your land required to install the stilts might be the reason for your very costly quotation.

Surely that wouldn’t cost 500,000 though.

That is why you need a detailed listing of the estimate. To see how they came to the $900k.

So back to the first question, are there any unusual conditions?

If it's like one of those Grand Designs builds where they nned to rent a helicopter to fly in the larger components to some isolated location . . but surely they would have itemised that on the quote and you'd see, ah, that's where so much money is going?

@maceyjean no crazy helicopters. Just a standard house on stilts.
The quote seems ludicrous to me. But I’m not a builder. Hence why I was asking on here.

I agree with Bigreader if you're paying that for the quote you should get a walk-through of it. So you're meeting with the builder today? Hopefully you'll get some clarity then.

If you have the price for the door, presume you have an itemised list, so it would be interesting to know if anything else leaps out at you.

Agree macyjean. I’d also be interested in the feedback from the builder. I’m suspicious that the height of stilts and the extra rigidity required of the floor of the house is a main cause.

Late to party, and hope you've found a way through, but just to add my 2c...... for a basic simple spec I'd be working with a realistic min $3500-$4000K /m2 ballpark baseline considering a brief for building an upper level / raised structure (as opposed to on ground) ...and then factoring in additional/potential components such as for remote / rural location or additional structural complexities or finishes, external elements etc etc........So arguably the proposed budget was blown before pen was even put to paper.......the only way you'd potentially achieve build pulled in for this budget ballpark is some form of off the shelf / volume plan/product that the builder knows how much will cost structurally and then it's just contextual costs that need to be factored in on top.......in custom design world $500K would be a realistic starting point for a small scale design and even then you'd want it to be simple and not dealing with additional structural complexities such as stilts or rural / bushfire spec......unfortunately both material and labour costs have skyrocked in recent years....just a trip to the local hardware store gives you an idea of even basic treated pine is pricey.....get a quote for a side fence these days and what you'd think was $1000 a few years back is now 3x that..............it's a really expensive exercise now....

Re the $3.5K for the quote, it's not bad, in fact imo builders should be charging for quotes as it takes a huge amount of work and thought.......the issue here is managing expectations throughout the design process

Am sorry this has happened to you - this is exactly the issue we avoid by managing the design process robustly and honestly, and sometimes it means having the hard conversation advising people up front what they're trying to achieve budgetwise is unrealistic ...it's ALWAYS about aligning people's budget to their goals and it takes time, trust and experience to work through this process

Really hope you're able to find a way through

Very best of luck with it

PD

www.pauldistefanodesign.com.

Also ask if you will need a ramp up to front door to meet changes to building code and cross bracing on the stilts. Have engineered drawings been prepared yet?

I'm thinking about "Just a standard house on stilts". Standard houses aren't on stilts.

I mean it’s nothing recidulously flash….

Naomi, what did the builder/estimator say about the quote figure?

If the land is flat, why does it need to be on stilts? Is it a flood prone area?

.........I'll also add this for the purpose of helping understanding a quoted figure.........let's take the $900K. Out of this there will be about $80K GST. There will also be a builder's margin applied prior to GST, let's call it 15% (conservative) but can be anywhere between 12 and 20% depending upon context, complexity (ie whether access is remote etc), so the raw cost of the build is say $700K.....seems like on the higher side of spec as this washes out at ballpark $5000/m2 which as per the OP sounds excesssive for something not over the top. There are always fixed and non-fixed/variable elements of quotes that make up the final number, and being a combination of subtrades' & suppliers individual quotations it is possible for just one or two "rogue" components being responsible for blowing the quote out of the water. What you want is good value across the board for each individual component to achieve a reasonable quote. Furthermore certain components that are flexible, such as fittings & fixtures can be inflated in the quote and easily adjusted pulled back.....the consequence of inflated components compounds the overall total quoted cost issue, since GST and margins will become relatively/unecessarily bloated..........A good builder will be transparent and have alternative sources/options available for all components as sometimes say concretor A is busy so puts in a higher number, whereas Concretor B may be able to sharpen their pencil more at that point in time....I'd also strategically try and avoid seeking trade quotations in the final quarter of the year as generally the subbies become super focused trying to get over the end of the year line because everyone always "needs to be finished by xmas" (like the world will end lol) .......So this factor may be playing into the number this deep into 4th qtr.......anyway it's never a simple equation and more detail on sitution & contextual/site aspects would potentially help understand why costs have come back way higher than expected....which I totally appreciate would be a big shock considering the budget you provided/indicated at the start

You said you were "meeting with our builder and designer tomorrow" when you first posted 10 days ago, so what came out of that meeting, what more have you learned?

Yes we met with the builder last Wednesday. Essentially what Paul has said is what the builder said. Our builder said that it was an inflated quote by multiple aspects and that there was some things we could change in order to bring the price down.
Simple things like (the amount of concrete under the house, the type of cladding we’ve chosen, taking out a few windows etc and removing an unnecessary retaining wall from the quote ) he’s working with us and believes he can bring it down to around $400,000. He said that it seemed to be a quote for a “high end” home where multiple things have been over quoted and the cost has compounded. Example - the letterbox was quoted to cost $900.. which is not necessary and very changeable.
He said he was going to get a “soft quote “ from each of his labourers for the home so that he can get a more accurate idea of what his cost will be and that he’ll have a much better idea of what he can bring it down to by the end of January.
So for now we are waiting !
Not much happens over the Christmas period.
But we are also seeking quotes from other builders to make sure that we are getting quoted fairly.

Receiving a quote that was not aligned to your requests seems to be a waste of time for all involved. One conversation with the builder and you are looking at potentially a $500k reduction. Why didn’t the builder listen the first time? Wishing you the best for a budget appropriate build in the future.

Did you ever tell us why it needs stilts? If it’s a preference ie for a view rather than a need ie floods then it may be time to rethink it. It’s great that your builder is looking at ways to reduce costs but be careful. I live in the world of contracts as part of my day job. And a lower price upfront often means variations during the works. You’ll need to make sure that absolutely everything is specified and nailed down in whatever contract and figure you end up at.

"the amount of concrete under the house" and the matter of the stilts is a question? Is it just useful hardscaping under the stilted house, or do you mean something structural which can be reduced closer to minimum requirements or something like that?

"an unnecessary retaining wall"

I'm wondering why it was there in the first place, and what effect there might be on water flow and drainage and so on for the block if it is not built. What was it to be built of anyway? How high, high enough to need engineering? There are so many questions and possible answers beyond a simple yes or no.

I know brick retaining walls are expensive as we had one in a previous home and it made sense for multiple reasons to have it built at the same time as the house, but in this home we have added retaining walls of various types over time.

So I do come back to wondering why your quote had a retaining wall in the first place? Was it part of the high-end nice to have features, to go with the fancy letterbox, or was there a function you can manage without but it will have a functional effect? You said it's a "mostly flat block"? But then why the stilts?

It's good that there seems to be lots of scope to reduce the price.

But you said "we’ve been very specific that this is a first home and not a high end home" so what went wrong there?

It’s clearly not a flat block as there are 10 more steps up to the back door than the front. Is the area rocky or difficult to pile, has the foundations been designed yet. If not you will see a huge variance allowed for. Then there is the availability of trades, distance for supplies etc. lots of unknowns for us to even hazard a guess

What's a bit weird/odd is that the builder has outsourced the quote.....particularly for something relatively simple....there's a difference between a legit quote vs a hypothetical QS estimate.....We also don't know what exact documentation the quote was based on (was it properly documented/engineered/specified??) - the less detail/specification provided the more speculation/guessing/assumptions are made in getting to a number......Regardless of what's happened, stilts, land fall, landscaping elements in or out etc, based on the $400K budget being aimed for this is asking for under than $3000/m2 including GST and margins....it's practically a tall order for a custom build at this point in time.........

FWIW coming at it from a different angle, potentially some of the pre-fab / modular / off site build options could be worthwhile alternatives as they price things tightly and really the only cost variables on those products are contextural aspects (access/location/topography etc)......they also work really nicely on open sites and often architecturally work/perform better in context (w' more linear/streamlined/flexible planning options) and if the site is remote you put more balance of budget into the build vs the (higher) costs of getting labour to the site for the duration of the build that could otherwise be going into the actual house......as you say, the proposed is nothing that flash, and you could potentially may have better bang for buck with an alternative option.......Just a thought