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.

Tune in as I take you on the journey to building your home like a boss. 

Alright, today we're gonna dive into what is a building broker and how can a building broker help support you on your building journey. Not a lot of people know we exist and it is such a valuable service. So to be able to give you that information, to break it down and to explain what is a building broker, it'll help you understand how that can help you on your journey and if it's the right fit for you.

If you're looking at building a home. So as a building broker, we're here to support you the client through your building journey from start to finish. We're here to advocate and support you through that process. So we work independently. We don't work for any one particular builder. We work for you, the client rather than for the builder.

So sales reps and builders, obviously builders have sales consultants. They work directly for a building company. Building brokers and us as a building broker, we work independently and we're here to help support you on your journey through building a home and understanding it, educating and supporting you throughout the process.

You know, we don't, and I always refer back to this when we're at school, we don't get taught how to enter the property market, how to build a house, how to do our taxes, all those really valuable life things that you would think you would love to learn at school, you just don't learn. So.  It's just kind of like you're expected to go out there and wing, buying a house, building a house, over half a million dollars you're investing, it's going to be one of the biggest investments that you make in your life, and you're just kind of expected to find out this information, research everything, do it, and wing it and hope it works out for the best, and you know,  building a house is a full time job.

It requires a lot of effort and research and love and TLC and education, support, all of the above. And there's a lot of moving parts. You need to obviously work out one. What can you borrow? How much money can you afford? What's your deposit? How much do you need to save? Where do you want to live? What does your block look like?

How did the block requirements? What are the site works? What, what are the, what builders are out there? What kind of designs do I want? The prices, what are the timeframes? Like it's all these things and building a house is overwhelming and it's overwhelming because it's such a big process and you don't know what's going on.

You're going in blind, especially as a first time builder, you don't know what is right or wrong. So if you don't know, you don't know. So as a building broker, we're here to help support you through that process. We like to break it down and you always want to start with understanding on what is your finance budget.

How much can you afford to borrow and where do you want to live and do they fit together? You know, is it more important for you to be there by the beach or close to the city? Is the location more important? Or is it the house that's more important the bigger house and the bigger backyard and you want to live further away from the beach or the city or in an area where land is more affordable versus more expensive.

So you work in your budget, and we help you understand that, to really work out what is important to you and then come up with a game plan from there. Once you understand what your budget is and where you want to live, then we kind of help you through the process of finding a builder. Different builders build on different blocks.

They build different construction methods, you know, brick veneer, timber frame, double brick. Are you building your first home, your second home, your third home, the forever home, a farmhouse? badlax block? You know, there's a lot of variables that come into play in different builders. We'll build on different blocks and some builders won't build on certain blocks and build certain houses.

So it's really important to understand and grasp the knowledge of, okay, how does that work in? And what's the best solution for me? And as building brokers, we're here to support you through that journey of like, you know, you tell us, okay, yeah, I want a farmhouse. I have an acreage block, or I want to build on a battle ax block, or I want to build in a, I have.

Land in a new estate and what are those requirements on the blocks? You know, what are the, um, R codes? What are your requirements to building? What are the site works on your block? And site works is one of the biggest hidden costs in building. Now site works is what the builder needs to do to prepare your block for the slab to go down.

Is there limestone? Is there rock? Is your block on a slope? Is it? In back onto a freeway and it needs noise requirements. Is it close to the bush? Is it, so it needs a bushfire requirements, all those things. We will help you through that part of the process. And I think this is a really super important one.

And I'm going to do an episode with Jake in a few weeks on an example that he's had with some clients, clients that went out and got a block of land on their own and the land. developer and agent, they didn't explain any of the requirements and what was on the block. And, you know, for the builder to build on that block, there was about 50, 000 worth of costs on there that they didn't know.

And they weren't made aware of. So when we're helping you look for blocks of land as a broker, we help you through that process of really understanding what are the costs on that block for the builder to build on that house before you go ahead with. signing a land contract and committing on that.

Because as soon as you sign your land contract and you commit on the block for the builder to put that slab down, they need to price, whatever the requirements are to match that on that block. So if you're in a flame zone or about 40, and it's really high, you know, that starts to add 30, 000 worth of costs there for the builder to meet requirements because you are in a bushfire prone area.

Now that's 30, 000 that you could have spent on the kitchen or, you know, nice upgrades. And that money goes such a long way, especially at the moment when everything is getting more expensive and budgets are getting smaller. So we'll help you really understand that part of the process with helping you find the right builder for you and knowing timeframes, quality, and price.

I can guarantee the cheapest quote is not the best deal. You want to make sure you're looking at builders who. Build quality homes, meet their timeframes and that they're competitive with their price, but they're meeting that market average that kind of ticks all those boxes. You know, if you go for the cheapest quote, you're going to lose out on your timeframes or your quality.

So it's kind of like balancing scales. You want to be able to balance the scales where you're meeting all those areas.  It's not going, if you get the cheapest quote, you're going to lose out on your timeframes or your quality or your price. If you go for one of the most expensive quotes, you know, it's not the cheapest, but you might get the timeframes and the quality.

So it's about that balancing act and what is more important to you. And we help you through that process of understanding all the pros and the cons, the specs, the quotes, comparing apples and apples. It's really hard when you go out. And you speak to all these builders and you go display shopping and you look through spec sheets and brochures and websites.

And you understand, okay, cool. I've got a price here, but one builder might be pricing high ceiling, stone bench painting, and the other builder might not. And you're looking at the prices and you're comparing apples and oranges. So it's really about understanding, being able to compare apples. And apples to understand, are you getting the best deal and knowing that the best deal isn't always necessarily about price.

Price is very, very important. And you want to make sure you're getting bang for your buck and your inclusions and all that, but you also don't want to compromise your timeframes or your quality either. Once you've got a builder locked in, we help and support you throughout the whole journey. So, you know.

Helping you once your building contract comes out, understanding the lingo, breaking it down step by step. And we really like to break down the building process step by step because looking at the whole thing becomes very overwhelming. If you look at the building process, all in all six months, pre construction 12 months construction, it's an 18 month process.

If you look at that whole 18 months, it gets very, very overwhelming. So we want to break it down for our clients and educate and support them through each step of the process. And you start to tick off. Little milestones along the way. And, you know, all of a sudden you're chipping away, you're doing things, asking questions and you're making that progress and you will get there and it will become less overwhelming, which is that support that we're here to be as that advocate and that middleman, you know, the middleman between the finance broker, the land agent, the settlement agent, the builder, helping you prepare for pre start pre starts, very overwhelming process.

With Maddie, who's our interior designer and client liaison, you'll come in here in the office and we'll help you, you know, do you need help with colors? What's your electrical plan? Have you thought about where you want to put your Christmas tree? All those kind of things. We will help and support you through the process.

I have a question about land titles. My settlement agent emailed me this.  Can you help me here? I don't know who to go to. Um, we will help and point you in the right direction. And if we don't know, we'll find out the information and we'll be able to help and support you through each step of the process.

You know, you've got finance, you've got settlement, you've got final documents, there's council approvals, all those things. Then you move once you're moving towards out of that admin stage, you're moving towards into construction. As a building broker, we're here to support you through pre construction and construction all the way until you get your keys.

So we'll give you construction updates. You know, we have access to our builders portals, which tells us where your, um, our client's jobs are at in construction. You know, has slab gone down? Has bricks gone up? Plumbing going in, cabinetry going in, is final fit outs happening and we will update you along the way.

And we're also there if you need to bounce any ideas, you know, Hey, I'm not sure about this. Or I thought my plan said this, can you help me interpret this? Or I don't know how to read this or do you have this document here? Literally we get asked any and every questions. It's just about being, having that extra person there to support you throughout the whole journey.

That's there to support you rather than the builder. You know, we're here to advocate for you and help you through that overwhelming process. So at the end of the day, you know, building can be a fun and positive experience. You just have to have the right team and now look, building necessarily doesn't always go to plan.

There's a lot of moving parts. There's council requirements. There's. There's building codes, there's design requirements, there's the estate, there's the finance broke, you know, people have after pay, people have zip pay, there's all these variables that come into play. There's certain timelines that you have to meet and we will also help you.

Make sure you meet those timelines, you know, are you, do you need to have a certain amount of payslips? Do you need to have a certain amount of savings and we kind of project manage in a sense everything for you? So we're doing a lot of that work So you don't have to do that work and we will help you through that process as that middleman tying it all together to support you To getting your keys and getting into your home, which is the end result and doing it in a positive and fun way.

And like I mentioned before, you know, things happen and there's roller coasters and hiccups in building, but about having the right team and the support there with you, you know, if something doesn't go plan a, we will always have plan B and plan C and solutions to help you through that rather than just being like, Oh, no, you kind of have to work it out yourself or I know finance.

This happened or closure after pay, you know, we're there to help you through the ups and the downs through building. There's so many building parts and different variables that happen, having people there who know most situations. And we, we do this every day with different clients and different processes.

For you going through the process as a first time builder and not knowing a lot of things, being able to have that soundboard and that extra support there is pretty much what a building broker is in a nutshell. We have a lot of hats. We do a lot of things, emotional support, helping couples decide on certain colors.

You know, look, we do everything and we're there. Support you literally throughout that whole process, land, finance, get your build up, pre construction all the way into construction. If you would love to chat with one of our team members, one of our brokers, Jake or Mim, to have a bit of a casual chat on the phone and see where you're at, ask any questions, book a discovery.

Call in the link in the show notes below.  Thank you so much for tuning in to the home building like a boss podcast. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and learn something new. Remember you've got this and I've got your back 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.  Don't forget to check out the show notes for more information and free resources. If you haven't already.  So you never miss an episode of the home building like a boss podcast.