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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All right. Today, joining me for an episode, I have Imogen again. Okay, and Mim.  Thanks for joining me today, Mim. What we're going to chat about is we're going to go into some like recent client stories and challenges that Mim has.  And diving into, I guess, in a market where everything is getting more expensive and affordability is one of the key struggles, how we've been able to help clients manage their, Realities and expectations with how much things cost and being able to get clients into the market on that lower end of the budget now, which now in the market, it's, you know, your lower end of the budget is around that 600 K, which, you know, back in the day, two years ago, you could get a client into the market for 500 K.

So the goalposts have moved quite a bit, but it's about us helping you kind of navigate through that process on how to break it down with land costs, build costs and things like that. So. I'll kick it off by asking a question first, or do you want to dive into, tell us a little bit about like your experiences with clients and challenges with costs and stuff, Mim?

Yeah, of course. First of all, um, thanks for having me back. Anytime.  Yeah, I guess the biggest thing is, yeah, budget, like 600k doesn't get you. A lot these days, so I think it's about managing clients expectation and reality, right? Obviously our job is we want to give them the best kind of light foot forward for success.

So just being able to help, I guess, educate and support them around the process and ways that we can allow that money to go the extra mile. Yeah. And when clients first come to us with their like dream home ideas and their lists and their Pinterest boards and how often do they fully understand what those dream costs in today's market and what's that initial reality check like?

I think it's, it's very like they come in with so much excitement and then it's, you're trying to obviously not put that like negativity of like, no, you can't have these things. Yeah. But it's also being able to allow the client to maybe understand that it needs to be some compromises somewhere. Even with a million dollar budget, you've always got to compromise because your dream's probably sitting at two million dollars versus a million dollars.

So it doesn't matter where on the scale you sit, you always have to compromise because I don't know. No one's got endless money, unless you're really, really rich. Yeah, but then it's all like relatively bright, you know, like you, yeah, it doesn't matter what tax bracket you're in, your, I guess, lifestyle is going to fit into that.

So it's the same thing for people when they're trying to like a budget for a house. Yeah. And where that's going. But I think, yeah, people really don't understand how expensive things are and not even the cost of that, but what, why does things cost that much? You know, you've got trades, materials, times, it's all of those things that kind of like create a percentage of why that costs.

X amount. Yep. And like, Oh, I want to pick those tiles, but those tiles are harder to lay. So it's extra labor costs versus like all those things that you just don't think about when you're like, Oh, what the, what the hell, that cost me 3, 000. Why does that cost me 3, 000? Absolutely. Because of this, why does a door cost me this?

Well, cause the brick, he needs to cut out the bricks and there's more bricks. He has to chop some in half. So he charges more labor. Then you have the doorframe and then you have this, then you have that. And then the painting and then all those things. Okay, cool. There's a thousand dollars. Yeah, absolutely.

Even for things for 200, but you haven't accounted for everything else that goes. Yeah. And sometimes things I have are like. More  smic finish. Yeah. Cost more, whether, and it might sometimes look like there's less material involved, but because of the effort it's going to take to get that product in that way, that's what that costs.

X amount. That's a, that's a big one I've found. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. And so you've obviously worked with. Lots of clients trying to stretch their budgets in this market. What's the process like for balancing the dream home aspirations with reality? And they're trying to fit it into their budgets. I think sometimes it is,  I guess you got to make the client halfway.

I can sit here and be like, you're not going to get that. You're not going to get that. You're not going to get that. And it's almost like then we're kind of just like fighting each other, what they want and what I think that they are going to be able to afford. So sometimes it's just about meeting halfway, then you can go to the builder, get your sketching, you know, cost request done, get a quote back.

And then from there it can be an itemized breakdown of how much everything costs. And then for the client, they're actually saying on pen and paper what that looks like rather than just me kind of, it's almost like I'm shooting down their dreams. Yeah. Which, if that was me, I'd be getting on defensive.

Yeah.  It's not what you want to hear. Yeah. So it's important to be able to But in reality, it's what you need to hear. Absolutely. Yeah. It's like realistic dreams, right? That's what I'm here for. But the initial process, it's a learning thing.  Yeah. Yeah. And it's like, there's a lot of builders and reps and stuff out there who you'll go and you'll be, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You can get that. You can fit that and you get that. And they're going to sell you the dream to get the deal over the line or, you know, do that. And then all of a sudden you've got missing things from your paperwork and it's not actually what you're included because obviously it's actually not going to work.

And rather than people. And reps and builders telling you honest and upfront, which is how we work. And that's what we pride ourselves in. We would rather tell you what you need to hear versus what you want to hear, because it's not just about that. Yeah. And I think on that genuinely the thought of me potentially lying to a client about what they could get, knowing that I'm lying, that makes me feel ill.

Yeah. Like I would never want to give. A client misinformation purposely that I just, that baffles me that that is something that happens in the industry, especially because it's not something like this is more than half a million dollars for a lot of people and people's livelihood.  When the numbers don't add up or something comes over, what are ways that you help clients get closer to their goals or their budget without totally compromising the vision?

Like how do you meet in the middle with them? So I think that, yeah, I guess that that is the best thing about being able to like build. So you just really got to think about it. And it gets very overwhelming the entire process because clients will look at the process in a hole, but we always kind of try and educate them on splitting the process into two, especially if their budget is a bit tight.

So a couple of ways that we can do that is. Making sure that when the client is applying for the loan, we want to make sure that the bones of the house, the structural elements are where they want them to be. You know, that's your walls, your windows, your doors, and your roofs. Okay. So when we're doing our design, we want to make sure all of those aspects are happy.

You're happy with, and that is going to be the budget for the loan. So all of those. Non structural elements, your floors, your wind, uh, your blinds, sorry, you know, air con, paving, all of those, like, yeah, non structural elements, we can strip that from the loan or the house, and then we can add it back in at pre start, and then you can pay cash to the builder through that construction phase, and it just allows clients, especially at the moment, because a lot of land isn't titled, it  can be a bit daunting when people hear that, but the positive side of that or the silver lining is that If your titles are due in six months, you've got an extra six months to save, you know, so across that timeframe, you've done your pre start meeting with a builder, you know, you've got 15 grand you need to save for, you've got six months to do that.

Is that achievable? So I think like being able to split the process in two quote is like bones of the house pre start. You can add all that stuff back in later. Yeah. And you can do things after handover as well, which then you set up on builder's margins too. Especially like if you've got friends that are, you know, sparkies, you know, you can sit down with like Maddy, the interior designer, and she can help look at your electrical plan and put provisions in place for those things to go a little bit further later on.

Yeah. And how do you see the, like, I guess the support of a broker, a building broker helping clients in this process versus how it might be different if clients were doing it alone? I think the biggest thing is we are here all the time to answer questions. There are a lot of stepping stones with this process and it can get very overwhelming.

I think if you go direct to a building company, the chances of you just becoming a number are very high. You know, you get signed up, you won't say that sales consultant, you won't hear from them. And then you're onto the next person and you're just kind of moving through the system, whether  But even though you're, you know, you might be with me as the broker, the entire team is always going to be here to help me, to help my client.

So I think, yeah, you've just got a wider range of support, communication at any point, any questions from the land contract to when am I picking my keys up? Yeah. You know, it's just where the middleman between.  Can you share a story of a time when you really made a difference for a client struggling to make their budget work and how did you help them get their foot in the door?

Yeah, I had a client come to me, they had already purchased their block. Yep.  Um, which I do love, like it's, it's really great to see people like taking initiative with that. But I think sometimes if we don't have the education around. Um, what the budget might be for your block and what it might be for your build, it can create this kind of like off sense, like the balance is out, like the, the percentage is too high on the land and then there's not enough left for the build because people forget that you have to include site works and that's not included when you purchase a land.

Yeah. So client came to me. Block was slightly a little bit more expensive than would have been ideal for their budget. But then it comes down to us stripping all those non structural elements out of the house to get the quote itself across the line for the loan. And then from there, they roughly have a good number of what they need to save for their pre start.

Yeah. Which they can add all those, you know, flooring, air con, all those kinds of things back in later. Yeah. And this is like, yeah, it's a catch 22, I guess. A fine line of how much stuff you have to do after handover. But sometimes to make it work around that 600k mark with how much land costs have gone up now.

The only way for people to get in is to be able to strip that back, work out a plan. Okay, how much do I need to save? How much can I add in? What do I need to do after handover? And eventually then you do get the end product and that gets your foot in the door. Yeah, yeah. And I think how important is it to upgrade your tiles in a house that might not be forever home?

Yeah. You know, and I know that sometimes. Two grand might not seem a lot, but when you were there, yeah, it's, it can be a lot. Yeah. Cool. All right. Well, thank you so much for joining me today. I think that was a really good episode of us diving into some budgets and some things. If you're a little bit worried about budgets or you want to have a chat.

Head to the link in the show notes below and you can book a discovery call and have a chat with Nim. Thanks so much. Look forward to it.  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 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 hit that subscribe button. So you never miss an episode of the home building like a boss podcast.