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.

Hello? My gosh, I have not recorded a podcast episode in a few weeks. Probably a little bit longer than that. It is so crazy juggling all the hats of running a business, looking after clients, looking after the team, doing the marketing, making the content, and then the podcast and went through a bit of a crazy patch and that.

I lost a few episodes there. So we are back and gonna talk to you about quite a few things. We have a little update on where, what we've been doing and things. You know, we. Have had some changes in the team. Jake took a new, exciting opportunity, so that was a bittersweet moment to see him go. So it's just us girls in the office at the moment, or now, which is, um, Laura, myself, Mim, and Maddie.

And I am heading off to Europe. I'm going on a six week working holiday, so I'll be working while I'm over there. So I am gonna do a couple of episodes before I leave and possibly take some recording stuff with me, which is kind of cool. Mims in Thailand at the moment, and we've just been working and helping like lots of clients.

We've been working on our secret project. So one of our episodes in the next maybe few weeks is gonna be one of, um. Our secret project. We had a few curve balls with that. We had a few challenges and that is super exciting in itself, which is, you know, that took a lot of capacity and work from us in that sense too, which is why, um, I haven't done any episodes recently.

So yeah, that's kind of like a little bit in a nutshell on what we've been doing and where we're at and what we're doing. So. I'm gonna get into today's episode, which is all about a phone call and someone that I helped, uh, maybe four, four weeks ago, a few weeks ago. Um, her name is Christine and she messaged through on the website.

Late one night and said she had a bit of a bad gut feeling on a builder that she was speaking to and wanted a second opinion. So I asked her to send all her stuff through to me, and I had a bit of a look at her quote and her block of land and her budget and her situation, and then gave her. A call. I spent about 45 minutes with her on the phone just breaking down everything and explaining kind of how it all works and also getting a little bit more to know about her situations.

She was a single mom looking to get into the market at around that 600 k house and land package, and the block she'd signed up for was quite. Expensive. And the builder that she was speaking to and the rep she was speaking to, the quote was very, very cheap. Now, and obviously like as a single mom and as anyone trying to get into the market, when you desperately so want and need to get into the market, you listen to who is gonna tell you what you wanna hear.

And you know, there's a lot of that in the building industry where. People will tell you what you want to hear, but not necessarily what you need to hear because what you need to hear might be a little bit harder than what you want to hear. And for them it's easier to tell you what you wanna hear, sign you up, lock you in, Chuck you in the system, and.

That's kind of how it goes, and it's a bit of a gamble on whether, what your experience is like, how long your timeframes are you gonna get, price increases, all of those things. So I really dived into, into that phone call with Christine on the building process, how it all works. Um, she asked questions about her prelim paperwork.

She asked questions on a quote, and honestly the quote was too good to be true. It was probably, it was around 260 or 70,000, including Siteworks, which in this market is non-existent. And I explained to her how sometimes that can get people stuck in a very tricky situation. If builders are advertising cheap costs on the front end, those costs have to come out somewhere.

Like it's not like. They can discount the product. It's a service. And through that, something has to give, and it's usually your timeframes, your quality, and and or your price, right? So if your, if your price gives, it's either your timeframes are gonna blow out or your quality's gonna drop. And that's because they not paying market rates to get trades to work on your site.

So therefore, the timeframes blow out. Or trades who aren't. The best or don't have the best quality. So then the, the home isn't at highest quality because they're paying for cheaper trades now. So it's all a fine balancing act of getting that as close as possible. You can normally hit two and there's one that's then like a little bit harder to hit.

But there are builders overall that encompass all three, so. I explained all of that to her on the phone and she was really confused and like, but I just don't understand because it's a fixed price building contract. And I was like, I get that. I get that. It's a fixed price building contract, and this is why the building industry is so tough because you can sign up on a cheap quote and you sign your building contract and everything goes, but.

Everything moves along and you've got your finance, which as soon as your formal finance comes through, that contract is illegally binding and you cannot get out of it. So, and then there is a clause in the contract that it's the 45 day working clause. It's a whole bunch, like a, a clause in the contract that by, um, 45 working days from when you sign your contract, and if you don't have your.

Building permit from memory building permit or siteworks, which, and in normal market it is close to near impossible to do building contracts, pre-start, final plans, prep, um, formal finance, settlement building permits, approvals, all those things within 45 working days. So that building contract heavily favors the builders in that regard.

Builders can use that clause to. Increase prices due to material and labor. So if a builder prices your job too cheap on the front end, and by the time it moves into pre-construction into construction and it's too cheap, they will increase your price and they can increase the price up until 5% of the contract price.

So at a contract price like that, I explained to her it was around, I don't know, that $15,000 mark, don't quote me on that. And I don't have my calculator in front of me to check. And she was like, but I just don't get it. And I said, like it. Is tough and it is so hard when someone's giving you a price that fits your budget, but it is too good to be true.

It is really hard to know what, what to do in that instance and like to understand it is a fixed price building contract, but they do have cause in there to, to protect themselves in those instance, and those clauses are in there for reasons so builders don't go under and you know, all those things.

That's important that if, if something has happened in the market or something changes and. Prices do go up or whatever that clause is there. So builders don't go under, but there's builders out there who can abuse those clauses. Now for a price and a cheap, that quote, it was not a number that I had seen in a very, very long time.

So. We went over all of that. She asked me questions about the podcast and things that she'd learn from previous episodes and in the end, at the end of the phone call, and it was a pretty tough phone call. 'cause I said to her like, I'm, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna be here to tell you what you want to hear, but I will tell you what you need to hear.

And this is my honest advice and opinion and you can take it or leave it and do what you were with that. But this is what I would tell. Any of my clients in this situation, and at the end of the phone call, she asked me if this was my mom or my sister, what would I do? And my answer to that was I would tell 'em to run.

The quote was way too good to be true. She didn't feel comfortable with the rep, he didn't answer her questions kind of made her feel a bit silly and stupid, all those things. And that's what sparked her to get a second opinion. Now, I told her I would touch base with her in the morning, obviously. It was a tough conversation because it wasn't what she wanted to hear.

So being told that something might not be possible or that it's a bit harder and all those things, the reality of all of that is very emotional and it is very tough. So I told her, don't make any decisions. Don't rush on it. She needed to pay a land contract. The rep wanted to sign her into the PPA, like all those things.

I told her not to rush. And that I would check in on her on the next day. I texted her the next morning just to say hey, and just to see how she was feeling and how she was going. Christine later called me that, um, couple hours after, and man, that was an emotional phone call. She called me to say thank you.

And honestly, I have never ever received a thank you. Like I've received a lot of thank yous and so many heartfelt. Thank yous from clients and people that I've helped, but the way Christine articulated and like spoke to me on the phone, she was holding me out the tears when I got off the phone. I was a hot mess and I was crying.

I was not holding me out the tears. Um, good tears and I. The way she just articulated on how and thanked me for the podcast and the information that I've put on there. And that's the tools and the education that she learned from to be able to know something wasn't right with this builder. And then when she got that feeling, she knew, okay, cool.

I need a second opinion. And had said like the information from the podcast and the phone, that one forty five minute phone call that she had with me was the most information she'd ever gotten from anyone. And. The way she just explained all of that, it really, really hit home and. To, I felt the weight of the mission of what we're trying to do.

In that moment, I felt all the dots connect. I was like, this is exactly why we are doing what we're doing. You know, the podcasts and the information and the, um, content on socials. And to be able to give people the tools and the resources to learn and understand and ask questions and have that information there to make an educated and informed decision on what's right for them.

And. To have those tools and those knowledge so. That was a super emotional phone call. I, I've actually got a little video on socials. I'll drop it in the show notes below so you can see if you wanna, if you wanna watch. I went for, I had to go for a little walk outta the office and I took a little video for myself to remember that one because it was a pretty special moment.

Getting such a thank you like that from someone was pretty, pretty incredible. And she also sent me a message that night. I'm gonna read out the message too. Hi, Jamie, reaching out to you to thank you again after the time spent and invaluable information I've learned from you over our two phone calls and your incredible podcasts.

You saved me from making one of the biggest, most expensive decisions of my life had I not listened to the podcast, knowing what flags to look for and what to expect, I'd hate to know what situation I would be in right now. As a single mom wanting to get into the property market, I'm so grateful for what you do and your bit to correct a tough industry.

As a first home buyer, you have no idea what impact you have had on me. Was hard to hold back the tears when I was chatting with you this morning. You should be very proud of your why and how much positively impact people far and wide. I will build with you one day soon and refer anyone I know who wants to build to reach out to you first.

You are a true gem. Now even just that message there, like our phone call and she really explained to me, you've helped me avoid a $600,000 mistake and knew what red flags to look for. And it was just really, really, so it really connected all the dots for me on why we do what we do and why boss exists and why I love what I do.

So I think, yeah, kind of gimme a little bit lost for words again. But I guess it's, and also thank you guys so much for listening to the podcast and tuning in and your feedback and everything that you learn from the podcast always helps us make it better and know what to talk about and to truly know that it is helping people out.

There is, um. Pretty special. 'cause sometimes talking into a microphone with no one around is a little bit weird. So it is really heartfelt and wholesome to know that the information out there is working and you guys are liking it. So that was my little story on Christine, which was super heartfelt. Um, and a super big milestone in my career was definitely one of the best phone calls I have.

Had of my career and one of my, one of the most special moments, and she's not even a client. So it just goes to show the impact we can truly have with the podcast and helping people and content and all of that. So, yeah. Thank you. That's, that's it for today's episode. I wanna talk about Christine and her beautiful story.

And we've got some exciting new episodes coming up over the next few weeks, chatting about our secret project, different client stories, gonna get Mim and Maddie on, um, and lots of different pieces. So thank you so much and I'll speak with you soon. 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 calm. 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.

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