There is one mistake we see more than any other, and it is not a building mistake. It happens months before anybody picks up a tool.
A homeowner engages an architect. The plans are beautiful. The development application goes in, the council takes its time, and eventually the approval arrives. Everyone is delighted. Then the plans go out to builders for pricing — and the number comes back forty per cent above what the owner had in mind.
Now the choice is a bad one either way. Build something you cannot comfortably afford, or go back and revise the plans. Revising is not free: architects usually charge for the extra work, even though it was their drawings that blew the budget. And the council process starts again.
Why it happens
Nobody in the chain is doing anything wrong. An architect designs to a brief. A council assesses what is put in front of it. Neither is quoting the job, and neither is obliged to tell you what the finishes you have chosen will cost to install on your particular block.
The gap is that a design and a price are produced by different people, at different times, and the approval sits in between them. It is the single most expensive gap in the process, and it is why we ask to be brought in before a DA is lodged.
What to do instead
Get a preliminary quote before you submit the application.
It does not need to be a full costing — that can wait until council has approved and the drawings are final. What it needs to do is tell you whether the design in front of you is in the same postcode as your budget, while changing it is still cheap.
A preliminary price will usually surface three things:
- Whether the overall scope is affordable at all
- Which specific choices are carrying disproportionate cost, so you can decide with your eyes open
- Whether anything in the design is going to be difficult or expensive to build on your site specifically — access, boundaries, levels, drainage
That last one is where a builder earns their place in the conversation early. Two identical designs on two neighbouring blocks can price very differently, and the reason is almost always something about the site rather than something on the page.
On a heritage-listed house or one inside a conservation area, add another layer again: what you are allowed to change is decided before the costing even starts.
The awkward conversation is cheaper now
Bringing a builder in before the DA occasionally means hearing something you did not want to hear about a design you have fallen in love with.
It is still the cheapest version of that conversation you will ever have. The same news after approval costs you revised drawings, a fresh council process and several months.
If you are somewhere in this process now — plans drawn, nothing lodged yet — that is the ideal moment to call. It takes twenty minutes and it is not a sales call.
If you are the architect rather than the owner, here is how we work with practices — starting with the promise that nothing gets substituted without your say-so.