How “the Cheaper, the BETTER” Can Lead to Bad Decisions in Property Purchasing

Some people let the maxim “the cheaper, the better” dictate almost all of their purchasing decisions in life but when it comes to real estate this can be a big mistake. Value for money is of course always important but if you try to economise too much when buying a new home, the money you save on the initial purchase price could pale into insignificance when compared to the money you spend on maintenance and repairs over the years.

Potential Issues with Cheap Properties

If you live in Western Australia, you can either hire a builder in Perth to construct your new home or make an offer for a house that has already been built. In either case, you need to be careful not to compromise on quality when shopping at the lower end of the property market. If you want to avoid encountering major problems, dealing with a reputable builder such as RedInk Homes is probably the easiest way to do so. If you go with a less well-known firm of builders or buy an existing property, look out for the issues listed below:

• Hidden Costs – The first thing to be aware of when buying cheap properties is that some of the less reputable construction firms are not always completely transparent when it comes to detailing all of the costs involved in building a new home. You could, for example, find yourself being charged hundreds of dollars for dirt removal when your new garden is being landscaped or asked to pay extortionate amounts for every small change you wish to make to the original plans.

• Poor Quality Materials – The cheapest homes on the market tend to be built to a price so that the construction firms behind them are still able to make a reasonable profit. This means you may end up with kitchen tiles that scratch easily, guttering that corrodes after just a few months, window and door frames that rot after one winter and many other problems that you will have to pay a local building repair firm to fix.

• Bad Workmanship – Cheap houses are often built in a hurry because even when low-quality materials are used, the profit margin is barely enough to keep the building company in business. Because of this, they tend to rush the work so that they can move on to a more profitable development as soon as possible. What this means for you as a house buyer is that your new home could have poorly hung doors, electrical sockets that are not parallel to the ceiling and floor, and drains that frequently need unblocking because the whole plumbing system was designed and installed in a mad rush.

As mentioned earlier, the simplest way to avoid these types of problems is to hire a reputable building company with an excellent track record. If you are looking at existing properties, make sure that you hire a professional surveyor to inspect each house on which you are thinking of making an offer