Over the last couple of weeks, wwe have had a name change and would like to introduce Abacus Training.

The name change has occured due to a change in business direction.

The nationall recognised Queensland Owner Builder Course 39219QLD will remain and continue to be provided through our parent company Owner Building Solutions Australia Pty Ltd.

Abacus will provide the approved NSW Owner Builder Course and the ACT approved Owner Builder Course.

Abacus will now povide all non accredited courses and support for the remaining states and territories.

Over time, all courseware and delivery will be handled solely through Abacus Training.

There is no change to the management structure or the company in terms of commttment and quality of services provided to our owner builders, just a need for a change and a refocus on our most important clients.

The owner builders of Australia.

Stay tuned for more exciting roll outs and news over the comming weeks.

Best Regards and Happy Building

Rick

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There is not a simple answer and of course it depends on how disciplined, organised and prepared the owner builder is.

Just last week, I got a call from one of my students who is doing an owner builder project on the Gold Coast. The block is quite steep and there are substantial earthworks and concrete foundations required to accomodate the design.

She told me she had three quotes from concrete suppliers ranging from $260.00 per cubic meter (delivered) to $176.00 per cubic meter delivered. Thats an eighty four dollar difference, by simply making three phone calls.

Lets use these figures and consider an average home of standard design at around 280 square meters floor area including the garage. We could assume a minimum of 6 cubic meters required for the strip footings and 28 cubic meters for the slab.

A total of 34 cubic meters.

An owner builder saving $84.00 a cubic meter can potentially put $2856.00 in their pocket or borrow that much less.

Now I know, a well organised builder will probably pay the lower of the prices, but if his mark up to cover profit, overheads and administration is a modest 15% you will still effectively pay $202.00 a cubic meter.

At that figure the saving is $26.00 a cubic meter or $884.00.

Now this is only one item of the hundreds of opportunites that owner builders have to save money, and this is a commodity item where the prices between suppliers is reasonably constant.

The big money is saved on one off or designer type fittings and fitments that with a bit of shopping around can realise huge savings.

I recently purchased a front door on behalf of an owner builder client and foud prices ranging from $4200.00 to $1800.00 for the same quality and design. We ultimately purchased the door for $2720.00 from the supplier who originally quoted $4200.00, saving the owner builder $1480.00.

So yes, owner builders can and shohuld save money when building their own home.

Owner builders should save between 15% and 30% when building a custom home, however it is very difficult to compete with project builders who have their prices and margins trimmed to the bone.

A final note for anyine thinking of becoming an owner builder and building their own home;

On a standard home loan of $300,000 over 25 years at 7% interest, every dollar you save in the building of your own home will save you roughly the same amount in interest payments over the term of the loan, effectively doubling the savings.

Not bad hey?

Don’t forget to visit our website at www.ownerbuildercourses.com

Happy Building

Rick

Technorati Tags: being an owner builder, building your own home, courses in owner building, owner builder, owner builder courses, owner building

The first of these videos “What Will I Learn” takes an indepth look at the contents of our owner builder courses.

This owner builder video will outline the basic legal requirements that exist for each of the states and territories in Australia and discuss general responsibilites that an owner builder must assume when building or rennovating their own home.

In the second section of the video, we discuss each of the topics that the owner builder course covers and provides basic instructional information to help anyone thinking of becoming an owner builder to  better realise the importance of choosing the correct owner builder course.

Yes it is a promotional video and it will be available to anyone visiting our website, but it does provided vital information for anyone considering building a new home or rennovating an existing dwelling.

The next few videos we will release over the coming weeks will be more in depth and specific to each of the topics covered in our owner builder courses, including demonstrations on how to get the most from the free resources we offer each of our owner builder students.

These will of course be available to our owner builder students and client and controlled/accessed through a password protected page on our website.

Keep an eye out for them.

Oh and I forgot to mention, we are about to relaunch the student forum, sorry about the delay, but the forum hosts had a ferw server issues,we are hoping to get old posts and topics back up online but this may take a few weks.

Best Regards and Happy Owner Building

Rick Heaton

www.ownerbuildercourses.com

Technorati Tags: building your own home, owner builder, owner builder course, owner builder courses