That's right, you can buy plans for ready to build houses! All you do is pay, in this case, $290 and give the plans to the builder and BOOM, you have a house! Before I started this course, I would of thought it was possible, but after actually learning a thing or two, this is a big waste of money!!
If any of my loyal viewers out there are thinking of buying plans of ebay, DON'T!!!
Let me outline a couple reasons on why it is silly to do so.
1/ This is the biggest reason, the house has to be designed for the site! Each block of land is different, from the slope, from the orientation to the soil, to landmarks such as trees or rocks. If you have a sloping site, littered with trees, you can not simply buy a plan of ebay and stick it on your block! You need engineers and designers to design the slab and the cut-and-fill.
2/ Council may not approve it. Varying councils have different regulations of new houses being built, and if it is in a new estate, the developers may be particular on how the house should look. You might buy a block of land in an area which is rich in heritage. But you don't hire a designer or even speak to council, spend $300 on a crappy plan, go to council and they will reject you because it doesn't enhance the streetscape.
3/ The plan mentioned above offers a bracing plan. Now, how they do this is beyond me! I might even have a talk to one of the teachers and see how he reacts to the idea. You can not do a bracing plan for a house when you do not know where it is being built. A house in a N1 area will need less bracing than in a N3, but how do you know the area? How do these ebay designers know your area? They don't!
4/ Different climates need different designs. If someone in Darwin bought the plan, may god help him! Or if someone Alice Springs, or even Gold Coast, Sydney, Melbourne. All of these areas are in different climate zones which require different designs.
5/ Back onto council regulations, in Victoria there is a little thing called the ResCode. This dictates how your design is, and your design can be greatly affected if your neighbouring blocks already have dwellings on it. For example, the above plan may have windows in the wrong place, which may allow you to look into neighbours window, so you have the move the window. This changes a lot of your design, and once again, your ebay designer did not know this.
I think this doesn't just go for eBay, but also companies like GJ Gardiner and Simmonds. They have these nice display homes, and these nice plans and everything, and you buy a block and buy the plans, and it gets built there. However, they face the same problem above, with different sites, regulations and the like.
One of my teachers told me a little tale where a man saw this beautiful display home, it was everything he wanted in a house. He bought his block of land and told the company that he wants this exact house on his block....
The house was built, and he moved in, however he faced a little problem. The display home was on a corner block where vehicle access was obtain from the south side of the street (house was on a south and east corner). Now since he asked for the exact same house, he got the exact same house, he did not however have the exact same block. His block was not a corner block, and could not get direct vehicle access via the south because well, he had his neighbour's house, and did not have enough space for a turning circle.
This is a real example, I did not make this up. So you can see the troubles of getting pre-made plans, which may cost only $1000, but in the long run, can cost you 10x more. So it doesn't hurt to lash out and spend a little bit more on a designer or architect, where you will not only get a house that works perfectly with your site, but it won't be a run-of-the-mill copy which hundreds of other people might have.
From The One They Call Anthony, This Is The Life And Times
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