5. Finding a contractor

This is the second most important part when building a house. We consulted a few colleagues on their experiences. Heard of a few bad ones. Most of the experiences are bad. Contractor running away in the midst of building a house. Poor quality materials used. Contractors not finishing the houses that they built are a major news in Malaysia. Since all the bungalows in my areas are self built, we talked to most of our neighbours. The most important criteria of a contractor is their track record. Try to talk to the owners of the houses that they have built before. Ask the contractor about their current projects. Go and see their work yourself. With my house plans, i managed to get five quotations ranging from RM500,000 to RM300,000. As usual, you tend to choose the contractor with the lowest tender quotation. A lot of things came out in my mind. What if he used low quality materials. I managed to talk to the owner of a house he recently built. We are now best friends. We got good feedback of the contractor from my friend. My architect had a long knew the father of the contractor and he highly recommended the contractor. I am quite lucky at that time. My contractor usually built housing projects with 50 to 100 houses. During that time, he doesn't have any projects. In the end, I choose him to build our house. It took one year in total (even though in the aggreement it should take 9 months only). My house is completed now. No regrets.

4. Planning stages

So in the end the time we took for the planning and discussion together with the approval of the local council took at least 6 months. The next step is looking for a contractor. If i can remember it was on October 2004.

3. Architect or Draughtsman

As a professional, you will definitely want to have an architect to design your house. But to save cost, some people will only use a draughtsman for the design and later on, the draughtsman will get an architect approval. It might be cheaper to engage a draughtsman. However it have its own pros and cons. A draughtsman will mainly rely on his or her experience. He doensn't have the knwoledge of an architect who will think in more comprehensive manner, correlating with the winds, direction of the sun and ventilation for your house. To engage an architect service, the typical charge is 10% of the total cost of the house. If your house cost RM300,000, the fees will be RM30,000. Very simple isn't it!!! This includes monitoring during the construction of the house. A draughtsman service may only cost you RM5000 to RM6000. As for me, I initially used a draughtsman. However after we discussed for a few weeks, he cannot give us any idea or input. All the input came from us. No suggestion or comments at all. We gave up finally and search for an architect. My architect is a very senior person with experience of more than 20 years experience in the field. The only problem with him is that he is a bit 'grandiose' in his plans. The initial plan of the house was about 5000 square feet in total. I gave him our budget of around RM250,000 maximum for the house. In the end, after 3 to 4 months of discussion, we mange to trim the size of the house to about 4500 square feet (including the porch which is bout 700 square feet). He charges me around RM10,000. We never regret paying him that amount. This is because we heard some bad experiences from some of our friends who used draughtsman services. One of my friend who used a draughtsman service had a major problem. The contractor had to make a major change in the house plan due to some major defects. When the house was being built, it was found out that there is no electrical or wiring planning in the package. When he asked for it from the draughtsman, he was asked to forked out another RM1500. In total he had to pay around RM6000 for the services. So, the moral of this story, use and architect service (a qualified one) for your house. This is the most important step before you even start to build a house.

2. Decision to build or buy a house.

I came to Kuantan in 2003 and we rented a house in Indera Mahkota. We are still not very sure whether to build or to buy a house at that time since we are planning to settle down in Kuantan. We rented a semi detached single storey house, since i don't like double storey houses. The owner of the house bought it for RM115,000 in 2002. It is a 3 and half room house about 1500 square feet. The master bedroom is about 12 x 12 square feet in size. Quite a small house. I did a survey of the new phases in that area. The current price is around RM160,000 to RM180,000 for a slightly bigger house. Wow!!!. In Astana Golf, the bungalows with a land around 7000 to 8000 square feet with a house of around 2000 square feet costs RM300,000. If you include the cost of renovation and upgrading, the total cost can reach at least RM400,000. This needs to be done since contractors will only use low quality accessories and items. The cost of houses in Kuantan are spiralling. At this point of time, we decided to build our house in the land that we bought even thought the cost might be higher. Even today, i never regret this decision, even though i have to travel 2o minutes to work.

1. Buying the land

It all started in 2001. We (me and my wife) decided to buy a land in Kuantan. We surveyed a few areas and asked some people around since we are not very familiar to Kuantan. I also made some search in the internet. I took a look in one of the elite area in Kuantan. The housing area is very near to most places. However the price of the land is way off my budget and it is a leasehold (that means that you only own the land for 99 years only). The price at that time is RM18 per square feet. So, a 10,000 square feet land will cost you RM180,000. If you plan to build a house which cost RM250,000, the whole cost of your house will be RM430,000. Since you must also plan for the accessories (grills, alarm, fences, lights, fans, aircons, kitchen cabinet, garden, etc), the total cost can reach RM550,000. This is way off my budget. I am not that rich, only a government servant. So my search continues. We found another area which is slightly further away about 2o minutes from Kuantan and it is a freehold. At that time, the land cost RM9.50 per square feet. The land is nearly ready about 60% during that time in 2000. I went to Kuantan and make a visit to the land and immediately paid the booking fees of RM1000. Since our land is in a corner with some crooked margins, we got a further discount to RM9 per square feet. In total the land cost us RM90,000. If you include the lawyer fees, I would say it cost me RM100,000. You can get a cheaper land which only cost RM5 per square feet. It is usually an agriculture land. You have to spend to build the road, sewerage and etc. For the RM9 per square feet that i paid, the roads, sewerage, electrical outlet, phone outlet and water supply are ready to be used. Today, my land will cost RM150,000 if i decided to sell it (a very good investment, a price increase of more than 50% within 5 years).

Building a House

I just moved to my new house since 4 months ago. The process of building a house from scratch took me about 2 years. However if you include the time from the day that we bought the land, it took us 5 years in total. I will write some of the process and the hardship during the whole process. It will be in few parts since it is a 5 year story.