Knockdown rebuild Melbourne: a custom home, or a builder’s package?

If you have started looking into a knockdown rebuild Melbourne wide, you will have noticed that almost every result describes the same thing. A builder demolishes the existing house, builds a home selected from its range, and prices the two together as a package. It is a well-served product, and for many families it is the right one.

What the category rarely mentions is that there is a second kind of rebuild, and it is not a variation of the first. Doug MacLeod, Founder, Director of Latitude 37, has been designing and building custom homes since 2006, and the pattern he sees is families comparing a package quote with a custom proposal as if they were the same purchase. They are not. This article names the difference so you can work out which one you are actually shopping for. How Latitude 37 approaches a rebuild is set out on our custom knockdown rebuild page. This piece is about the choice that comes before that.

Why do people rebuild instead of moving?

Many people thinking about a rebuild, whether in Sandhurst, Sandringham or Camberwell, aren’t looking to leave. They like the street, the school run, the neighbours and the block. What no longer works is the house on it.

Rebuilding lets a family keep the location and replace the building. For an owner who already holds the land, that removes the largest uncertainty a new home usually carries. There is no site to find and no auction to lose. The decision has narrowed to what should stand on the ground you already own.

Whether to rebuild at all is its own decision, and we have written separately about how to tell whether you are ready to rebuild. This article assumes the rebuild is decided and asks the question that follows it.

What is a knockdown rebuild package?

A package rebuild works like this. The builder has a range of designs, each already engineered, documented and costed. You choose one, select from a menu of facades and inclusions, and the builder adds demolition and site preparation to arrive at a package price. The design existed before you did, and the process is organised around fitting it to your block with as few changes as possible.

That is the source of its two advantages. The price is known early, because most of it was known before you walked in. And the decisions are few, because the range has already made them.

It is also the source of its limits. A design from a range was drawn for a typical block, and it meets your block as an adaptation. A slope, an odd orientation, a mature tree or an overlay each has to be absorbed by a plan that wasn’t drawn with them in mind. For a flat, regular block and a household whose needs the range anticipates, that is no limit at all. For other sites, it is the whole story.

How is a custom knockdown rebuild different?

In a custom knockdown rebuild there is no range. The new home is designed from the site you hold and the way your household lives, and it is priced from that design rather than from a catalogue.

The land is the same in both kinds. The process is not. A custom rebuild begins with the site rather than the plan, so the first thing you see is a concept drawn from your block’s orientation, slope, overlays and neighbours, and from your brief. At Latitude 37 that is the same Custom Design-and-Build process we use for every custom home, applied to a block that already has a house on it. Latitude 37 designs and builds your new home, and a custom knockdown rebuild follows our design-and-build process rather than sitting beside it.

Latitude 37 specialises in custom design-and-build rather than volume or project-home construction, and does not offer a rebuild package. That isn’t a judgement on packages. It is a statement about what our process is built for, so you can tell quickly whether we are the right kind of firm for the rebuild you have in mind.

What changes when the design starts from your site?

Starting from the site changes what the site is allowed to do to the house.

Take a sloping block in Sandringham, as an example. A plan from a range has to be cut into the fall or lifted above it. A design that starts from the slope can step with it, placing the living areas where the view and the northern light actually are. On a deep block in Camberwell with a protected tree, a range plan works around the tree. A custom design can be organised by it. On a Sandhurst block where the neighbours’ upper floors overlook the rear garden, the difference between a plan that was adapted and a plan drawn for that condition is the difference between a garden you use and one you look at through a blind.

None of this is visible from a facade, and it is the reason two rebuilds of similar size and finish can feel so different to live in. The finished homes may photograph alike. What separates them is what the design started from, and that is settled before a single selection is made.

What does each kind of rebuild ask of you?

The honest difference between the two kinds of rebuild is how much they ask of you.

A package has already answered hundreds of questions. Where the kitchen goes, how the roof drains, which window is where. Your decisions are the ones the menu leaves open, and the timeline is shorter because most of the work was done before you arrived.

A custom rebuild asks you to resolve those questions with a design team, and it asks for your time to do it. At Latitude 37 we start by agreeing your budget and brief, then design your home in Concept Design to suit your brief, your site and that budget. Once you’re happy with the design, a Custom Home Proposal prices it before you commit to documentation. It is a detailed, scope-based estimate of the proposed inclusions, key allowances and assumptions. As the documentation develops, allowances are replaced with firm pricing, and the Fixed Price Building Contract that follows sets out the agreed scope, price and exclusions. It takes longer than choosing from a range because it is doing more. Typically, a custom home takes two to three years in total, with construction itself usually taking ten to eighteen months.

Demolition is its own piece of work in either kind of rebuild. It has its own permits, its own service disconnections and its own conditions on asbestos, trees and neighbours, so ask any firm, package or custom, how it is arranged and what its figure includes. At Latitude 37, many clients choose to coordinate the demolition themselves, in parallel with us working on their documentation, approvals and contract. Others prefer us to handle it. We offer either option, and we can obtain quotes from trusted demolition contractors and guide the timing. We have also written about what actually drives the cost of a custom home, and the site conditions that article describes apply to a rebuild block exactly as they do to a vacant one.

A rebuild also affects family life, not just the block. Talk to us before you commit to a demolition date or make accommodation plans. The timing depends on approvals, how demolition is arranged and the construction program, and we’ll work through it with you early.

How do you work out which kind you are shopping for?

Three questions settle it faster than any comparison of quotes.

• Does your block ask anything unusual of a house? Slope, orientation, an overlay, a tree, an overlooking neighbour. If it does, a design that starts from those conditions will serve you better than one that adapts to them.
• Does your household need anything a range doesn’t anticipate? Multigenerational living, a home office that is properly separate, a garden that the living areas actually open onto. A package will get close. Close may or may not be enough.
• How much of your time and attention can this project have? A custom rebuild is a partnership over years, and it asks for both. A package is designed to ask for less, and that is a legitimate reason to choose it.

If this is your first time building, that doesn’t count against the custom kind. Many of our clients are building for the first time, which is often why they want one design-and-build team from design to aftercare.

If your answers point to the custom kind, compare custom firms with custom firms. Latitude 37 designs and builds custom homes across Melbourne’s eastern suburbs, Bayside, the South East and the Mornington Peninsula, and holds Builder’s Registration CDB-U 48977 with the Building and Plumbing Commission (formerly the Victorian Building Authority). Whichever kind you choose, choose it knowingly. The quote you cannot compare is the one that describes a different product.

If you own the block and are weighing which kind of rebuild suits it, the most useful next step is an unhurried conversation about the site, your brief and your budget. There is no obligation, and we will tell you honestly whether the custom kind is right for you.

Start a conversation with Latitude 37