Well I am now coming to a point in my life where I want my own home with my own GARAGE, unfortunately I live in Australia where the average mortgage repayments are something like $400-$500 pw for a 300k-400k house. When the average wage is about $800pw it is very difficult to buy your first home.
None the less I have a bit of a plan to help pay my house off and make sure that I pay as little as possible. Firstly I am going to try my best to build an ECO home to save money in bills and take advantage of government rebaits. Secondly I am going to be an owner/builder to save money in the building process I am aiming to buy my land and build my house for 200K-250K. It is a monumental task and I am willing to take it on, there is still allot for me to learn but I will get there.
I have some help with my father being a very good handy man who built his house him self 25 years ago, my brother is a carpenter, and my brother in-law is currently doing his PHD in Property Finance/Business (something like that can't remember exactly) he has about 25 years experience as a property developer.
I my self am a Civil Designer so I use AutoCAD all day every day and am very familiar with its 2D/3D functions, although I am now wanting to move up in my career and am starting to work my way into Project Management.
So I believe I have good help and some reasonable knowledge in DIY home, it is still early days though and just looking at designs and what me and my partner want in a house. That is were my questions comes from, I am currently looking at house designs and am trying to lay out some different options for my partner to look at so we can decide on what we like and then very roughly estimate a cost. Problem being software like Google Sketch up, 3DS Max and AutoCAD can offer very nice looking images but are time consuming.
I know there is house design software and two particular ones are Home Design and Chief Architect that are highly recommended. I believe they are from the same company, though one being allot more expensive. I want to know what experience anyone here has had with this software or any other software out there, what are the pros and cons and did you actually build a house from it? Also do these product offer exports to AutoCAD that way I can give it to a licensed Architect for final design.
Thanks Guys
None the less I have a bit of a plan to help pay my house off and make sure that I pay as little as possible. Firstly I am going to try my best to build an ECO home to save money in bills and take advantage of government rebaits. Secondly I am going to be an owner/builder to save money in the building process I am aiming to buy my land and build my house for 200K-250K. It is a monumental task and I am willing to take it on, there is still allot for me to learn but I will get there.
I have some help with my father being a very good handy man who built his house him self 25 years ago, my brother is a carpenter, and my brother in-law is currently doing his PHD in Property Finance/Business (something like that can't remember exactly) he has about 25 years experience as a property developer.
I my self am a Civil Designer so I use AutoCAD all day every day and am very familiar with its 2D/3D functions, although I am now wanting to move up in my career and am starting to work my way into Project Management.
So I believe I have good help and some reasonable knowledge in DIY home, it is still early days though and just looking at designs and what me and my partner want in a house. That is were my questions comes from, I am currently looking at house designs and am trying to lay out some different options for my partner to look at so we can decide on what we like and then very roughly estimate a cost. Problem being software like Google Sketch up, 3DS Max and AutoCAD can offer very nice looking images but are time consuming.
I know there is house design software and two particular ones are Home Design and Chief Architect that are highly recommended. I believe they are from the same company, though one being allot more expensive. I want to know what experience anyone here has had with this software or any other software out there, what are the pros and cons and did you actually build a house from it? Also do these product offer exports to AutoCAD that way I can give it to a licensed Architect for final design.
Thanks Guys