Home Building Process

Building your own home is certainly a challenge, but the reward is the opportunity to create a home just the way you’ve always wanted. Each build is unique, and your local Latitude home builder will tailor the approach to your lifestyle, needs and budget. But there are some key steps that are common to every new home build.

Download Your Plan Guide

There aren’t many things in life more exciting than building your own home. To get you started, we have put together our plan guide, which covers our process, things you need to think about, and all our plans. Download it for free, then talk to your local Latitude Homes builder for more info.

Download

Guide to the Building Process

Step 1 - Initial conversation

Every relationship starts with a conversation, and there will be lots of them to ensure we get to know who you are and what your visions are for your new home.

Although you can find useful resources on our website, nothing will be as helpful as speaking with our New Home Consultants to discuss your needs and wants for yourself and your family.

The second step will be conducting a free on site visit with you. This is really important so we can assess the sun orientation, if your site is level or sloping and any other features that we can take advantage of to ensure you get the best plan design for your piece of paradise.

We can work with your plans or we have a large range of pre designed homes that can be customised to suit to your site.

To get things started we ask for an initial Plan Deposit starting from $5000 which includes a site plan, floor and elevations plan.

Soil tests, topographical surveys and engineering may be required which will incur further costs, (dependent on location). This will be explained to you and quoted upfront as required.

Step 2 - Budget

Financing your new home

As home builders, ‘What can you offer for $X?’ is probably the most common question we get from new customers.

Well, it depends! If you already have finance approved and you have a set budget, then we will have a number of homes to suit your price bracket. Costs can still vary depending on your site and materials you choose, but we can work through this together.

Remember to consider any earthworks and access to the building site that need to be developed, size of the house, number of bedrooms, bathrooms, and additional living spaces you require.

If you are yet to obtain finance for your build, we recommend contacting a local mortgage broker who specialises in obtaining construction loans for new home builds or have a chat with our New Home Consultants who can put you in touch with a great mortgage broker.

Step 3 - Choose Your Dream House Plan

Now with your site and finance sorted, you can begin to look into house designs. Latitude Homes have a large number of designs to choose from – giving you plenty of choice, regardless of whether you prefer a single or double storey home, whether you want all bedrooms located at the same end of the house, or if you want to include additional office space.

All our home designs are flexible and can be altered to suit your needs. You can flip our house plans to fit your section, add more living space areas, or add other personal preferences.

Click below to see our home plans.

See our inspirational plans

Step 4 - Concept and Design

Design meetings are held regularly to ensure we are all on the same page and you can see you new home starting to take shape on paper.

From these meetings your new home concept plans can be tweaked to get it just right.

This is an exciting time as you can now start to look at cladding designs, colour and finishing options.

An estimate will be prepared and presented to you so you know exactly where the costs are.

Step 5 - Working Drawings

Once final adjustments have been made and you are completely happy with the final plans, specifications and quote, we will ask for an Unconditional 10% deposit based on the contract value.

It's all coming together!

Your exterior and interior finishings and colours have been selected, and we now start preparing a full set of Working Drawings showing your future home sited on your land or section, all elevations, resource consents, engineering requirements and other legal documentations that are required for Council approval.

Step 6 - Plans approved, building starts!

Once your plans have been signed off and approved by the local territorial authority, we start the process of building your new home!

Your Master Build Contract becomes the central document of what is included in your home and how your new home will look.

All specifications such as cladding, roof type, window joinery, internal paint colours and plumbing and electrical fittings will be fitted as mentioned in the Build Contract.

The Master Build Contract also outlines when progress payments are required.

You will meet your Project Manager as he will ensure the construction of your new home goes according to plan. Communication is critical from all parties. The Project Manager will be your point of contact during the build process and will hold regular site meetings and keep you posted weekly with updates.

As your home nears completion, you will be invited by the Project Manger to quality check your new home, and then your home will be professionally cleaned prior to hand-over.

Step 7 - Move in!

On the big day, we’ll present you with the keys to your brand new home. As home builders, this is by far our favourite moment because we feel we are accomplishing our main goal: getting Kiwis like you into their new homes. Nothing compares to those happy faces!

Of course, the relationship doesn’t end there, we offer a 12 months’ maintenance period, a 10 year guarantee and of course we are here for you if you have any questions or support needed.

Download our build process here