Melbourne's West · Fixed price
Custom homes. Never a catalogue.
You own the land, or you are about to. We design a home around how your family actually lives, on the block you actually have.
Is it the right move
Three honest ways to know.
Custom is not automatically better than a builder's standard range. It is better when your block or your family asks for something a catalogue cannot give, and a builder who cannot tell you the difference is selling, not advising.
The block is unusual
A slope, a narrow frontage, an odd shape, or a view worth turning towards.
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Standard plans are drawn for standard blocks. The moment yours falls away at the back, faces the wrong way, or is narrower than the plan expects, a catalogue home either will not fit or fits badly. Designing from the block up costs less grief than forcing a plan onto it.
How you live is specific
Parents moving in, a real home office, a kitchen that runs the house.
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Most families have two or three things that genuinely shape their days, and a standard plan usually gets one of them right. Designing around those from the start is the difference between a home that works and a home you keep apologising for.
And when it is not the answerThe honest one
If a standard plan already suits you, custom is a slower road to the same place.
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If your block is regular and one of the plans you have seen genuinely fits how you live, take it. Custom design asks more of your time and more decisions from you. We would rather tell you that at the first meeting than take you down a longer road for the same result.
The full picture
What a custom build actually involves.
You will not find a dollar figure on this page. Every block and every brief is different, and a number that is true for one is false for the next.
What we can give you is the list. These are the parts of a custom build that shape the price and the timeline, including the ones that arrive later than people expect.
Naming all of it costs us nothing and saves you the worst kind of surprise. Putting honest numbers against it takes a look at your block, which is free.
Stage 06 · BuildingChecking the block
Soil test, survey, and what the land will actually allow.
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Before anything is drawn, the block gets tested and surveyed. Soil type, fall, easements and services all shape what can be built and what the foundations have to do. It is the cheapest stage to find a problem in.
Design and drawings
The concept, then the working drawings the build runs from.
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We start with how you live and what the block allows, and refine it with you rather than handing it over. The final set includes the engineering and energy work the permit needs.
Council approval
Permits for the new home, plus any rules specific to your block.
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Some blocks carry extra council rules covering trees, flooding, the character of the street, or the estate's own design guidelines. We check what applies before anything is signed.
Choosing your finishes
Every tile, tap, handle and colour, chosen on a schedule.
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This is the part people underestimate. It is a real stage with real deadlines, and it gets its own section further down this page.
Getting the ground ready
Levelling and whatever the soil report calls for before the slab.
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What the land needs before a slab can go down. On a sloping or reactive block this is a bigger line than most people expect, which is why the soil test happens first.
Building the home
Slab to handover, on a fixed price with every inclusion in writing.
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The biggest cost, and the one every builder is happy to talk about. It is the lines around it that get left out.
Driveway, fences and garden
Often quoted separately, so worth confirming what is in and what is out.
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Whether these sit inside the building contract varies between builders, and it is one of the most common reasons a price that looked lower turns out not to be. Ask us, and ask anyone you compare us to.
The 7 star energy rating
Required on every new Victorian home, and included rather than an upgrade.
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Victoria requires a 7 star energy rating on new homes. It shapes glazing, insulation, sealing and how the house sits on the block. [TK] How Zaman meets it in practice is being confirmed.
The process
Five stages, from blank page to keys.
The same five stages as every Zaman build. On a custom home the design stage carries more of the work, because the drawings start from your block and your brief rather than from a plan book.
Consult
We meet at your block, or bring the plans if you have them.
Design
Drawn from a blank page, refined with you until it is right.
Fixed price
Signed before we start. Every inclusion written down.
Build
Slab, frame, lock up, fit off, with one point of contact.
Handover
We walk every room together and hand over the warranty.
The part nobody warns you about
Custom means hundreds of decisions.
Everyone tells you custom means freedom. Nobody tells you that freedom arrives as a long list of choices with dates attached, from door handles to the fall of the shower floor.
It is not a reason to avoid a custom home. It is a reason to know it is coming, so it lands as an enjoyable stretch of the project rather than as pressure at the worst possible moment.
It happens on a schedule
Choices are grouped and dated so they arrive in a workable order.
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Structural decisions have to be made before the frame, and finishes before they are ordered. Grouping them means you are never asked for everything at once, and never asked for something too late to act on.
There is a point of no return
After a cut off, a change costs money and time. We tell you when it is.
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Every builder has these dates. Not every builder tells you where they are before you cross one. Knowing the date is what turns a variation into a decision you chose rather than a bill you did not expect.
You are not doing it alone
You deal with the builder, not a call centre, the whole way through.
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Bring photos, bring screenshots, bring the thing your sister did in her kitchen. Most families arrive worried they have no taste and leave having enjoyed this part more than any other.
Real projects
Homes we have built.
Real homes, real suburbs, real photographs, and the owner's permission on record. We do not publish anything else. Every home below has its own page, with the full set of photographs rather than the three that flatter it.
Fixed price, covered
The price we agree is the price you pay.
A custom home has more decisions in it than a standard plan, which makes the fixed price contract matter more here, not less. The full detail, including how to check us on the public register yourself, lives on one page.
A fixed price building contract, signed before we start
Every inclusion itemised in writing, not implied by a display home
First Resort Home Warranty cover, certificate in your hands before any deposit
A structural workmanship guarantee that outlasts handover
Custom home questions
Asked in every first meeting.
The questions we hear at nearly every kitchen table, answered the same way here as we answer them in person.
01Is a custom home more expensive than a standard plan?
Not automatically, and anyone who answers that with a number has not seen your block. A standard plan is cheaper to draw, but it can be more expensive to build on a block it was not designed for, once the site costs and the changes are counted. The honest answer is that they are different products and the comparison only means something once someone has looked at your land.
02We do not know exactly what we want yet. Is that a problem?
No. Almost nobody arrives with a finished picture. What helps is knowing how you actually live: who is home during the day, where everyone ends up in the evening, what you hated about the last place. We take it from there and put drawings in front of you to react to, which is far easier than describing a house from a blank page.
03Can we bring our own architect or plans?
Yes. If the drawings are already done we can take the project from there, and that is a slightly different service, so have a look at Project Management as well. If the plans are partly done we can work with your designer to finish them.
04How many changes can we make once it is drawn?
During design, as many as it takes to get it right. Once construction drawings are signed and the contract is fixed, changes start costing money and time, and structural ones cost the most. We tell you where those cut off points are before you reach them, which is the part that matters.
05Do you build on any block, or only in certain estates?
We build across Melbourne's west and the corridor around it. Estates often have their own design guidelines on top of council rules, and we check those for your block before anything is drawn. If we are not the right builder for your location we will say so rather than stretch.
06What is the 7 star energy rating and does it cost extra?
Victoria requires a 7 star energy rating on all new homes, so it is not an optional upgrade, it is the standard every new build has to meet. It affects glazing, insulation, sealing and how the home sits on the block. [TK] The specifics of how we meet it are being confirmed and will be listed here.
07How do we find out what our home would cost?
Not from a website, ours included. Any figure published before someone has stood on your block is a guess dressed up as an answer. The free consultation exists so the first number you hear means something. It costs nothing and commits you to nothing.
Still have one?
Ask it at the free consultation.
We come to you, we look at the house, and you get straight answers about your block. It costs nothing and commits you to nothing.
Or call +61 468 043 685Start your custom home
Every home starts with a conversation.
Five quick questions, then a free consult with the builder.
- Free and no obligation
- Honest numbers, no surprises
- You deal with the builder, not a salesperson
Free, no obligation. You deal with the builder directly.
What are you planning?
Takes about 45 seconds.