About Us
Vision to Reality, Without the Complexity
Experience the joy of seeing your vision come to life, without the usual building and renovation problems.
We guide clients to design and build great homes, whilst avoiding 99% of the problems you hear everyone else experiencing.
How do we do this?
We work independent of builders giving our clients the information that is in their best interest (not necessarily the builders) to make sure they have all the answers up front with little to no surprises.
We guide our clients in finding the right builder whilst avoiding delays, hidden costs, design mistakes, budget blowouts and more. Our advice is tailored to the individual needs of each client. We understand what makes a design great, what things cost, builder lingo, the councils, the system, the processes and most importantly how to make it all work for you.
We put all the pieces of the puzzle together to make it all work harmoniously.
Best of all it costs no more to build through us than it does directly through a builder.
We project manage all the necessary experts to ensure your building or renovating experience is a smooth one.
common mistakes people make, and to avoid them.
Clients go directly to the builder.
- The sales person is not trained in design and building but on how to sell the client on building with them.
- The sales person cuts corners or lies.
- The sales person over promises, telling half truths on timeframes, costs, quality etc.
- The sales person is only looking at the builder they work for. There maybe be better options but they are not going to tell you.
- The sales person is not trained in design and building but how to sell the client on building with them.
Clients engage an Architect/designer and then try and find a builder.
- The Architect/Designer often do not know what things really cost. When they design to a “budget” they may often over design the home.
- Clients often fall in love with a design they can’t afford and when they have to pull things out it diminished the love for the home.
- The Archtiects designs are not set up properly for the builders to read and often add extra complication.
- A lot of builders will not touch the design or will charge extra as they are predicting design complication from the architect.
Clients listen to friends and family for advice, when in reality these mentors have limited experience themselves.
- Friend and family may have built before but they winged it or got lucky in their process and it may not be the same next time.
- The advice is often an option rather than fact, resulting in bad decisions that complicate the process.
- They recommend the wrong builders or people to talk to as they got luck or built a long time ago in different times.
Their expectations on budget, timeframes and quality is inaccurate for the builder they have chosen.
- As above the sales person has flat out lied and told the client what they want to hear.
- The price keeps increasing as what they were told at the start is not correct.
- The builder over charges as they are used to more complicated construction.
- The builder is not used to building the complexity of the design and the quality drops as they fumble their way through it.
Our Purpose
If you look online it won’t be too hard to find places like “Shonky Builders” with endless horror stories about people’s experience building. Although many of these stories are true and disappointing to hear, 95% of these problems could have been avoided if they had a building expert by their side guiding and advising them on home design, inclusions, pricing, choosing the right land and the right builder..
…and so in June 2020 Independent Building Advice was born!!
Founder and Director
The Founder and Director of Independent Building Advice (IBA) is Behan Flaherty, pronounced Bay-an.
Behan has been in the building industry for over 20 years working with some of Australia’s biggest home builders. His roles consisted of Senior Executive Management, Group Sales Management (second biggest project builder) and Design and Home Consulting.
Behan has directly helped more than a 1000 families to design, build and renovate their homes, and over 10,000 families indirectly.
With his invaluable inside knowledge of how builders think and operate, the IBA team can help improve the journey and outcome of anyone looking to build or renovate.
Independent Building Advice is an unbiased resource to aid homebuyers in creating a great home whilst loving the journey. We are in the buyers corner all the way.
Testimonials
These are the comments from some of our clients. If you would like to speak to any of our clients we are happy to arrange it for you.
When we got the kitchen plans back, the builder had changed it and we hated it. They tried to push us to just accept it.
We were not sure what to do. Our friends suggested one thing but we were not sure. We reached out to Behan and the IBA crew. They redesigned the kitchen to work better within the builder’s requirements and then told us what to do and say.
Today we’re living in a kitchen we love thanks to IBA.
Let's Build Your Dream
Expert home design
We use a panel of architects and designers to create your dream home space. They have decades of experience of mixing style and practicality for great results.
Select the best builders for your project.
We shortlist Perth best builders for your home and get 2-3 quotes. All of our builders must meet ALL 7 criteria to be recommended by IBA. Solid financial position, well priced, fixed prices, consistent communication, decent build times, quality workmanship and most important good people.
Unbiased independent advice all the way
We work for you not the builder and stay with you right through from start to finish making sure everything is as it should be.