paulhill

Hi

We are looking at building a house however we have heard some horror stories eg. house price going up $25k during build. Does anyone have a good or bad story about any builders.

We have looked at Plantation Homes, Adenbrooke, Coral, Indigo Homes and Metricon. All have some great homes and offer different things.

Any help would be gratefully appreciated.

Cheers

Sue

mand8002

We have just built with Ausbuild and we are very happy with everything. The process was pretty simple and we found the quality of finish really good. I would certainly recommend them.

Amanda

sassie

Hi. We built with Richards Homes on the Gold Coast and found them to be excellent. No major problems whatsoever, only a couple of hiccups along the way, but everything was sorted out pronto. I've never heard of prices going up during the build. Once you sign the contract, that should be the final price, unless of course you've asked for additional items to be added after signing, then they just invoice you accordingly.

cinderella

We have just looked at the Adenbrooke and Plantation show homes on the Coomera Springs subdivision. They were beuatiful. The reason we looked at them was because we were advised that both companies have a excellent reputation.

paulhill

Hi, some companies do a fixed price (turn key) projects however others dont and someone was telling me that there friends were building with Clarendon has been told that it has gone up by $25k, so yes sometimes it does happen.

paulhill

Hi, yes we loved the Plantation ones too however the build time is 14 months! Which is a long time to wait if you are renting.

walaj

we are also looking to build. To get an idea of costs we have got several builders to quote to build on a certain piece of land (site costs, changes required to meet local council and various other costs to build the basic house).

We have also asked of houses they have built in our area and viewed them from the road side (good to get an idea of different facades etc) and have asked one owner so far of their experience of the builder - the owner was v friendly, showed me around the house and invited us back if we wanted to ask more Qs.

On the tender we have received (only 1 so far) there are various fixed costs but provisional amounts put in - most quotes will be based on a site being classified M and no rock. One person found at late stage $4k had not been included for enclosed guttering required by local council (fire risk area). I am in the process of questioning various costs, why some are need or why, in some cases, so high.

The more you look into it, the more you realises how many costs there are.

Antney

We built with Ownit Homes and they were excellent. Actually came in $15,000 under budget!!

karmagirls

We bought from a company named ABI builders here on the Gold Coast. They were brilliant from start to finish. They used a company called Visual Diversity who are located in Ormeau. They were also brilliant. We bought our house from the UK and it was finished to a high standard in 9 weeks. Yes. Nine weeks build time. We're in it now and it's amazing. The people were great and we can't speak highly enough of them.
If you want to look for their site it's here http://www.assetbuilding.com.au/

Hope that helps. We're not far from Coomera Springs at Hawthorne Woods in Pimpama.
Tracy

lesleys

We used Indigo and they were excellent.

flower33

Hi we are in the process of having our house built by coral homes. I would say that they good on price and the process was fairly straight forward. The only thing i would say is to make sure that you ask alot of questions and get who ever you build with to explain the site plans in full.

I didnt realise that i would need 2 retaining walls, that have come in at an extra $7k , the coral sales guy said " you can do it your self only a few sleepers and a couple of days work!

So i would advise anyone building to have a slush fund, just in case.
Coral homes i would rate at the moment at 7/10, how i will feel when its finished may change, upwards i hope!

naifyboy

we are moving to melbourne (berwick) at hte end of may - last week we went over for a pre-transfer visit sponsered by my company to get an idea where we want to live.

we are looking at av jennings, metricon or porter davis and are looking at getting it built on the bellbird estate, berwick.

i am really surprised by the small blocks of land you get!

once the house has been built there's hardly any room for a back garden at all!

so getting a good block (facing the right way for the sun) will be our biggest hurdle.

metricon seem to be the only ones that offer a decent warantee of 25 years, all others seem to be around 6 years.

we are leaning towards metricon although our dream house is a porter davis design.

fraser

We built with Porter Davis and we got messed about from start to finish. They also rendered the front for nothing as the brickwork was in such a bad state.

Also not heard great things about Metricon

Billabong

We built with Clarendon and they were fantastic. They also offer a 25 year structural warranty instead of the normal 6 years. I know a number of Real Estate agents and they tell me that they have huge problems selling Plantation homes as they are pretty bad in general. I know 5 people that have built with Plantation and everyone has been a shocker. If the build goes over budget then your planning was inadequate. It is a time consuming process and you have to tick the boxes many, many times to ensure you get no surprises. Be careful of any Provisional Cost items on your agreement as these can bite you in the arse sometimes. Addenbrook who are part of the same group who own Clarendon once Housebuilder of the Year recently I think. Metricon are pretty good from what I hear.

Clarendon offer generous allowances when picking accessories, tiles etc etc so you don't need to spend a fortune on upgrading. However, I would always factor a fudge fund into your build as you will ultimately need it for something you hadn't thought about!!

fraser

I haven't heard anything bad about Clarendon, I have about most.

They must be doing something right.