kips

Would like to hear from anyone who has had a house built by either Integrity New Homes or G J Gardner. We have bought a block of land near Coffs Harbour and want to build a house on it but having difficulty deciding who to trust as both keeping giving us crap and the price keeps spiralling.

Kips

Mandy&Cliff

Not much help but we are building a house with GJ gardner on the sunshine coast. Sorry can not comment on Integrity homes as I have not heard of them. Dont forget that most of these builders i.e. GJ gardner are a franchise so the people who have their input in our house wont have any dealings with yours, knowing our luck you will get the good ones and we will get the crap ones.

kips

Thanks for the advice. We have come to the same conclusion. However,we have found playing one builder off against another does reap some benefits. It's amazing how quickly they come back to you with a better quote. After spending a great deal time of talking to geotechnical engineers, site managers and a couple of experienced builders I now know what is good and bad about the construction of a property and an idea of costs. It's a real eye-opener and I can't believe how much bull****they come up with to convince you to part with your heard-earned cash. I would advise anyone to check site costs before they buy a block of land as the type of soil, level of the land, bushfire/flood issues and amount of fill on a block can have a huge impact on your budget.

Wol

It's VITAL to go and talk to several previous clients: ask them how much on top of the quote they had to pay, what wasn't included which one would naturally *assume* to be so*, how late was completion, standards etc etc.

*See Tiamatu's thread - she found out that skirtings weren't included!

Be very careful - the most important thing is to be sure about the builder. A lot will go wrong building ANY house but if the builder's trusted to put it right you will be happier in the end.