Suzbits

Does anyone have a list of large national builders that they can suggest. We are looking at new build houses and wanted to have a look what is available in different areas, ready for when we come over to do our reccie.

In the UK we have the major builders such as Taylor Wimpey, Redrow Homes, Charles Church, etc who tend to build all over the UK. Is is the same in NZ or would we need to look for smaller builders in each area?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Kay

zoej

I have come across Golden homes (not the best!), Lockwood - very nice, Jennian homes, signature homes, landmarkhomes, dwhomes, A1 homes (kit-set), plus lots of local builders and kit set companies.

Some people also buy their plot and engage an architect to design a home or talk to builders and get an idea of house styles and sizes and work together to get correct plot.

Some development - AKA Riverstone terraces in Upper Hutt are owned by the the Golden homes guy so you can get plot and house packages if its to your taste.

for a taster see of ranges and award winning designs:
http://www.houseoftheyear.co.nz/

Suzbits

Thanks zoej, that was exactly what i was looking for. I came across signature homes whilst doing a google search and emailed them for info last week, but haven't heard anything yet.

TeamEmbo

My friend bought a 10 acre lifestyle block and had a Golden Homes house built. It is beautiful with lots of style details, a fabulous kitchen and very well built so having seen that I would definately recommend them.

Also Landmark Homes. Have heard good things about them to but never seen one of their builds to comment on personally.

malcoltom

If you dont mind me asking, what sort of price did your friends pay.

happynz

There are still some relatively good deals out where you live. I saw a listing for a 4HA (ten acres more or less) block in Ohoka for a bit less than NZ$190K.

Yotty

I saw a few 4 Hectares plots out by the tram road for more than that in 2004!

MandyB

Also stonewood homes, balmorral, horncastle homes, orange homes, today homes - it goes on and on - my husband builds for golden homes and they seem fine.

MandyB

sorry didn't mean to include Yotty's quote - i pressed the wrong reply button

krissie

we used G J Gardner and had no probs..

cally49

Hi there Platinum homes is another one
http://www.platinumhomesnz.co.nz/

When we built our new home a few yrs back now we got an architecht to draw up the plans and had our local builder in to build it.
We purchased all our own plumbing fittings and got the plumber to work on a set price which saved a heap of money that way but it was also a bit of a hassle as well.

My son does lots of floors for platinum homes in Hawkes Bay and was building them for a while after returning from the UK he then went into the business of concrete flooring they are very nice houses if you are partial to the brick/stone look. He reckoned they were great value too.
Have a nice evening
Cheers
Cally

TeamEmbo

I think at the time Golden Homes were charging $850 per metre sq.

The lifestyle blocks can vary in price considerably. Recently I've seen them advertised from anything from $125k - $190k. All have services to boundary.

And I saw a block advertised last week, 4ha 5 bed house (brick), 3 bay hay barn, land divided into 6 paddocks on for $449 incl GST. Out of my price range but still a bargain.

Nerine

Most of these companies are franchise operations, so each local division of a company is going to be different from the others.

Golden Homes, Platinum (the owner of which used to work for Golden Homes) etc. start with a basic set of plans which you tinker around with to get the layout you want. Their specs tend to be fairly basic - ranch sliders instead of bifolds, pretty standard kitchen appliances and bathroom ware, lined showers rather than tiled, formica benchtops as opposed to stone, a few square metres of plain tiles, very limited number of power outlets and light points. Which is fine when you're cutting costs at the outset but a big minus when it comes to getting a good return when it comes to selling the house.

The builders make big money money on all the extras they manage to sell to you at a premium and these can add quite a bit to the final price. For example labour for tiling can cost over $50 a square metre. Don't get suckered in by any of their showhomes as these are often finished to a higher spec than the standard list of inclusions. You usually pay a deposit and then staged payments during the build, if you're borrowing money the bank may also ask for valuations at various stages before releasing the money.

You may also need to allow extra for local government development levies on the North Shore, unforseen site costs, underslab drainage, longer runs for electricity, phone and water from the gate, extra fuel costs, rent and loan payments etc.

The price you pay for a house is never just the building costs plus the land. Very often it can be cheaper to buy something that's just been built and is being sold because the vendor has over stretched themselves. Many a bargain to be had that way.

Suzbits

Great advice everyone thanks, I now have even more surfing to do.

The reason we were looking at new build is we have not been able to find the sort of 'dream' house we were looking for in our budget for sale at the moment. We have 3 young children, so a garden is a must and a lot of the lovely houses don't have much garden or are built in the hill side so there would be no room for football etc! From the advice here and talking to a local builder we may be better off getting an architect to draw up the plans so it fits our lifetstyle exactly and then look for the land. I agree that if we start adding extras to the plan houses it will get far too expensive.


Kay

Nerine

That could be a more expensive way of doing it - unless you know an architect who will charge a reasonable rate. There was a discussion about this on the Oz forum recently - some builders have this mindset whereby architect design means more complicated and harder to acheive therefore their quotes will go up accordingly.

The basic plan option with established builder is ok, you still have the option of getting the 'extras' done by your own contractors.