Looking at building new home, which builder?

[GT 160]

Looking at building a new home and just after peoples opinions/experiences etc
with the myriad of spec home builders these days like Procorp, Mcdonald Jones, Eden Brae etc

[nuthin' fancy]

Don't be in a hurry to choose. Plenty of rubbish, you basically get what you pay for (the builder doesn't care, you are the one who has to live in it).

[deesun]

The one you feel most comfortable with.
The one you don't think is BSing you.
The one who is giving great value not just good value.
The one you will be able to contact later.

Make sure
If they promise something it is in writing. In fact everything needs to be in writing.
Good luck exciting times for you.

[Charliewool]

Having just been through this headspinning experience, a few tips....
Know EXACTLY what you want design wise, and EXACTLY what you want included in the builders price.
Make a list of your desired inclusions.. Right down to little things often overlooked Ie: letter box, clothes line, how many shelves in cupboards, and especially electrical (where powerpoints and lights might be needed in the future) also audio/visual/network wiring (before plaster) etc etc..
"Variations" made after the contract is signed will cost BIG TIME!
There is a forum that has an excellent check list for stuff like this: http://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=5823

As far as builders... Use this http://www.productreview.com.au/p/simonds.html

This ones for Simonds, but type in any of the main builders.
BTW.. Read some of the Simonds stuff! (It'd turn you off them for life)
Another really great way of "canvassing" builders is by going for walks around new estates (preferably near where you intend building), picking out a home that catches your eye and trying to catch the owners out the front.
You'd be surprised how willing new owners are to share, not just their build experience, but the "goss" on many of the new homes and their respective builders near them.
Also, once building commences, visit the site OFTEN.. Towards the later stages of mine, I visited every morning and evening. I also found a carton of beer goes a long way with subbies.. as well as a friendly chat.
I remember my brickies (when I turned up with a box of crownies) saying that it was the 1st time that an owner had shown appreciation!
After each stage, you'll need to make a progressive payment... Ensure you (or get an expert) to thoroughly inspect that particular stage of progress before you pay! AND be "picky"!!
Finally, as mentioned above... Make sure EVERYTHING is in writing.. EVERYTHING!!
Even if it's a simple change of tile or paint colour.. Email it, and ensure you get a reply (Print and save ALL the emails in order of stage progress).. Don't just phone and presume it'll be changed! Your word against his won't cut it down the track!

Good Luck..

[Riksta]

Go with Bob the Builder. That way if anything goes wrong, he can fix it. Yes he can.

[G6E Turbo 2]

Montgomery Homes, good stuff mate

[Miss_XR6]

Eden Brae
My friend just built one out in Oran Park they added extras which of course up the cost but they were flexible with adding more things like power points ect
He however did his own lights
And things like gardens/letter box ect he did himself to much cheaper

He also turned up on a regular basis and the guys on site were nice to chat to him and tell them what there doing where they up to ect

[Professor Farnsworth]

Henley have some awesome looking places at the moment, good incentives too

[Miss_XR6]

Henley have some nice houses but dont have any displays in sydney let alone NSW

[WASP]

What type of home are you looking to build? Modern, classic,heritage, traditional etc. I'm in the process of finishing off a custom build recreation of a largish two storey Classic Queenslander and it has certainly been a challenging,yet rewarding experience.

Charleywood’s advice is very good. Pretty much echo's my own sentiments. Very much like the aftermarket automoive industry its really buyer beware. There are some gold operators out there but they seem too few and far between where I come from. Even when you do find a good ones they are often let down by their contractors and what seems like a lack of project and quality management systems.

[SB076]

I would avoid Metricon, great displays, great designs, but poor quality (I built with them) But Charliewools advice is good, interestingly enough you cant (or couldnt a awhile ago) type in Metricon into the forum listed above for legal reasons. To get around it people wrote M3tricon and stuff like that.

[bob^]

Have you thought about owner builder mate? It is hard work but so much more rewarding in the end. The only downfall is if you move into it before it isn't quite finished - I can bet that is exactly how it will stay!
I started building my house in July 2010, had it signed off by the inspector in May 2011. So it took a little longer than the houses the volume builders slap together in 3 months, but the level of finish is at a much higher standard for a similar amount of money.

[mr smith]

Build a smaller house with a quality small builder. He will know his tradies and get a price similar to owner build. You will get more money on resale as well. If I was looking for a pre existing home a high volume or owner built (unless it was built by the owner of a quality building company) house would be be off the table.

[bob^]

Originally Posted by mr smith

Build a smaller house with a quality small builder. He will know his tradies and get a price similar to owner build. You will get more money on resale as well. If I was looking for a pre existing home a high volume or owner built (unless it was built by the owner of a quality building company) house would be be off the table.

If you know what you are looking for, it won't take you long to see if you have a genuine quality house, or a house built by a hack.
To say just because a house is owner built that it won't be worth as much is a load of crap.

[Legit290]

we did a knock-down rebuild with Mirvac

I don't recommend them

[Miss_XR6]

Originally Posted by clarkey117

we did a knock-down rebuild with Mirvac

I don't recommend them

How come????

[Legit290]

Originally Posted by Miss_XR6

How come????

The guy who brought us the keys and a bottle of champagne at the end was in such a hurry to handover that when i handed him a list of things we weren't happy with he was taken aback calling me a picky customer.

I told him it was 110,000 bucks, not a pair of shoes we were paying for here. It is a brick house, the one Mirvac call a Kenmore. The woodwork and eaves had been given one coat of paint and looked patchy so we had them do it again. The door into the garage was supposed to have a tiled threshold and a deadlock, the joins in some of the gyprock were poor and needed to be redone and painted and another dozen smaller things.

After a year or so many of the cornices were beginning to crack. The woodwork in the upstairs windows is pretty shonky as well. The facade has some cracks in it too and this is on a house sitting on a m class slab.
When it rains the concrete in the garage floods from the backyard, not the rolladoors at the front. Shonky ealing in the upstairs bathroom had water pouring out of the downstairs loungeroom light fittings. We built it as we didn't want to spend money renovating the old house and we have had to throw money on plumbers and electricians. It is due for painiting upstairs now so we are going to attend to the cracked cornices at the same time. I have already painted and rectified the downstairs cornicing myself

I can't recommend another builder but would lean towards a smaller mob as alluded to in earlier threads. My sister has a Beechwood house and she and her husband have had trouble with their house as well with cracking cornices and uneven/cracking ceilings. It's not a pair of shoes - it is one of the largest purchases of your life

[Miss_XR6]

Originally Posted by clarkey117

The guy who brought us the keys and a bottle of champagne at the end was in such a hurry to handover that when i handed him a list of things we weren't happy with he was taken aback calling me a picky customer.

I told him it was 110,000 bucks, not a pair of shoes we were paying for here. It is a brick house, the one Mirvac call a Kenmore. The woodwork and eaves had been given one coat of paint and looked patchy so we had them do it again. The door into the garage was supposed to have a tiled threshold and a deadlock, the joins in some of the gyprock were poor and needed to be redone and painted and another dozen smaller things.

After a year or so many of the cornices were beginning to crack. The woodwork in the upstairs windows is pretty shonky as well. The facade has some cracks in it too and this is on a house sitting on a m class slab.
When it rains the concrete in the garage floods from the backyard, not the rolladoors at the front. Shonky ealing in the upstairs bathroom had water pouring out of the downstairs loungeroom light fittings. We built it as we didn't want to spend money renovating the old house and we have had to throw money on plumbers and electricians. It is due for painiting upstairs now so we are going to attend to the cracked cornices at the same time. I have already painted and rectified the downstairs cornicing myself

I can't recommend another builder but would lean towards a smaller mob as alluded to in earlier threads. My sister has a Beechwood house and she and her husband have had trouble with their house as well with cracking cornices and uneven/cracking ceilings. It's not a pair of shoes - it is one of the largest purchases of your life

I thought Mirvac would of been a good company especially the shops and hotels they build too.

Beechwood I would never recommened been in many of these homes poor layout and see massive holes between bricks ect

[FPV8U]

Did a Prepurchase inspection on a House built by a volume builder this morning, it reminded me as to why i had previously sworn to myself never to buy such a home, quality was rubbish for the money.

Im sure they have many happy customers that spend the extra $$$ and "Upspec" their home but if your going to spend extra why not go a private smaller builder that you can have much more input with.

[WASP]

Originally Posted by FPV8U

Did a Prepurchase inspection on a House built by a volume builder this morning, it reminded me as to why i had previously sworn to myself never to buy such a home, quality was rubbish for the money.

Im sure they have many happy customers that spend the extra $$$ and "Upspec" their home but if your going to spend extra why not go a private smaller builder that you can have much more input with.

We chose to work with a boutique builder. It was quite a large custom project for them, but as such they provided us with the ability to be heavily involved. In our case this was an absolute requirement. They were creating our vision and the only way it would be possible to achieve would be with significant amounts of input from us at every stage and on every detail.

This is not to say that working with a small builder is for everyone. The process certainly had it challenges as there were plenty of them. In fact, it was/is like having a part time job with the amount of time, effort, thinking and coordinating required and you really needed to keep yourself on the ball and clear with your intensions.

Boutique builders often work much slower and quality issues have a habit of creeping in when their small business process systems are lacking and when so many sub-contractors are involved. However at all times I felt we were able to negotiate and work through the issues as they appeared. The builder remained open-minded, flexible and mostly accommodating to our requirements. They had pride in their work and took ownership of the tasks at hand. This was something I sensed was lacked with some of the larger builders.

In summary, it was an expensive, time consuming and overall challenging experience not for the faint hearted. The end result however is beautiful building and something that we as a family can look upon proudly and look forward to living in.

If you just want to pick from a range and have them call you when it’s ready then a larger volume builder is still the most likely the way to go.

[xr8lover]

We used Dennis Family Homes, not one problem, definetly use them again if I had to.

[Work Horse]

I've done Landscaping for Dennis Family Homes. They demand quality and will pay for it within reason. It seems a well run business.

[GT 160]

Ahh forgot about this thread. Thanks for the info guys, every bit helps as its doing my head in atm.

[castellan]

If it's built to a price you get what you payed for as the subby's get payed rubbish and not even true tradesmen.
It's only going to get worse with all the Asians Africans and people from ex communist countries poring into the industry.

Most of the so called building companies are only run by people who have never been a tradesman let alone held a hammer and are just con artist low life creeps and filthy dogs.

I had this African in the trade, come in and say how good the quality was to me where i was working and i am thinking this is a joke as i would like to punch the living daylights out of some of the fools for their workman ship. as i would expect a better quality from a primary school boy.
And the supervisors are just moronic low life fools.

And the BSA is just a joke.

[xr6t_ute]

Your house quality depends on what tradespeople attend to your newly built home...theres good tradies and bad tradies... its a roll of the dice who you get.

[WASP]

True, but like any businesses that employ's skilled labour the company needs to have the right systems, standards, procedures and quality assurance measures in place to ensure a consistent quality result is achived. Many builders appear to leave the matter of achieving quality up to the individual trades people they employ. Of course the tradesman or tradeswoman needs to be appropriately skilled and take pride in their work, however quality needs to be something the business does first and foremost. This would take some of the 'hit and miss' out of getting a good job done.

[castellan]

Originally Posted by WASP

True, but like any businesses that employ's skilled labour the company needs to have the right systems, standards, procedures and quality assurance measures in place to ensure a consistent quality result is achived. Many builders appear to leave the matter of achieving quality up to the individual trades people they employ. Of course the tradesman or tradeswoman needs to be appropriately skilled and take pride in their work, however quality needs to be something the business does first and foremost. This would take some of the 'hit and miss' out of getting a good job done.

Could be so but now days it's the so called builder that does not want know about the problems or if it's right or wrong and just says, just smash it out mate.
They now dictate the price they will pay you and if someone will do it for less they get the job end of story.
So there is no tradesmen anymore as we have no authority at all and we are now only a laborer who does what you are told and if i was to say fix this and that before i start, you will not get the job and they will go out of there way to try to destroy your name and business.
But 30 years ago with builders if you did anything shoddy you could of ended up getting you head punched in by the builder as he would go right off the rocker at the idiots.
But that's today's world it's got nothing to do with morals at all and now cunning rules the way. "true story"

[bob^]

Yep, now it is a case of just get the job done. If the customer picks up on it then they will make some attempt to fix it. Or they can say what they said to one of my neighbours, that he was being too fussy!

[PridenJoy]

Ahh yes, building a house is a nightmare experience....would not do it again....beware the small builders....most are small for a reason...we ended up sacking our builder just before lockup and finishing the house as owner builder...